Hugo Chavez has made a point of praising, visiting, and embracing the most totalitarian regimes in the world. He was the first head of state to visit Saddam Hussein in Iraq after the Gulf War. He has allied himself closely with Red China, Russia, Iran, Libya, Algeria, Syria, and, of course, Cuba. His administration praises the Communist regime of North Korean madman Kim Jong Il — leader of an economic basket case, as well as a human rights hellhole — as a model for Venezuela’s development. On October 12, 1999, during a state visit to China, President Chavez proudly announced: “I have been very Maoist all my life.” He praised Mao Zedong, one of the greatest mass murderers in history, and let it be known that he viewed Chairman Mao’s program as a model for his own Venezuelan revolution.
Chavez calls his program a “Bolivarian revolution,” claiming inspiration from the popular 19th-century South American independence fighter Simon Bolivar. But it is clearly more Marxist and Maoist than Bolivarian. Recognizing that his hold on power was tenuous, Chavez imported thousands of Cuban agents masquerading as teachers, health professionals, scientists, and sports instructors. Their job is to organize his Bolivarian Circles — the Communist mobs patterned after Castro’s Committees in Defense of the Revolution. At the same time, Chavez has brought in hundreds of intelligence agents from Castro’s DGI (Cuba’s version of the KGB) to help take over and purge the Venezuelan military and police of counter-revolutionary elements that pose a threat to his total consolidation of power.
In 2003, General Marcos Ferreira resigned as head of Venezuela’s border control agency, DIEX, and presented documents and his own eyewitness accounts of the Chavez government’s close cooperation with global terrorist groups. According to Gen. Ferreira, thousands of fraudulent Venezuelan identities were issued to members of known terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, on orders from top officials in Chavez’s government. …***
"This is the first time Cubans on the island and in the rest of the world are working together as one, because Cuba has only one future," Paya said.
But the moderate leader's call to dialogue with the Cuban government has enemies within the recalcitrant anti-Castro exile groups, mostly based in Miami.
"They attack us systematically. They are bombarding this dialogue," Paya said.
Miami hard-liners want a leading role in a post-Castro Cuba, but the transition will be decided firstly by Cubans living in Cuba, Paya said. "This is not a pie to be shared out," he said.
Within Cuba, the fledgling dissident movement remains divided and infiltrated by government informants.
A rival group founded by economist Martha Beatriz Roque, the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, is planning an unprecedented public meeting scheduled for May 20.
Roque, one of the 75 jailed dissidents, has set about organizing hundreds of small groups, such as rights groups and independent libraries, since she was released from prison in July for health reasons.
Paya said his followers would not go to Roque's meeting because it represented only part of the dissident movement, while his effort was aimed at a national dialogue.***