Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (July 28, 1954 – March 5, 2013).
Hugo Chavez has died -- undefeated.
Yes, undefeated. Chavez, no matter how many times the corporate media and the cheerleaders of the status quo call him a dictator, was elected repeatedly with overwhelming majorities.
No matter how many times this slur is moronically or mendaciously repeated, people know the truth. No less than Jimmy Carter certified Venezuela's elections as amongst the most fair and transparent his organization has ever observed. And the voter turnouts that elected Chavez were usually far, far higher than those in the U.S.
The voices that cheer and mock the death of Hugo Chavez are in fact mocking democracy and the people of Venezuela, who elected him and who have re-elected him time and time again -- most recently by a decisive majority in October, 2012.
But today we need not dwell on the disgusting carnival of necrophilia with which the right-wing has followed Chavez's illness and which will reach a crescendo in the coming days with the news of his untimely demise. This macabre celebration is only the flip side of impotence; they whoop and holler at Chavez's death from cancer only because they failed to defeat him in life, and could not take down his government by democratic (or other) means.
Besides, behind this grave-dancing is not just the hatred of one man who became emblematic of a continental shift to the left and away from U.S. interests and power; it also reveals the shallow indifference to human life and to democracy built into the whole system. As a friend pointed out, within minutes of announcing the news of his death, CNN was discussing the implications it might have on the markets and on the value of U.S. corporate interests in the region.
Today, I would rather celebrate the majority of Venezuelans -- especially the poor and the marginalized. It is, after all, the people who made Chavez, and not the other way around. And it is the humble people of Venezuela who saw to it that Chavez was allowed to complete this many years as president, after all.
Chavez came very close to dying much earlier -- of unnatural causes. It was People Power that kept him alive and that kept his democratically elected government in power. I'm referring of course to the April 2002 coup d'etat cynically aided and abbetted by Venezuela's rabidly right-wing media and which was issued with an immediate stamp of approval by the Bush administration.
It's important to remember that the traditional elite of Venezuela -- the oiligarchs of this South American petrostate who ruled for decades under the 'Washington Consensus,' and who quashed resistance to neoliberalism in blood like during the 1989 caracazo -- and their allies abroad in the U.S. government and in the corporate boardrooms of the world never intended for Hugo Chavez to live beyond those days in April 2002.
If the people had not mobilized to restore Chavez to power 11 years ago, Latin America would be a much worse place today. The "pink tide" would likely have been largely stemmed before it had a chance to spread; transformations that have begun in Bolivia and Ecuador might never have gotten out of the gates. Who knows, the FTAA, a proposed hemispheric corporate trade deal, might have been implemented rather than soundly defeated. After all, back in 2001, when tens of thousands marched in Quebec City against the early stages of the FTAA, President Chavez was almost alone as a head of government inside the talks opposing the deal.
Whatever the shortcomings and all the very real contradictions of Chavez's government, the poor of Venezuela and of all Latin America are better off today in real and tangible ways because the people kept it in power.
So let the corporate media say "good riddance!" to Chavez in their cynical way. Ignore them, and watch (or rewatch) the inspiring story of the People Power that defeated the 2002 coup, as told in the powerful Irish documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The title is a tip of the hat to Gil Scott-Heron, and it's a reference to the key role that right-wing, private, big media played in orchestrating and manipulating events and their portrayal during the failed attempt at regime change. (Another important source of information about Venezuela is the website Venezuelanalysis.com)
The rich and powerful of the world did not hate Chavez because he was a dictator. Deep down the sentient among them know he wasn't.
They hated him because he was symbolic of a threat to the dictatorship of Capital, a figurehead of a continent alive with social movements and millions of people conscious of their political power.
The anti-Chavez posters should provide some evidence of his failures and wrong doings. By evidence, I do not mean links to corporate media or their courtiers. I am open to credible information.
I admit it is hard to understand what has gone on in Venezuela for the past ten years without having actually witnessed it. Most of the criticism I have heard from Chavez's opponents can be easily directed at the governments of the United States, Canada, the UK and others with great accuracy. Many critics posting in English who claim to have firsthand experience no longer live in Venezuela, which is prima facie evidence that in all likelihood these people are a long way from being the average Venezuelan.
What I do know is unregulated capitalism is destructive. This is not controversial. What is also not controversial is the history of Latin America and the behavior of the United States et al toward those countries.
