A Short History

The indigenous immigrants of Eurasia discovered Venezuela about 15,000 years ago. After Columbus’s visit to the Americas, there came waves of European explorers, conquerors, colonists, and missionaries. They looked for pearls and gold, and subjugated, enslaved, raped, and slaughtered the indigenous peoples. From the 1500s to the 1800s, indigenous and African slaves were put to work on cattle ranches and cocoa plantations. In the early 1800s, Spanish colonists under the leadership of Simón Bolívar fought for and obtained independence from Spain. The 1800s were characterized by coups, civil wars, and battle after battle. The post-colonial Venezuelans who ruled with an iron fist and maintained control of vast expanses of land were called “caudillos.”

They were the Latin American strongmen who rule as military dictators and totalitarian thugs. In 1928, a group of college students led an anti-government riot, which led to a major shift in political consciousness toward democracy and sent all the organizers into exile. In 1945, “the generation of ’28” returned and led a civilian-military coup. Their enlightened government was toppled in 1948 and a new military caudillo, Marcos Pérez Jiménez, took power for the next 10 years. After he was toppled, “the generation of ’28” returned to power. Rómulo Betancourt, Venezuela’s father of democracy, began a succession of democratic governments with significant improvements on many fronts, but poverty, corruption, classism, and political violence were ongoing. In 1992 Hugo Chávez led a military coup against the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. He was unsuccessful but managed to kill 50 people and establish a cult following. Chávez was pardoned in 1994 and elected president in 1998.

A Leftist?

The core leftist values include workers’ rights, strong unions, equitable distribution of wealth, protection of minority groups, a free press, independent democratic institutions, and government programs that ensure the provision of food, housing, education, and healthcare for all. In nine years, Chávez has made it clear where he stands with regard to all of these.

Chávez has relentlessly attacked the CTV, the country’s largest union. He has ignored almost every union demonstration and strike that has ever been held. When the entire country went on strike calling for him to step down, he waited them out for two months, fired 18,000 highly trained oil workers, and brought in workers from Cuba, the Middle East, and North Africa.

There is more poverty now than there was before Chávez came into office. But the old oligarchy and the new Chavista oligarchy are fabulously wealthy. Chávez supports minority groups that agree with him, but those with a different opinion are considered enemies of Chávez and therefore enemies of “el pueblo.”

The press has been relentlessly attacked with violence in the streets, organized government assaults on press installations, and legal attacks in the courts. National and international press associations have been harshly critical of the Chávez regime for years and lodge their critiques regularly.

Chávez’s apologists remind us of his programs for the poor. But the achievements of Chávez’s programs are always exaggerated, and there are continual reports of inefficiency and corruption.

Chávez is opposed by practically every leftist and progressive party in Venezuela, including major leftist intellectuals like Pompeyo Márquez and Teodoro Petkoff, his mentor Luis Miquilena, his close friend and ex-Minister of Defense Raul Baduel, and his ex-wife Marisabel Rodríguez, who has recently taken a strong political stand against him.

The opposition in Venezuela does not have the power or the position to be fascist. Fascism is also not in any way a part of their agenda.

Chávez, on the other hand, has control of the National Assembly, the Armed Forces, the Attorney General’s office, the Central Bank of Venezuela, the Supreme Court, and the National Electoral Council. All of that allows him to exercise centralized control over many aspects of life, subordinating the individual to the state, and suppressing political opposition. Chávez has placed the main means of production under the central control of the government with all power in his own hands. He has nationalized the phone company, assets of international oil companies, a private television station, cement factories and steel factories, and threatened to take control and nationalize businesses if they don’t cooperate with his revolution.

Chávez does not speak of proposals and plans, but rather of offensives, commandos, missions, attacks, battles, and wars. He threatens constantly and encourages violent attacks on the opposition. Government-sponsored violence has brought more than 100 deaths and over 2,000 injuries. Chávez gives firearms to his supporters and fills government positions with military men. At the beginning of 2005 there were at least 60 high-ranking military officials in high public offices, including 9 governors, 6 ministers, 8 deputies of the National Assembly, and 17 ministerial directors.

Chávez is spending billions of dollars on arms to combat alleged U.S. plans to invade Venezuela. The armed forces are comprised of 120,000 soldiers, but he recently formed a 200,000-strong militia to defend him and the revolution. For Hitler, anyone opposed to him was an enemy of the state. In Venezuela, a propaganda poster reads, “If it’s against Chávez, it’s against the people.” Chavez’s motto is “Fatherland, Socialism or Death. We will win!”

Chávez’s friends have included Carlos the Jackal, Fidel Castro, Libya’s Moamar Khaddafi, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and the FARC guerrillas in Colombia. He’s also established warm ties with Kim Jong Il of North Korea and Alyaksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, who is commonly referred to as Europe’s last dictator.

Cuba’s Fidel Castro greets Hugo Chávez
in Asuncion, Paraguay in 2003.

In 1998 Venezuela had 4,550 murders. That has skyrocketed to 13,500 murders in 2007. During the Chávez regime from 1999 to 2007, the total number of murders in Venezuela is over 105,000.

In May 2006, Jane’s Intelligence Review revealed that cocaine seizures in the previous 10 years had increased ten-fold over levels in the early 1990s, indicating that Venezuela had become the primary distribution point for cocaine produced in South America.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other groups are concerned that Venezuelan security forces are being used as instruments of state repression, by intimidating and violently attacking peaceful demonstrators, pursuing and torturing dissidents, and taking political prisoners.

In 2005, José Guerra, a former official of the Central Bank of Venezuela, pointed out that some $4.1 billion was missing.

While Chávez’s destructive political and economic strategies have limited foreign investment and strangled many Venezuelan businesses, the price of oil has risen to around $110 a barrel in early 2008, from $10 a barrel in 1999. This has brought a great deal of money into the country and has permitted Chávez to give away billions, spend billions for arms, and still have a little left over for his social programs. These are often well-intentioned and staffed by people who believe in their mission, but day after day we learn of corruption, inefficiency, and mismanagement in them, not to mention the ones that never progress beyond their initial announcement.

In addition, a brain drain has been taking place. In 2003, Chávez fired over 18,000 highly trained workers in the oil industry for going on strike. Ten thousand of them have already left the country. According to recent polls, some 29 percent of the entire population is thinking about emigrating.

Domingo Maza Zavala, a committed socialist, Director of the Central Bank of Venezuela from 1994 to 2007, and considered the highest authority on Venezuela’s economy, stated on February 20, “Now, in Venezuela, there is more poverty than there was before Chávez.”

What’s Ahead for the U.S. and Venezuela?

The U.S. should develop a Latin American policy emphasizing the development of democratic principles, the eradication of corruption, the development of new jobs and a strong work ethic, the establishment of a good tax system, and the development of effective social programs addressing basic needs, such as housing, education, health, and security.

In November Venezuelans will go to the polls to elect mayors, governors, and legislators. Chávez’s popularity in the last two years has fallen to 35 percent, from 68 percent. In January he announced that if he loses ground in the November elections, 2009 will be a year of war. Then in February he said that if the opposition gains much power in the regional elections, “in 2009 we will have to look for the rifles again.” Next year, we may learn just how serious Chávez is about that slogan, “Socialism or Death.” .

Kyle D. Guerrero is an academic who has lived in both the United States and Venezuela.