Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (born July 28, 1954) is the President of Venezuela. A former paratroop lieutenant-colonel who led an unsuccessful coup d'état in 1992, he was elected president in 1998. His presidency has seen sweeping changes throughout the country, including a new constitution, many new social programs, and a new foreign policy distancing Venezuela from the United States.
Since his election in 1998 on promises of helping the poor, Chávez's influence over Venezuelan politics has grown. One year after a majority of Venezuelans voted to keep him in office, the popular leader consolidated his power, striking a harsh anti-USA tone. He is up for re-election in 2006, and recent polls suggest he has about 70 percent popularity.
Chávez and his administration have been opposed through confrontational methods by some established sectors in Venezuela, including the business federation Fedecámaras and union federation CTV, resulting in a coup d'état, general strike/lockout, and recall referendum, all of which failed to remove him from office. Although the opposition charged that there was widespread fraud in the recall vote, international observers said the official results matched their counts at polling sites. Subsequently Chávez and his allies have won consistent political victories, occupying the vast majority of elected municipal, state, and national posts, as well as majorities in the supreme court, national electoral council and national assembly.
Chávez has been married twice and is currently separated from his second wife, Marisabel Rodríguez de Chávez. He has four children: Rosa Virginia, María Gabriela, Hugo Rafael and Rosinés.
Early years
Chávez was born to a mestizo family, like 67% of Venezuelans, in Sabaneta, Barinas State. His father, Hugo de los Reyes Chávez, was a former regional director of education and a former member of the conservative Social Christian Party, and is currently the governor of Barinas.
At the age of 17, Chávez joined the paratroop legion of the Venezuelan armed forces, and began studies at the Venezuelan Academy of Military Sciences. He graduated in 1975 in military sciences and engineering. He did further graduate work in political sciences at the Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, but left without a degree.
Chávez was fascinated by Simón Bolívar, an important independence figure in Venezuela and Latin America. On July 24, 1983, the 200th anniversary of Bolívar's birth, Chávez founded the Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario 200 (MBR-200, "Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200").
In 1989, President Carlos Andrés Pérez had presided over unpopular IMF austerity measures that led to the "Caracazo" protests in 1989 which left at least 400 dead. On February 4, 1992, Chávez and the MBR-200 led a failed military coup against President Pérez, which left 18 dead and 60 injured. [1] Chávez was permitted to read a statement on television in order to tell his co-conspirators to stand down. Famously, he said that they had not achieved their goals por ahora ("for now"). A second coup attempt in November 1992, whilst Chávez was still in prison, also failed, although the plotters did succeed in capturing a TV station. After spending two years in prison, Chávez was pardoned by President Rafael Caldera. He reconstructed the MBR as a political movement called the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR).
Chávez justified the coup on the evident discontentment of the majority of the population on the economic measures adopted by Pérez, inspired on recommendations of International Monetary Fund. These measures of a neo-liberal nature, badly communicated to the population, fomented significant cuts in public expenditures and opening to the market the prices of goods and services which for many years were subject to price controls. Among these measures, there was an increase in the price of gasoline and public transportation that sparked on February 27, 1989 the worst riots (Caracazo) that the country had experienced for many years in Caracas and other cities of Venezuela. The riots were put down by the army. 400 people died. But the government of President Pérez never recovered from the aftermath of the riots and his fall was precipitated by the coup of Chávez.
Chávez was incarcerated but his coup was cunningly used by former President Rafael Caldera, the head of the christian-democratic party, COPEI, to promote himself for the next presidential elections. While all the political leaders outright rejected the "coup d'état" of Chávez, Caldera, addressing the Congress, justified it on the basis of the corruption of the Pérez government. This move, plus subsequent actions by Caldera and a group of intellectuals that backed him, achieved its goal of removing Pérez from the presidency on charges of corruption by an act of Congress on May 2, 1993.
