Cuba closely follows the events in Venezuela ***Cuba's Cuban Workers Union congratulated Chávez supporters Monday for the ''triumph of right and justice'' with Chávez's restoration of power. ''We reiterate to our Venezuelan brothers that they can always count on the sure and unconditional support of the millions of Cuban workers who feel as if the cause of the Bolivarian Revolution is ours,'' read the letter, published in the weekly newspaper Trabajadores.***
Democracy shaky in S. America*** For the mostly poor supporters of the red-bereted, populist Mr. Chávez, his brief removal after deadly riots last week was a military coup dressed up by the country's ruling elite as a popular uprising - and suspiciously supported by the United States. For the middle and upper classes who reject Chávez as a bygone Latin dictator whose model is Fidel Castro's communist Cuba, his fall was a kind of Venezuelan spring, the work of a civil society galvanized by the rise of a megalomaniac…... One problem for the majority of Venezuelans - who oppose Chávez, polls before last week's events showed - is that the constitution was tailored to allow him to remain in power until 2021. "From his arrival in office Chávez worked to undermine the democratic pillars in that he never accepted give-and-take and pushed to concentrate power," says Miguel Díaz, director of the South America Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. But a pro-democracy civil society never let up on him," he adds, "and I assume they won't rest until Venezuela gets a better government."***