4-10-02 San Diego Union-Tribune Ruining Venezuela - An example of how not to help the poor [Full Text] Time may be running out on the stormy tenure of ex-paratrooper Hugo Chavez as Venezuela's president. Rumors of a coup and speculation on constitutional means of removing the autocratic Chavez are common fare on the streets of Caracas these days.
There is an object lesson in all this.
Chavez, elected president in 1998 after failing to seize power in a 1992 coup d'etat, styles himself a left-wing nationalist. He proclaims his admiration for Cuba's Fidel Castro and reportedly aids neighboring Colombia's Marxist guerrillas. Chavez' so-called "Bolivarian revolution" (after Latin America's 19th century liberator, Simn Bolivar) was supposed to raise living standards for the estimated 60 percent of Venezuelans who live in poverty.
But neither Chavez nor his ill-conceived "revolution" has delivered on its promises. Quite the contrary.
Despite oil wealth that makes Venezuela the No. 4 petroleum exporter in the world and the No. 3 exporter to the United States, the country's mismanaged economy is slumping badly. A zero growth rate is likely this year and inflation could reach 20 percent. The government's budget deficit is large and growing, credit is tight, and foreign investment is down.
Amid the political turmoil which Chavez has incited, Venezuela now suffers from capital flight and a brain drain, as some of the country's brightest move to Miami.
Having alienated most of his country''s influential interest groups - business, trade unions, landowners, the military, the Catholic Church and the press - Chavez is fast running out of supporters. His public approval ratings have fallen from 80 percent in 1999 to 24 percent in February.
Chavez' 49 economic laws imposed by decree last year sharply increased government intervention in Venezuela's already over-regulated economy. Chavez' current drive to put his political cronies in charge of the state-controlled oil industry is prompting spreading strikes. His land reform program looks more like organized theft. Private property rights, so essential to economic development, are declining in Chavez' Venezuela.
Chavez' thuggish tactics also threaten his country's political and civil institutions. He bullies political opponents. He incites mob violence against Venezuela's newspapers and broadcast media, which increasingly oppose his destructive strong-arm rule.
In effect, the results are in on Chavez' brand of left-wing populism and strong-arm government as an answer to poverty and social ills in Latin America. It doesn't work: Not in Chavez' Venezuela, not in Argentina under Juan Pern in the 1950s, not in Peru under that country's left-leaning military junta of the 1970s, not in Sandinista Nicaragua in the 1980s nor, indeed, anywhere. [End]
[Full Text] CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez, dressed in his trademark military uniform, struggled to negotiate his freedom in the last moments before his ouster and warned those deposing him they would meet the wrath of the Venezuelan people, a witness to the scene said.
Willian Lara, the former president of Congress, said Friday that he was in the room in the presidential palace when Chavez - stunned by a rebellion of top military officials - accepted he had lost his hold on power.
Lara said Chavez, his close ally, at one point offered to fire Vice President Diosdado Cabello and resign to appease his opponents. But Chavez rescinded the offer when it became clear the generals would not let him go free, Lara said.
"The president never resigned. Chavez is still the constitutional president," Lara said in a telephone interview. "We are facing a dictatorship."
Military officials maintained that Chavez had resigned outright.
The confrontation with the generals early Friday came after an anti-government protest by about 150,000 Venezuelans ended in a bloodbath. Authorities are deciding whether to charge Chavez in the violence, which left at least 14 dead and some 240 injured.
After hours of negotiations with military officials who turned against him, Chavez warned them they were restoring a corrupt political establishment that "raided the country for decades," Lara said.
The leftist former lieutenant colonel, who once warned opponents to stop "dreaming of his impossible ouster," was calm as generals led him out the palace at dawn Friday.
"He was serene. He never once showed himself demoralized. He never showed himself depressed," Lara said.
He was held at the Fuerte Tiuna military base in the South American country's capital on Friday. But his daughter, Maria Gabriela Chavez, told Cuban television early Saturday that he had been moved by helicopter to an undisclosed location. The report could not immediately be confirmed.
In Chavez's place, business leader Pedro Carmona was inaugurated interim president Friday, and promptly dissolved the Congress and Supreme Court that Chavez had packed with allies.
Chavez first catapulted to national fame by leading a failed military coup in 1992 - and urging his fellow defeated rebels to put down their arms "for now." He made no bold vows to return to power this time, Lara said.
But Lara said Chavez warned those who ousted him: "The changes I have made are not lost. The people will reconquer the gains." [End]
That is correct, and the lesson to be learned from this nasty little dust-up. The casualties are a shame, but it could have been a lot worse.