Caldera subsequently removed himself from the party that he had founded, COPEI, to form a new political party (Convergencia) which, with the coalition of many small leftist parties, impelled Caldera to presidency, after winning the election in December 1993. This was a fatal blow to the traditional parties which, leaderless and demoralized, fared very poorly in this presidential election. Chávez, who was pardoned by Caldera in 1994 after two years in prison, used a similar platform as Caldera to promote his candidacy for president of the Republic. Like Caldera, he campaigned on a populist agenda which included the fight against corruption and poverty. Chávez, skillfully using his charisma and communication abilities, achieved what he was not able to do seven years before: to become the president of the country, this time by democratic means.
Chronology of Presidency
Early presidency
Chávez won the presidential election on December 6, 1998 with the largest percent of voters (56.2%) in four decades, running on an anti-corruption and anti-poverty platform, and condemning the two major parties that had dominated Venezuelan politics since 1958 (see: Venezuelan presidential election, 1998). Shortly after taking office on February 2, 1999, Chávez embarked on a series of sweeping changes to the Venezuelan government. He organized a series of elections. The first one, a referendum, authorized calling for a constitutional assembly. A second selected delegates to that Assembly, distinct from his country's legislature. Chávez's initial widespread popularity allowed supporters to win 60% of the votes and 120 of the 131 assembly seats.
In August 1999, the assembly set up a "judicial emergency committee" with the power to remove judges without consulting other branches of government. In the same month, the assembly declared a "legislative emergency". A seven-member committee was created to perform congressional functions, including law-making. The Constitutional Assembly prohibited the Congress from holding meetings of any sort.
The new constitution renamed the country the "Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela", after South American independence hero Simón Bolívar. It increased the presidential term of office to six years and added provisions for presidents to serve two terms, while providing for a new procedure to recall a president. It was approved in a nationwide referendum held in December 1999. Elections for the new, unicameral legislature were held in July 2000. During the same election, Chávez stood for re-election. Chávez's coalition obtained a commanding 2/3 majority of seats in the new Assembly and Chávez himself was reelected (see Venezuelan presidential election, 2000).
In November 2000, Chávez backed a bill through the legislature allowing him to rule by decree for one year. In November 2001, Chávez passed a set of 49 laws by decree, shortly before the enabling law expired, including the Hydrocarbons Law (about oil) and the Land Law. (For more on these laws, see policy below.) Business federation Fedecámaras vehemently opposed the 49 laws and called for a general business strike on December 10, 2001.
In December 2000, Chávez put a referendum on the ballot to force Venezuela's labor unions to hold state-monitored elections. (For more, see below.)
Coup attempt against Chávez
On April 9, 2002, Venezuela's largest union federation, the Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV), led by Carlos Ortega Carvajal, called for a two-day general strike. Fedecámaras joined the strike and called on all of its affiliated businesses to close for 48 hours. (Footage available via Edonkey p2p network [2]).
On Thursday, April 11, an estimated half million people marched to the headquarters of Venezuela's oil company, PDVSA, in defense of its fired management. The organizers decided to re-route the march to Miraflores, the presidential palace, where a pro-government demonstration was taking place. After violence erupted between demonstrators, the metropolitan police (controlled by the opposition), and the national guard (controlled by Chávez), 17 people were killed and more than one hundred people were wounded. Doctors who treated the wounded reported that many of them appeared to have been shot from above in a sniper-like fashion. In 2005 it is still unclear what really happened that day, as the official investigation has not progressed in 3 years as stated in the Table V of the Annual Report of the Inter-American Commision on Human Rights (IACHR) on the situation on the Human Rights in Venezuela. [3]
Commander-in-chief Lucas Rincón Romero announced to the nation in a national broadcast that Chávez resigned, and resigned himself shortly thereafter. In a 2002 interview Chávez reports that he had negotiated an agreement when he realized that many of the commanders of the military opposed him. He agreed in principle to resign only on the condition that his resignation follow constitutional order: it must be in front of the National Assembly and the Vice-President would succeed him. Chávez claims that he was given assurances by the rebel generals that this would happen and instructed Romero to announce his resignation. However, Chávez says that shortly after Romero's announcement the assurances were rescinded and he was taken prisoner. Fedecámaras president Pedro Carmona was then appointed by the military as interim president. General Manuel Rosendo, at the time chief of CUFAN (Comando Unificado de las Fuerzas Armadas Nacionales), gives a different account. He claims that he and General Pietri Pietri presented the deposed Chavez with two options: either to be sent to exile (to which Chavez said that he wanted to go to Cuba along with his family) or to stay in the country and be judged owing to his responsibility in the killings that took place in Avenida Baralt, a street where many civilians died during the April 11 protests. General Rosendo says that he did not read the second option because Chavez had already made up his mind (to go to Cuba) on the condition that Rosendo would guarantee the integrity of the Chavez clan and that the departure to Cuba would be via Simon Bolivar International airport in Maiquetía. Therefore, Chavez did not negotiate with Rincón Romero but with Rosendo. Later Chavez was taken to Fort Tiuna were he met with representatives of the Catholic Church and the commanders of the army, who by then, had decided that he was not to be sent to Cuba but to La Orchila (a military base off the coast of Venezuela) until the interim government decided what to do with him.
