Hugo Chavez: In the footsteps of Bolivar
Undated, March 7, 2013 -- In the old days, before Hugo Chavez injected his personal
brand of socialism, Venezuela was the kind of place where one's social status was
determined by the make of your car, the label on the clothes you wore and the thickness of
the gold bracelets wrapping your wrist.
The oil boom had created a feisty upper middle class, dull and arrogant. But it left the
vast majority of Venezuelans not just in poverty but without the basic social services of a
nation whose affluent citizen flew to the U.S. for treatment each time they had a toothache or
a belly ache.
Chavez himself was a child of the poor barrios. He made sure, once elected, that the
oil revenues were more evenly distributed and those marginalized had medical attention and
access to education. He swopped oil for Cuban doctors and agronomists from other Latin
nations ignoring his foes who accused him of pandering to leftist forces on the continent and
ridiculed his spectacular televised shows in which he courted the poor whose votes he badly
needed (and received) to remain in power for 14 years.
He was vilified for his admiration of Fidel Castro and Cuba. He was accused of
nurturing 'thugs' who beat up dissidents and anti-Chavez critics and those who spread false
rumors about El Comandante.
Yes he loved Cuba, surely not for how it was run but what it symbolized for Latin
America, its independence from Big Brother across the Rio Grande, for the way Castro and
his little island thumped their noses at Yankee dominance and the consequential way he
booted them and their Cuban serfs out and how he nationalized their properties mostly
bought with laundered money. Taking a leaf from Castro's manual Chavez nationalized most
of his nation's oil industry, a decision that made him powerful enemies.
But Hugo Chavez, both admired and loathed, brought a burst of fresh air into a stale
oil-rich nation weaned on a dull selfish consumer mentality. And he was the first Latin
American leader who not only worried about the welfare of his less fortunate fellow citizen
but also his neighbors with whom he generously shared some of Venezuela's fortunes. He
gave them oil free or at cut-rate prices.
Venezuela has dramatically changed since the days I was a foreign correspondent in
Caracas for Reuters News Agency in the 1970s. In those days I did my best to spend as
much time in Salvador Allende's Chile where a Latin American springtime blossomed rather
then in bourgeoise, status-conscious Caracas where even a bevy of make belief leftwing
guerrillas botched their only kidnapping, that of a Dominican Consul who, allegedly, was in
cohoots with them.
If Chile's springtime and Latin American aspirations died with Allende in the Moneda
Palace on September 11, 1973, Hugo Chavez rescusitated the dream of an independent
and interdependent Latin America, divorced from the domination of U.S. capitalism and the
U.S. military which trained most officers of the Latin American Armed Forces and educated
the children of the elites. Chavez worked towards and partly achieved a socialist style Latin
American alliance, the kind his idol, liberator Simon Bolivar, envisaged, a vision that would
always be poison to the Yankees and their servants in the ruling classes of Latin America.
Chavez died this month after a long battle with cancer. Hopefully his vision of an allied
and independent Latino Bloc and the alliances he forged with Cuba and South American
nations like Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru will not die with him.
His legacy may be controversial and vilified by a pro-American media who saw him as
a populist rogue using the power of oil (a fifth of U.S oil supply comes from Venezuela) to
consolidate his own power at home and abroad.
Surely Hugo Chavez' greatest legacy will be the sense of independence he infused
in Latin America together with a social conscience that brought relief and opportunities to
millions of those marginalized by birth and rural poverty, particularly the Indio populations,
who have been kept for centuries at the bottom of the social ladder. This new sense of
empowerment he nurtured in the region will not be easily eradicated by yet another CIA
sponsored military coup like the one that drowned Allende's democratic socialist spring in the
blood of thousands in 1973.
Beloved by the people no one had cared for, loathed by the wealthy whose greed
he curbed, dismissed as a simplistic rabble rouser by his critics Hugo Chavez, just like
Allende and Fidel Castro, has already entered the pantheon of Heroes of a Latin America
still struggling to shed the last chains of a colonial past.
It's a place he truly deserves.
Uli Schmetzer was a foreign correspondent for Reuters and the Chicago Tribune in Latin America, Europe, the
Middle East and Asia. He is the author of four books available on www.amazon.com and
Kindle.
