Hugo Chavez hoists rocket launcher while stirring class hate

Reuters ^ | November 26, 2001 | REUTERS/Ho/Miraflores

[fourdeuce82d]

The work of a lonely little man with too much time on his hands and a disturbing fascination with weaponry is never done... Actually he's been very busy sucking up to every anti-American he can lay his hands on ...I was talking about myself, and my habit of posting pedantic clarifications about weaponry nomenclature!

[KC_Conspirator]

I do. Courtesy of Ollie North and William Casey. I have noticed that Ortega can't win an election down there.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I was talking about myself, and my habit of posting pedantic clarifications about weaponry nomenclature!

Oops.

[gfactor]

I have noticed that Ortega can't win an election down there.

Certainly not. If you think chinese/foreign involvement/partisanship in the clinton campaign was a scandal, you should check out US involvement/partisanship in nicaragua. through the 80's till now.

[hchutch]

Who are you? Noam Chomsky?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A Venezuelan soldier walks in front of a graffiti painted by students which reads "Chavez failure" at a wall of the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, November 27, 2001. Dozens of university students march Tuesday to demand the resignation of President Hugo Chavez. (AP Photo/Fernando LLano)

Venezuelan university students holding the national flag march in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001 demanding the resignation of the President Hugo Chavez. Dozens of students attended the march. (AP Photo/Fernando LLano)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Hugo Chavez Tightens Grip on Venezuela's Oil--[Excerpt] Now, the government wants to create a steadier revenue flow by imposing the world's highest royalty rates on companies exploring and exploiting Venezuela's state-owned oil fields.

The Hydrocarbons Law raises royalty rates from 16.7 percent to 30 percent. Giusti warned the new rates will drive investors to other oil producing countries, where rates do not exceed 20 percent and the average rate is 7.1 percent. Among Venezuela's fellow OPEC members, the average is 14.7 percent.

Critics were unappeased by a compromise allowing payments as low as 20 percent for the most high-risk projects, such as heavy crude oil fields in the environmentally fragile Orinoco River Delta.

Allowing for rates of 20 percent ``can only be considered a gesture. This doesn't change the law's central objective, which is to impose absolute state control over the oil industry,'' said economist Orlando Ochoa in an editorial published last week in Caracas daily El Universal.

The Hydrocarbons Law is among the most contentious of 49 laws that Chavez passed last month under special powers that allowed him to bypass Congress. Several business leaders and opposition legislators have threatened to ask the Supreme Court to strike down all 49 laws, arguing that Chavez passed them without consulting the private sector.

Business leader have also called a Dec. 10 strike to protest the laws. [End Excerpt]

[piasa]

But you don't mention the military, diplomatic and economic disaster that was the Sandinistas, against the people of Nicaragua. After all, until they came along, there wasn't a refugee problem... not even under Somoza. Once the Sandinistas got power, they wasted no time in creating refugees with ignorant land redistribution attempts, and wasted no time in terrorizing opponants and clamping down on the press. People FLED in droves. The Sandinistas became so murderous, bloated and corrupt they scared even some of their own, and made the opposition, which was slowly straightening out its own problems, look better and better every day. They came to power using nationalism, but soon invited foreigners in to 'advise.'- precisely what they had criticized Somoza for doing. They lost support as their own people defected to oppose them. The Sandinistas bombed their own Nicaraguan people, entire villages. Somoza, crooked as he was, had never done that. The Sandinistas partied it up, while the people paid the price.

[backhoe]

FYI, the Carribean Basin/Latin American areas are heating up again:

Castro, the Carribean, and Terrorism

[gfactor]

They lost support as their own people defected to oppose them. The Sandinistas bombed their own Nicaraguan people, entire villages. Somoza, crooked as he was, had never done that.

In the end of his regime, he ordered round the clock cufews. so yes, he did bomb his own people. Just like duarte next door.