[4] Carmona's first decree dissolved all established powers and reverted the nation's name back to República de Venezuela. This decree did not make it for publication in the official journal, due to the short time his self-proclaimed interim government was in power. These events generated some uprisings and looting on some sectors of Caracas in support of Chávez. Emboldened by massive popular protest, army troops loyal to Chávez retook the presidential palace. Thus ended the briefest government in Venezuelan history with the return of Chávez on the night of Saturday April 13, 2002. Following this episode, Lucas Rincón Romero was reappointed by Chávez as commander-in-chief and later as Interior Ministry in 2003 [5].
Strike/lockout
For two months from December 2, 2002, the Chávez government was faced with a strike aimed at forcing the president from office by cutting off the state from all-important oil revenue. The strike was led by a coalition of labor unions, industry captains and oil workers. As a consequence, Venezuela stopped exporting a daily average of 2,800,000 barrels (450,000 m³) of oil and derivatives and began to import gasoline for internal use. Chávez replaced the upper management of the Venezuelan national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), and dismissed 18,000 PDVSA employees on grounds of mismanagement and corruption, although supporters of the oil bosses called the action "politically motivated". A disputed court ruling declared the dismissal of these workers illegal and ordered the immediate return of the entire group to their former posts. Nevertheless, Chávez, PDVSA's CEO Alí Rodríguez, and Minister of Mines Rafael Ramirez have repeatedly expressed that the ruling will not be enforced.
The majority of those who participated in the lockout were opposition-supporting white-collar workers including management, opposed in particular to Chávez' attempt to gain control of the oil industry from longstanding vested interests. Tens of thousands of the country's highest paid, most privileged engineers, technicians, managers, field and office workers that worked for PDVSA participated in these protests, risking their paychecks and their livelihood in order to protest the Chávez government. Many of these workers were dismissed and officially blacklisted by the government so that they would not be employed at any government or government-supporting firms. Most of them were unable to find oil-related jobs in Venezuela and now work abroad.
The Chávez government, many of the workers who refused to be part of the lockout, and the unemployed who participated in getting PDVSA back online, have repeatedly alleged that important equipment was sabotaged and that the white-collar workers who participated in the strike/lockout destroyed many of the computer passwords and sabotaged much of the software.
On January 15, 2004, Chávez presented to the Venezuelan National Assembly his version of the State of the Union. Since the opposition did not attend, he spoke only to members of his own party and sympathetic diplomatic representatives. During the speech, Chavez proclaimed that he had generated the PDVSA crisis in order to destroy the existing organization. [6]
Movement to Remove Chávez in a Referendum
In August 2003, opposition leaders began the process to recall Chávez, a procedure first introduced in Venezuela in the 1999 constitution. When the opposition presented the National Electoral Council (CNE) with 3.2 million signatures, the CNE rejected the petition by a vote of 3-0 with 2 members abstaining, ruling that signatures collected before the mid-point of Chávez's term were not valid under Venezuelan law. In November, the opposition conducted another signature drive, again presenting over 3 million signatures. The Electoral Board delayed the certification of the signatures and forced those whose signatures were questioned to go back and ratify them. The opposition got the minimum number of signatures required in this process.