What credible evidence that does exist is the fact that previous leaders in Venezuela and other countries of the region did nothing for the vast majority of their citizens, or worse, exploited the hell out of them. Further, it is very telling that even Chavez’s opponents have admitted he did more for the poor than the previous leaders.
As for the criticism of how he has hoodwinked the average Venezuelan, this is laughable coming from critics in the developed world. Just take a look at democracy in the United States for example. It is nonexistent and a huge percentage of the population is utterly ignorant beyond belief.
Wow, with the exception of nawg04's thoughtful and detailed post, the willful blindness of so many posters here is astonishing. Mr. O'Keefe's long apologia for a ruthless, democracy-trampling dictator should be taken with many, many grains of salt. O'Keefe is making a classic straw man argument. If you hate Chavez, it must be because you are a rich elitist whose privilege was threatened by his revolution. Actually, no. There are millions of average Venezuelans who despised Chavez because he shredded their country's democracy and freedoms, plain and simple. Many of these millions are students and members of the middle class, not plutocrats as Mr. O'Keefe would have you believe.
For a nuanced and informative assessment of Chavez and his legacy, I recommend the following from Francisco Toro in The Atlantic, which leans progressive for the most part. Despite the provocative headline, Toro's assessment is not an ad hominem attack and recognizes Chavez’s significant support from Venezuela’s poorest, which have indeed been neglected for generations by the wealthy elite. None of that justifies the despot that Chavez became, however. And he certainly became a terrible one. I should know, because I was there and left many behind who live in constant, nagging fear because of what Chavez has done to Venezuela.
My friends, please be not afraid to consider another perspective instead of the echo chamber of fellow ideologues (this goes for the wing nuts, too):
Chavez Wasn’t Just a Zany Buffoon, He Was an Oppressive Autocrat
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/03/chavez-wasnt-ju...
Peace to you all.
nawg04 presents the right-wing case against the Bolivarian movement led by Hugo Chavez that has been argued by his right-wing opposition for over a decade, backed by the full force of big-business media, the corporations, the Church, and other establishment institutions. These arguments have been tested again and again in open and democratic Venezuelan elections and rejected on every occasion. The majority of Venezuelans simply do not agree.
As for us, we can best judge Venezuala's record during the Chavez presidency by comparing it to that of the Canadian government. Chavez and Harper have been polar opposites, leading counterposed forces of corporate power and popular movements.
A good test is Haiti, where Canada invested significant resorces and reputation.
Result: It is Venezuela, and its Cuban ally, which have won the respect of the Haitian people, while Canada has aligned with the forces of violence and oppression and been deeply discredited as a result. See Kim Ives's article, also published Wednesday in Rabble, http://awstats.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/roger-annis/2013/03/hugo-chavez-....
Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘The Dictator’ movie has one scene at the end that is brilliant political satire: ‘Imagine if America was a dictatorship.” I'm guessing the censors saw all the poop and beheading "jokes" and didn't make it to the end.
1:46 min. long video
http://youtu.be/XUSiCEx3e-0
“Why are you guys so anti-dictatorship? You could let 1% of the people have all the nation’s wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes and bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education. Your media would appear free, but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wire-tape phones. You could torture foreign prisoners. You could have rigged elections. You could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group and no one would complain. You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests. I knew this is hard for you Americans to imagine, but please: try!”
oooo
Rest in peace, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías. As a Venezuelan, I didn't agree with most of your policies and politics, but I do not rejoice in your death and I do respect the pain of your family and supporters.
In 1998, when you campaigned for the presidency -and promised to end corruption- despite my disappointment with the traditional parties, I did not support you because you had led a coup against president Carlos Andres Pérez. I didn't like Pérez, but he was elected by our people and attempting to overthrow him was proof that you did not respect the will of Venezuelans.
I didn't oppose 100% of what you did. I was grateful, for example, that you placed the issue of poverty on the table and you put the spotlight on millions of Venezuelans that until then had been excluded. I knew that the Cuban doctors in the slums were unprepared and unequipped, but I understood that they meant the world to the mother that knocks on their door at 3am. I was also happy of the way most Venezuelans started to care about politics again (some because they supported you; others because they opposed you). The anti-politic feeling we saw in the 90's was precisely what got you elected. And I also kept in mind that a majority of Venezuelans did support you, so you certainly had a right to be in office.
