Venezuela’s position among the world’s nations has suffered a drastic decline in the last eight years under the Hugo Chávez government. The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index ranks the country 136 among 159 nations, considerably worse than in 1999. The 2006 Economic Freedom of the World Report ranks Venezuela 126 among 130 nations, near the bottom of the ladder. The U.N.’s Human Development Index ranks the country 76. That is 28 places lower than it was in 1999. The 2006 World Forum report on Global Competitiveness ranks Venezuela 88 among 125 countries, four places lower than last year. The coordinator of this study explains: “The education in Venezuela is mediocre, worse than Vietnam’s or Surinam’s. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Human Development Index of Venezuela has dropped so dramatically.”

This devolution has occurred despite some $200 billion in oil revenues during the last eight years. Hugo Chávez argues that these indices are part of an international conspiracy against his government, while Vice President Vicente Rangel calls Transparency International a “discredited institution.”

If these international organizations’ indices are not to be believed, then one can always travel to Venezuela and find out directly. The visitor would have to go from the airport to Caracas by an emergency route, since the highway’s main bridge collapsed a couple of years ago. Once in Caracas, he would notice garbage piling up in the streets and numerous half-naked Indian women and abandoned children begging in almost every corner. The visitor could see how the streets of the once elegant Sabana Grande shopping center have been taken over by thousands of street peddlers. When reaching the hotel, the visitor would be warned against going out at night, since Caracas is now one of the most dangerous cities in the world, with between 4,000 and 5,000 murders every year. Police neither offer protection nor solve any of the murders.

Some of the reasons for this national collapse include:

- Hugo Chávez’s neglect of his role as president. He prefers to be the leader of a global anti-U.S. crusade. In these efforts, he has spent or committed over $25 billion for the acquisition of political loyalties in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa.
- A strategy of handouts for the poor that gives them an illusion of bonanza, while there is an absence of coherent policies for education, housing, public health, fighting crime, and cutting corruption. As a result the people are poorer, more ignorant, and more defenseless against corrupt bureaucrats and criminal gangs than when Hugo Chávez took power.
- The existence of a political ideology that has placed Venezuela squarely within the camp of rogue nations and organizations: Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Hezbollah, and the Colombian FARC.
- The continual destruction of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) at the hands of a politicized management that is using its income for political purposes and not for investment and maintenance. As a result, the company has lost about 500,000 barrels per day in production capacity over the last five years. Legal actions are being considered against the company by Italian ENI (in the case of the Dacion oilfield) and by Orimulsion clients (because of unilateral cancellation of their supply agreements). Citgo, PDVSA’s American subsidiary, is openly being used as a political tool.
- The high incidence of corruption in government bureaucracy, a result of the windfall oil income combined with an almost total lack of controls and accountability.

In spite of these failures, in a recent interview for Union Radio (a Caracas radio station), Chávez claimed that he is “very satisfied with his performance.” He added that his government was one “of trial and error” and that “Edison only came up with the electric bulb after making many mistakes.” Such a statement illustrates the great danger the hemisphere faces in having this person running around the region with a pocket full of money, trying to use entire societies as guinea pigs for his totalitarian experiments.

Gustavo Coronel, a petroleum geologist, was a member of PDVSA’s first board of directors. An associate editor of Petroleum World, he can be reached at: gustavocoronelg@hotmail.com.