The recall vote was held on August 15, 2004. Record numbers of voters turned out, and polling hours were extended by at least eight hours. 59.25% of the vote was against the recall, for Chávez remaining in office. Election observers Jimmy Carter of the Carter Center and Organization of American States Secretary General César Gaviria endorsed the results of Venezuela's recall referendum. In the following weeks, opposition supporters made numerous claims regarding irregularities. Among the many irregularities and maneuvers they allege were carried out by the Chávez government to sabotage the referendum the decisive moves were to increase the electoral roll by two million newly minted citizens and to manipulate the Smartmatic automated voting system ensuring that regardless of a massive turnout of voters against Chávez the totals would favor a continuation of his presidency. It seems that the opposition's own techniques used to get exit polls were flawed [7], and the Venezuelan electoral authorities said an audit of the vote on President Hugo Chavez's rule found no proof of fraud.[8]
Arrest of Alleged Paramilitaries
In May 2004, Venezuelan state TV reported the capture of 126 Colombians accused of being paramilitaries, near properties belonging to Cuban exile Roberto Alonso, one of the leaders of the Venezuelan opposition group Bloque Democrático, and media magnate Gustavo Cisneros, a Cuban-Venezuelan Chávez opponent and one of the alleged architects of the 2002 coup. According to one of the detainees, they would have been offered 500,000 Colombian pesos to work on the farm, before being informed that they would have to prepare for an attack on a National Guard base, with the goal of stealing weapons to potentially arm a 3,000-strong militia. [9]
Venezuelan Policy Under Chávez
With Chávez's emergence, there have been many social and economic changes in Venezuela. The Venezuelan business community, represented by the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce (Fedecámaras), strongly opposes Chávez and his policies, and the largest labor federation has joined them. Almost all of these policies run contrary to neoliberalism theory and are designed to benefit the poorer sections of Venezuelan society.
Economic and Oil Policy
Venezuela is a major producer of oil products, and oil is vitally important to the Venezuelan economy. Chávez has gained a reputation as a price hawk in OPEC, pushing for stringent enforcement of production quotas and higher target prices. He has also attempted to broaden Venezuela's customer base, striking joint exploration deals with other developing countries, including Argentina, Brazil, India, and China.
Chávez has redirected the focus of PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, bringing it more closely under the direction of the Minister of Energy. He has also attempted to repatriate more oil funds, by raising the percentage of royalties Venezuela receives on joint extraction contracts, and exploring selling some or all of Citgo's assets, a US-based subsidiary of PDVSA. The oil ministry has been successful in restructuring Citgo's profit structure, resulting in large increases in dividends and income taxes from PDVSA. In 2005 Citgo announced a dividend payment of 400 million dollars to PDVSA, the largest in over a decade.
International Relations
Chávez has made Latin American integration one of the centerpieces of his policies. This has come in many forms: the creation or extension of joint institutions like Petrosur, Telesur, and Mercosur; bilateral trade relationships with other Latin American countries, including arms purchases from Brazil, oil-for-expertise trades with Cuba, and a pipeline through Colombia. Venezuela's relationship with its neighbor Colombia has been rocky at times, though; with events like the Rodrigo Granda affair temporarily throwing the relationship into crisis.
Venezuela under Chávez has had a mostly antagonistic relationship with the United States. Chávez's public friendship and significant trade relationship with Cuba and Fidel Castro have undermined the U.S. policy of isolating Cuba, and long-running ties between the U.S. and Venezuelan militaries were severed on Chávez's initiative. Chávez's stance as an OPEC price hawk has raised the price of oil for the United States, as Venezuela pushed OPEC producers towards a higher price, around $25 a barrel. During Venezuela's presidency of OPEC in 2000, Chávez made a ten-day tour of OPEC countries, in the process becoming the first head of state to meet Saddam Hussein[1], since the Gulf War. Despite OPEC duties, the visit was controversial at home and in the US. Chávez did respect the ban on international flights to and from Iraq (he drove from Iran, his previous stop).[10] Ever since, President Chávez has consolidated diplomatic relations with Iran, including defending its right to civilian nuclear power.[11]
Chávez has been intensely critical of U.S. economic and foreign policy: in Iraq, Haiti, regarding the Free Trade Area of the Americas and in numerous other areas. On 20 February 2005, Chávez stated that he had reasons to believe that the U.S. had plans to have him assassinated; he said that any attempt would mean that Venezuela would cut off oil to the U.S. [12] His rhetoric has sometimes touched the personal: in response to the ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004, Chávez called U.S. President George W. Bush a pendejo (differing translations have been proposed [2]); in a later speech, he made personal remarks regarding Condoleezza Rice.
