Chavez and the violation of Venezuela
Most of the world sees Venezuela through President and Maximum Leader Hugo Chavez's multi-billion dollar propaganda campaign fueled by petrodollars. Most of Venezuela sees a country in the throes of authoritarianism and hears the death rattles of democracy.
According to Chavez, all opponents are racists and the Venezuelan crisis is a struggle between rich and poor, the haves and have-nots. Adherents of free enterprise (even small family business owners) are radical fascists and must be stringently regulated or "disenfranchise." The nation's media are anarchistic and must be heavily monitored, censored, or eliminated. Governmental corruption is rampant but only because the elitist opposition avidly toils to undermine the regime's socialist march toward peace and prosperity. Jews are the root cause of all evil.
Despotic theme song
Sound familiar? It should, because this same refrain has been sung by a thousand martinets throughout history. Hugo Chavez maintains that his path to revolutionary change is mandated because he was duly elected by popular vote, and in this he is partially correct. Chavez was elected with the popular vote in the same fashion as were Hitler, Mussolini, Castro, Stalin, Gorbachev, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, or any Chinese leader since 1949.
Chavez, who controls the Western Hemisphere's largest oil reserves, is giving cash-strapped neighbors discounts and favorable financing on Venezuelan oil and billions of dollars in loans. His generosity is helping a growing number of leftists win or lead in Central and South American presidential elections today. For proof, all one need do is look at the recent elections in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Mexico. And in nations where he cannot influence elections such as Columbia, he provides funding and arms to its leftist guerilla insurgents.
-- Hugo Chavez
On the international front, Chavez has been busy courting Russia, Communist China, Iran, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba, all with the intention of harming the United States and creating a threat to hemispheric stability. Chavez is gloating over what he calls a "revolution within the revolution," about "transcending capitalism" and about "building a socialism for the twenty-first century." It is a discourse that frightens his enemies, emboldens rogue nations, bolsters his base, and inspires the Left throughout Latin America. It should be no surprise that he carries a copy of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book wherever he goes, and idolizes Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.
In yet another indication of where Chavez's intentions lie, he met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in Tehran last Saturday, pledging mutual support and repeatedly boasting that American hegemony is coming to an end. The two leaders vowed to promote and strengthen the alignment of other governments against the United States.
Turning homeward from his many international destabilization projects, he had the democratic process altered within Venezuela so that his term, originally a non-extendible, five-year period, would be lengthen to six years with an immediate re-election. He plans to lengthen this tenure to until 2021.
The gang rape of democracy
Chavez was elected to preside over a civilian government. However, not only has he concentrated all federal powers under his direct control, he also filled the public administration from top to bottom with military officers. As a collateral measure and certainly worse for Venezuelan democracy is that for the first time since its abolition in 1830, he re-established military immunity from the legal system.
Chavez ordered the armed forces to ignore judicial decrees when they are unfavorable to the regime and, in an infringement of the Constitution and with disregard for division of powers, has usurped municipal authority by taking control of the Metropolitan Police of Caracas. This was done to prevent the law enforcement agency from protecting targeted citizens and groups from the outrages of his paramilitary apparatus - known as Círculos Bolivarianos, or Bolivarian Circles.
No other Venezuelan regime has perpetrated so many outrages against the media, ranging from attacks on media headquarters to assaults against reporters in the street. These have been so numerous that they have become a source of concern for the United Nations. It is said on the streets of Caracas that the most dangerous profession today in Venezuela is being an ethical reporter. There have been deaths and death threats, and almost all journalists wear bulletproof vests.
In the name of patriotism, Chavez falsely focuses on the idolatry of South American liberator Simon Bolivar to the same extent that the worst military dictator in Venezuela's history, Juan Vicente Gomez, did in his day. Under this guise of patriotism, there is now a list of three to four million citizens who will never be able to apply for government employment or government contracts even though they must keep paying taxes. The citizens on this list are subject at any time to further inequities as it pleases the regime, be it from passport issues to denial of access to any public services. Their crime? These people signed a recall election petition against Chavez in 2003.
Venezuela's president, himself a failed pustchist with a criminal record, is a perfect example of how an unscrupulous man—at the helm of a blindly obedient regime within a semi-democratic country—can successfully use democracy and the "will of the people" to advance a totalitarian agenda without accountability.