These are my 10 reasons why I will not miss you:
1. Your authoritarian manner (which reflected a flaw probably most Venezuelans have), and your inability to engage in an honest dialogue with anyone that opposed you. Even from your death bed, you had a Supreme Court justice fired because she didn't agree with your politics.
2. Your disrespect for the rule of law and your contribution to a climate of impunity in Venezuela. In 1999, you re-wrote the Constitution to fit your needs, and yet you violated it almost on a daily basis. With this example, it is no surprise that crime exploded in Venezuela. In 14 years, our homicide rate more than tripled from 22/100K to 74/100K. While judges were busy trying to prove their political allegiance to you, only 11% of homicides led to a conviction.
3. Your empty promises and the way you manipulated many Venezuelans to think you were really working for them. In 14 years you built less public housing than any president before you did in their 5 year periods. Hospitals today have no resources, and if you go there in an emergency you must bring with you everything from medicines to surgical gloves and masks. The truth is that you were better at blowing your own trumpet than at getting things done.
4. The astounding level of corruption of your government. There was corruption before you got elected, but normally a government's scandals weren't made public until they handed power to the opposing party. Now we've heard about millions and millions of dollars vanishing in front of everybody's eyes, and your only reaction was to attack the media that revealed the corruption. The only politicians accused of corruption have been from parties that oppose you, and mostly on trumped up charges. For example, Leopoldo Lopez was never condemned by the courts but you still prevented him for running for office. His crime? Using money from the wrong budget allocation to pay for the salaries of teachers and firemen -because your government withheld the appropriate funds.
5. The opportunities you missed. When you took office, the price of oil was $9.30, and in 2008 it reached $126.33. There was so much good you could have done with that money! And yet you decided to throw it away on corruption and buying elections and weapons. If you had used these resources well, 10.7% of Venezuelans would not be in extreme poverty.
6. Your attacks on private property and entrepreneurship. You nationalized hundreds of private companies, and pushed hundreds more towards bankruptcy. Not because you were a communist or a socialist, but simply because you wanted no one left with any power to oppose you. If everyone was a public employee, you could force them to attend your political rallies, and the opposition would not get any funding.
7. Your hypocrisy on freedom and human rights. You shut down more than 30 radio and television stations for being critical of your government, you denied access to foreign currency for newspapers to buy printing paper (regular citizens can't access foreign currency unless you authorize it), you imprisoned people without trial for years, you imprisoned people for crimes of opinion, you fired tens of thousands of public employees for signing a petition for a recall referendum and you denied them access to public services and even ID cards and passports.
8. Your hypocrisy on the issue of Venezuela's sovereignty. You kicked out the Americans but then you pulled down your pants for the Cubans, Russians, Chinese and Iranians. We have Cuban officers giving orders in the Venezuelan army. Chinese oil companies work with a higher margin of profit than any Western companies did. And you made it clear that your alliances would be with governments that massacre their own people.
9. Your hypocrisy on the issue of violence. You said this was a peaceful revolution but you allowed illegal armed groups like Tupamaros, La Piedrita and FBLN to operate. You gave them weapons. You had the Russians set up a Kalashnikov plant in Venezuela. You were critical of American wars but yet you gave weapons to the Colombian guerrilla, whose only agenda is murder and drug-dealing.
10. Your hypocrisy on democracy. Your favorite insult for the opposition parties in Venezuela was "coupists", but you forgot you organized a coup in 1992, and the military that was loyal to you suggested they would support a coup in your favor if the opposition ever won the presidential elections. There was no democracy in your political party: you chose each of the candidates for the National Assembly and for city and state governments. When the opposition won the referendum that would have allowed you to change the Constitution in 2007, you disavowed the results and you figured out a way to change the articles and allow yourself to be reelected as many times as you wanted. You manipulated the elections in 2010 to make sure the opposition didn't get more than a third of seats in Parliament even though they got 51% of the popular vote. Your democracy was made of paper, you made sure there were no meaningful checks and balances and all institutions were your puppets.
So no, Hugo I will not miss you. Rest in peace now, while we try to rebuild the mess of a country that you left us.
Let this be a warning to all successful leftist leaders in this world, it is a relatively simple matter to eliminate you by seeding you with radioactive material which will cause cancer in short order. RIP Huga Chavez, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Canadian opposition leader Jack Layton and many others. The Corporate fascists play for keeps and it's time the rest of us wake up to their game although you will not find a hint of their rules in the corporate media.
Derrick, excellent article!