The United States has consistently opposed Chávez, recognizing the Carmona government during the 2002 coup, calling Chávez a "negative force" in the region, and requesting support from Venezuela's neighbors in isolating Chávez. The U.S. has opposed and lobbied against numerous Venezuelan arms purchases, including a purchase of 100,000 rifles from Russia, which Donald Rumsfeld implied would be passed on to FARC, and the purchase of aircraft from Brazil. At the 2005 meeting of the Organization of American States, a United States resolution to add a mechanism to monitor the nature of democracies was widely seen as a move to isolate Venezuela. The failure of the resolution was seen as politically significant. (For more, see U.S.-Venezuelan relations.)
During August 2005, Chávez stated that "socialism is the only path," and told students attending a youth festival that the collective goal is to "save a world threatened by the voracity of U.S. imperialism." This World Festival of Students and Youth was the 16th; the first, in 1947, was held in Czechoslovakia, and during the Cold War most host countries were aligned with the Soviet bloc. Apart from the former Soviet Union, other host countries of this Festival have included Romania, Poland, Finland, Cuba, the former East Germany, and North Korea. [13]
In August 2005, Chávez rescinded the rights of US DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) Agents to operate in Venezuela. While US state department officials claimed the DEA agents' presence was intended to stem cocaine traffic from Columbia, Chávez argued that there was reason to believe the DEA agents were gathering intelligence for a clandestine assasination targeting him with intentions of ending the Bolivarian revolution.
On 22 August 2005, Pat Robertson said in a broadcast of The 700 Club that Chávez was a threat to US security and that "if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."[14] Robertson at first denied calling for an assassination, then changed course and apologized, saying that he "spoke in frustration." He maintained that taking covert action against Chávez would still be justified, comparing him to Hitler. [15] Though Chavez himself was abroad in the Carribean at the time, the government in Caracas announced it would place American evangelical missionaries under greater scrutiny. The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rev. Ted Haggard, condemned Robertson's remarks, and communicated through an intermediary in Mexico to request of a meeting with Chavez to personally apologize to him, while asking him to hear out American business concerns and those of evangelical missionaries in Venezuela. In return, Haggard offered to listen to Chavez's own point of view and concerns, and to communicate these back to the White House. [16]
Social Programs
Venezuela under Chávez has started numerous social programs: Barrio Adentro, an initiative to provide free health care to poor and underserved areas, Mission Robinson and Mission Sucre to increase literacy and basic education. The literacy programs are centered on learning to read, and understand the Venezuelan Constitution and their inherent rights as Venezuelan citizens. These programs have been criticized as inefficient and incomplete by opposition figures but are widely heralded and appreciated by Chávez backers and by many international observers.
Many of these programs involve importing expertise from abroad; Venezuela is providing Cuba with 53,000 barrels (8,000 m³) of below-market-rate oil a day in exchange for the service of hundreds of physicians, teachers, and other professionals. (BBC)
Oil profits -- about 25 billion dollars in 2004 -- allowed Mr. Chávez to carry out what he calls a "new socialist revolution." The leftist platform includes massive social spending. Hugo Chávez has built free health care clinics, subsidized food and created small manufacturing cooperatives. Political scientist Michael Shifter says these projects have galvanized his core supporters -- the poor -- who make up around 60 percent of the country's population.