Undated, March 7, 2013 -- In the old days, before Hugo Chavez injected his personal
brand of socialism, Venezuela was the kind of place where one's social status was
determined by the make of your car, the label on the clothes you wore and the thickness of
the gold bracelets wrapping your wrist.
The oil boom had created a feisty upper middle class, dull and arrogant. But it left the
vast majority of Venezuelans not just in poverty but without the basic social services of a
nation whose affluent citizen flew to the U.S. for treatment each time they had a toothache or
a belly ache.
Chavez himself was a child of the poor barrios. He made sure, once elected, that the
oil revenues were more evenly distributed and those marginalized had medical attention and
access to education. He swopped oil for Cuban doctors and agronomists from other Latin
nations ignoring his foes who accused him of pandering to leftist forces on the continent and
ridiculed his spectacular televised shows in which he courted the poor whose votes he badly
needed (and received) to remain in power for 14 years.
He was vilified for his admiration of Fidel Castro and Cuba. He was accused of
nurturing 'thugs' who beat up dissidents and anti-Chavez critics and those who spread false
rumors about El Comandante.
Yes he loved Cuba, surely not for how it was run but what it symbolized for Latin
America, its independence from Big Brother across the Rio Grande, for the way Castro and
his little island thumped their noses at Yankee dominance and the consequential way he
booted them and their Cuban serfs out and how he nationalized their properties mostly
bought with laundered money. Taking a leaf from Castro's manual Chavez nationalized most
of his nation's oil industry, a decision that made him powerful enemies.
But Hugo Chavez, both admired and loathed, brought a burst of fresh air into a stale
oil-rich nation weaned on a dull selfish consumer mentality. And he was the first Latin
American leader who not only worried about the welfare of his less fortunate fellow citizen
but also his neighbors with whom he generously shared some of Venezuela's fortunes. He
gave them oil free or at cut-rate prices.
Venezuela has dramatically changed since the days I was a foreign correspondent in
Caracas for Reuters News Agency in the 1970s. In those days I did my best to spend as
much time in Salvador Allende's Chile where a Latin American springtime blossomed rather
then in bourgeoise, status-conscious Caracas where even a bevy of make belief leftwing
guerrillas botched their only kidnapping, that of a Dominican Consul who, allegedly, was in
cohoots with them.
If Chile's springtime and Latin American aspirations died with Allende in the Moneda
Palace on September 11, 1973, Hugo Chavez rescusitated the dream of an independent
and interdependent Latin America, divorced from the domination of U.S. capitalism and the
U.S. military which trained most officers of the Latin American Armed Forces and educated
the children of the elites. Chavez worked towards and partly achieved a socialist style Latin
American alliance, the kind his idol, liberator Simon Bolivar, envisaged, a vision that would
always be poison to the Yankees and their servants in the ruling classes of Latin America.
Chavez died this month after a long battle with cancer. Hopefully his vision of an allied
and independent Latino Bloc and the alliances he forged with Cuba and South American
nations like Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru will not die with him.
His legacy may be controversial and vilified by a pro-American media who saw him as
a populist rogue using the power of oil (a fifth of U.S oil supply comes from Venezuela) to
consolidate his own power at home and abroad.
Surely Hugo Chavez' greatest legacy will be the sense of independence he infused
in Latin America together with a social conscience that brought relief and opportunities to
millions of those marginalized by birth and rural poverty, particularly the Indio populations,
who have been kept for centuries at the bottom of the social ladder. This new sense of
empowerment he nurtured in the region will not be easily eradicated by yet another CIA
sponsored military coup like the one that drowned Allende's democratic socialist spring in the
blood of thousands in 1973.
Beloved by the people no one had cared for, loathed by the wealthy whose greed
he curbed, dismissed as a simplistic rabble rouser by his critics Hugo Chavez, just like
Allende and Fidel Castro, has already entered the pantheon of Heroes of a Latin America
still struggling to shed the last chains of a colonial past.
It's a place he truly deserves.
Uli Schmetzer was a foreign correspondent for Reuters and the Chicago Tribune in Latin America, Europe, the
Middle East and Asia. He is the author of four books available on www.amazon.com and
Kindle.