[passionfruit]

Chavez is the only one to offer help because of 2 things.
1. Jesse Jackson was there shaking him down, and
2. trying to prove he's an upstanding guy after the Pat Robertson comments (don't assassinate me, Look, I'm generous)!

[andyk]

trying to prove he's an upstanding guy after the Pat Robertson comments

I happen to think it's mostly this. "Look at me, I'm a humanitarian! Look at how silly the US is for criticizing me!"