Land Reform
The Ley de Tierras ("Law of the Lands"), passed by decree in November 2001, created Plan Zamora to enact land reforms in Venezuelan agriculture: taxing unused landholdings, expropriating unused private lands (with compensation), and giving inheritable, unsellable land grants to small farmers and farm collectives. Venezuela has seen a vast disinvestment in its rural areas since oil wealth was discovered; the country has an urbanization rate of more than 85% and it is a net food importer. The rationale given for this program was that it would provide incentives for the repopulation of the countryside and provide "food security" for the country by lessening dependence on foreign imports. There are three types of land that may be granted under the program: government land, land which is claimed by private owners, but whose claims the government disputes, and disused private land. To date, only the first two types of land have been distributed.
In conjunction with the land reform initiative, the government has set up subsidized grocery stores in a state-run company called Mercal. Mercal stores and cooperatives are mostly located in impoverished areas and sell non name-brand foods at discounts of up to 50%. While the company is heavily funded by the government, the goal is to become self-sufficient by replacing food imports with products from local farmers, small businesses, and cooperatives (many of whom have received microcredits from Mercal). This endogenous development is central to Chávez's stated goal of non-capitalistic development from the bottom up.
Media
All of the five privately-owned mainstream TV networks and most major mainstream newspapers oppose Chávez, but a small minority of the media is said to support him. Chávez claims the opposition media is controlled by the interests which oppose him, whereas the media accuse him of having intimidated journalists with his pronouncements and of allegedly sending gangs to threaten journalists with physical violence.
Even before the April 2002 coup, these five TV networks and the Chávez government were on very poor terms. Chávez and government officials repeatedly allege that the owners of these networks are allied to the interests of the U.S.A. and the economic policies of neoliberalism. Several prominent political commentators have made many comments against Chávez, which include allegations of insanity, a 'sexual obsession with Castro', and other vitriolic accusations about his political dealings with other nations. Chávez, in turn, has dubbed the main four TV networks "the four whores of the Apocalypse", has claimed that the late Archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Velasco is "in hell", and that his opponents resemble a "truckful of squealing pigs".
The coverage of the 2002 coup by the five mainstream, privately-owned TV networks exacerbated the relationship between the Chávez government and the media. These five stations openly urged popular support of the coup, showing footage which has come under fire from Chavistas (supporters of Chávez), the government, and international journalists for its subjective selection of detail and even manipulation of images. On the first morning after the coup, many of the highest-ranking members of the coup appeared on these stations openly thanking them and their owners for their support. Once the counter-coup was launched by Chavistas and loyalist elements of the Palace Guard, these five stations refused to report on the events, instead showing old films and repeats of sitcoms. During the April 11th demonstrations leading up to the coup, Chávez took over the airwaves shortly before gunfire broke out. The private TV stations defied the president by showing his address and the protest simultaneously, via a split-screen presentation. Chávez then ordered them to be taken off the air in a forced blackout which lasted until several stations started rerouting cable TV signals in order to continue covering the protest.
Chávez has a live talk show Aló, Presidente! Originally a radio show, it now broadcasts every Sunday on state television and all privately-held television stations in Venezuela are forced to carry it. The show features Chávez speaking his mind about topics of the day, taking phone calls from citizens, and touring the sites of government programs. The show has an open format and schedule and showcases Chávez's personality and style.
In 2005, the Chávez government announced the creation of Telesur, a proposed Latin America-wide satellite television network to compete with CNN en Español and Univisión. With this signal, the Venezuelan government already has 4 TV stations under its control: Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), Asamblea Nacional TV (ANTV), Vale TV and Telesur. In retaliation, the United States Rep. Connie Mack IV (R-FL) made an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2006 Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2601) to authorize the Broadcasting Board of Governors 30 minutes a day of American broadcasts to Venezuela, in addition to Voice of America broadcasts. The amendment was approved by the United States House of Representatives, and the bill presently awaits the review of the U.S. Senate upon return from recess.
