Posted on 03/04/2006 5:39:49 PM PST by blam
Venezuelan middle class flees Chávez rule of hate
By Sophie Arie in Caracas
(Filed: 05/03/2006)
Venezuela's once-thriving middle class is packing its bags and fleeing the country, afraid for the future as the socialist president, Hugo Chávez, calls on the slum-dwelling masses to rise up and seize wealth from those better off than themselves.
Growing numbers of professionals, business owners and shopkeepers are fed up with the climate of hostility that the Left-wing president has encouraged in his effort to boost his populist credentials.
President Hugo Chávez
María Carolina García was blowing up helium balloons in her party-decorations shop in Caracas one day when two customers asked her how much they cost.
"When I told them the price, which was just a few dollars, they started yelling at me that it was far too much," Mrs García recalled. "You're a thief! You're all thieves! You just came to this country to steal from the poor," the men shouted before marching out of the shop.
Mrs García, 46, a mother of two whose parents emigrated to Venezuela to escape the Spanish civil war and made a new life as jewellers, was upset. But it was nothing new.
"Ever since Hugo Chávez was elected [in 1998] he has been fomenting hatred for those who have, among those who have not. 'Rich is bad.' That's his message. So the people who follow him have decided it's not just the world's superpower they hate, it's people like me too."
Mrs García said her parents were prepared to emigrate again as they see the same kind of autocracy, blind political allegiance and hatred in society that they saw in Spain years ago. They are gathering the documents that the entire family needs to claim Spanish citizenship, ready for the day they have to flee.
Many Venezuelans complain of the government's increasing control of the media and intimidation of opposition supporters. People report that their middle-class appearance leads to their being robbed, kidnapped or spat at.
The streets of Caracas have always been rife with crime but in recent years the city centre has become seedier, with homeless people sleeping alongside piles of rotting rubbish by blackened walls.
"It's never been a really safe city," said Mrs García, joining a queue outside the Spanish embassy with her identity papers. "But different people walked happily alongside each other not so long ago. I have never felt as threatened as I do now."
Since Mr Chávez, a former paratrooper and close ally of Fidel Castro, the Cuban president, was elected promising a 21st-century socialist revolution and making fiery anti-American speeches, the lines outside the foreign consulates have been growing.
Demand for Venezuelan passports is reported to be so high that the Chávez government has rationed the number of requests it can handle per day, pleading a shortage of passport-making materials.
Professionals, businessmen and women and educated office workers are seeking visas for countries such as Australia, Canada, Spain and Britain. Those with emigrant ancestry are asserting their rights to European passports.
There are no official figures and government supporters deny that anyone is leaving, but most middle-class people questioned by the Sunday Telegraph on the streets said that at least half their friends had left since Mr Chávez came to office.
Vanessa Bertran, 32, who works in public relations, said she would be sad to leave but could see her country going only backwards. She is moving to Canada as soon as her visa comes through.
"If you're middle class or you don't vote for Chávez, you find it's harder and harder to get ahead in life," she said. "Doors keep closing. It's hard to get credit at the bank let alone a job in the state sector. They are squeezing us out."
Marcial Rivera, a 30-year-old business graduate, packed his bags and left for neighbouring Colombia this week. He believes that it is a more stable place to live, despite its own huge problems. "I'm all torn up," he said. "I would like to stay but I don't want to be here when the big bang comes and I think it will be very soon."
Mr Chávez's supporters seem untroubled by the exodus, arguing that if the well-off are leaving it is simply to avoid paying higher taxes to provide benefits for the poor.
"He has united the country," said María Calderón, a middle-aged maid working in the smart Las Mercedes district. "He knows what it is to be poor. It is the first time we've had a leader on our side."
We need to take the gloves off and do what he accuses of doing.
Pushing him out of power.
Shove him, if necessary.
It is sad to see another country being destroyed by socialism. If the productive Middle and Upper Classes leave the country, Venezuela will become another socialist "paradise" like Cuba.
Pinochet, for all his faults saved Chile from the same thing, perhaps there is a Venezuelan Pinochet?
'Rich is bad.'
Millionaire liberal Democrats have been saying this for years.
Think the masses will turn against millionaire Hugo Chavez?
You know your country is circling the drain when people are fleeing to Colombia for prosperity and stability.
The only things that surprise me are:
That it didn't start much sooner;
That it hasn't collapsed into TOTAL chaos by now.
Sounds like the Democratic Party.
Before our oil workers leave, they need to sabotage the place.
The Zimbabwe of South America?
Why doesn't he just build a wall around his country? And why are these people waiting for passports?
They sound like some of the economic "geniuses" on FR.
Sounds familliar. This has long been a mantra of the Left here as well.
Years ago, an Indian (American, not Asian) lady I knew sat at my kitchen table drinking coffee and railing about "the rich white man". I let her spool on for a while, waiting for specifics, but it was the same programmed bit.
I knew she worked in social services, but had thought her an exception to the ordinary knee jerk programmed social serpent (there are a rare few). I graciously offered her a refill, and then asked her "Say, just who the F*ck is this rich white man anyway? Do I know him? I'm white and I'm not rich."
The whole schpiel fell apart right there. (So did any shot at a relationship, but I had seen that writing on the wall from other things).
Unfortunately, the MSM and just about any source of victim enablement doctrine has been pushing this same socialist 'class' envy for a long time. It naturally falls in with a tendency to be envious of others' accomplishments by those who refuse to accept any of the blame for their own lack of achievement.
The media even use that same line of groupthink against corporations which are successful: "Big" Tobacco, oil, steel, etc.
Chavez will use it to mercilessly exploit the poorest, as any socialist dictator would.
Have patience.
All in good time.
This isn't like an Iranian nuclear thingy.
Chavez, and the hapless Venezulean majority who support him, will pay the price in time.
Cool! Term limits...
Isn't that the truth. These are people who can't figure out the area of a rectangle, but have no problem at all micromanipulating prices in a multi-trillion dollar economy.
But at least we know that the vote for this guy was fair (Jimmy Carter certified it).
Are these people scattering in all directions, or are they mostly emigrating to a specific place?
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