Labor
Chávez has had a combative relationship with the nation's largest trade union confederation, the Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV), historically aligned with the Acción Democrática party. During December 2000 local elections, Chávez placed a referendum on the ballot to force internal elections within unions. The referendum, condemned by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) as interference in internal union matters, passed by a large margin on very thin turnout. In the ensuing elections, Carlos Ortega declared victory and remained in office, whereas Chavista candidates declared fraud.
The Unión Nacional de los Trabajadores (UNT, National Workers' Union) is a pro-Chávez union federation which has been growing during Chávez's presidency, with some pro-Chávez unions disaffiliating with CTV because of their strident anti-Chávez activism and affiliation with the UNT. In 2003, Chávez sent UNT representatives to an ILO meeting, rather than CTV.
On January 19, 2005, Chávez nationalized Venepal, a paper- and cardboard-manufacturing company at the request of its workers. Workers occupied the factory and restarted production, but following a failed deal with management and amidst management threats to sell off equipment, Chávez ordered the nationalization, extended a line of credit, and ordered that the Venezuelan educational missions (see above) purchase paper products from the company.
Military
Before social programs like Barrio Adentro had been created, Chávez enacted Plan Bolívar. A large component of that plan was the involvement of the military in civic development. Each military branch became involved in different areas of development, such as road-building, vaccinations, or housing construction. These programs were widely criticized as corrupt, but Chávez has defended them, arguing that they were the only means of development available to him while his political opposition controlled most of the state bureacracy. [17]
Under Chávez, the Venezuelan military has diversified its sources of weaponry, purchasing arms from Brazil, Russia, and Spain. The U.S. has criticized many of these purchases and pressured both Russia and Spain not to carry through with them. Venezuela has also complained that the U.S. has refused or delayed sale of parts for F-16 airplanes which Venezuela had purchased from the U.S. in the 1980s. Venezuela has distanced itself from the United States military, ending cooperation between the two militaries and asking U.S. soldiers to leave the country.
In 2005, Chávez announced the creation of a large "military reserve" to eventually encompass 1.5 million people.
Democratic Socialism
On 30 January 2005 at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Chávez declared his support for democratic socialism, in his words "a new type of socialism, a humanist one, which puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything." [18] He later reiterated this in a February 26 speech at the 4th Summit on the Social Debt held in Caracas. [19] To charges from business leaders that Chávez is eroding private property rights, and from the Roman Catholic cardinal that he was becoming a dictator, he said that Venezuelans must choose between "capitalism, which is the road to hell, or socialism, for those who want to build the kingdom of God here on earth."
Notes
- ^1 The claim that Chávez "once called Saddam Hussein 'a brother'" has been repeated in a number of media sources, but appears to be unsubstantiated. The claim originated with the Associated Press (Fred Pals, "Chavez Pushes for OPEC Unity", Associated Press Online, August 5, 2000), but is apparently a misinterpretation of Chávez's reference to OPEC leaders, just prior to his 2000 tour of OPEC countries, as "our Arab brothers" (Larry Rohter, "Paratrooper Politics: A special report; A Combative Leader Shapes Venezuela to a Leftist Vision", The New York Times, July 28, 2000).
See also
External links
- Venezuelatoday.net One-stop source for the latest news and information.
- Venezuela Information Office
- January 2004 State of the Union speech by Chávez
- Hands Off Venezuela, a pro-Chávez site dedicated to reducing U.S. intervention in Venezuela.
- Venezuelanalysis.com
- Vheadline.com
- 11 Abril
Articles
- Media Matters, August 22, 2005, "Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuela's president"
- Richard Gott, The Guardian, May 30 2005, "Chávez leads the way"
- Christian Parenti, The Nation, 11 April 2005, "Hugo Chávez and Petro Populism"
- "Hugo Chávez Frias' Landslide Victory"
- "Bonds That Bind: Argentina, Venezuela, and the US Current Account Deficit"
- Channelling his energies by Indira A. R. Lakshmanan, Boston Globe, July 27, 2005.
- "Using Oil to Spread Revolution" 28 july 2005, The Economist
- Media, Propaganda and Venezuela, Globalissues.org.
- Hugo Chavez is Crazy! by Greg Palast