Posted on 03/08/2003 12:55:32 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The peach stucco house fades into Kendall's landscape, not a hint of the politics humming inside.
Posters line a room in the back, bearing the likeness of embattled Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Red pins dot a U.S. map, marking this pro-Chávez base and others recently formed around the nation, known as Bolivarian Circles -- the controversial beating heart of Chávez's civic support.
One year ago, Jesús Soto's Kendall home became the first U.S. extension of the Chávez-organized groups. In Venezuela, critics claim, the groups are armed and trained by the government and strike out violently against journalists and civilians.
''We want to spread the circles abroad and defend them so people stop believing we are terror circles like they say -- armed to attack the wealthy,'' said Soto, 36, who inaugurated the circle in Bayfront Park wearing a red beret and fatigues on Feb. 4, 2002 -- the anniversary of Chávez' failed 1992 coup.
Since then, 17 other circles have sprung up from Connecticut to Wyoming.
That South Florida -- rich with anti-Chávez Venezuelans and Cuban exiles -- is hostile nesting ground for Chávez support is not lost on Soto.
''Our work is to try to change the image that Chávez is a dictator,'' Soto said. ``In Venezuela there is a deep democracy. We elected this president. . . . The opposition here is telling the media lies.''
Florida's largely upper-middle class Venezuelan opposition showed its clout in January when an estimated 60,000 people -- the majority of them Venezuelan -- gathered on Calle Ocho to protest Chávez's leadership.
By comparison, the 180 members of Miami's Bolivarian Circle seem scant. An additional 23 members belong to circles in Tampa, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.
SOURCE OF NAME
The groups take their name from Simón Bolívar, the South American general who liberated much of the region, including Venezuela, from Spain in the 1800s.
Changing Chávez's image ''is the work of ants,'' said Tahid Soto, Jesús Soto's wife, who helps coordinate the U.S. circles with those in Venezuela. ``Little by little, it's coming along.''
Fear could be the reason that membership is minimal compared to the sizable -- and very visible -- Venezuelan opposition in the United States, said Carlos Matamoros, a radio host.
''I have a lot of friends who support Chávez who live clandestinely. They are scared to express what they think out of fear of retaliation,'' said Matamoros, who hosts Hablando Claro, a program about Venezuela, on Union Radio, WOCN-AM 1450.
Circle leaders draw strength from what they say is a growing Bolivarian international network. The U.S. circle members will hold their first national assembly in New York in March, and Chávez representatives from Venezuela plan to attend.
The Venezuelan government also will host an international Bolivarian Circle meeting in April in Caracas. ''There are circles in Bilbao, Madrid, Denmark -- all over the place. It's really neat,'' said Guillermo García Ponce, Chávez advisory committee coordinator, in an interview with The Herald in Caracas. He acknowledged that South Florida has become an anti-Chávez stronghold.
''I suppose [the Miami circle] will have to keep a low profile,'' García said.
Anti-Chávez activists say they do not oppose the presence of a Bolivarian Circle in Miami as long as it doesn't instigate the violence they allege the circles have caused in Venezuela -- a claim Soto and others deny.
''The government has allowed the Bolivarian Circles to attack the newspapers, attack the reporters,'' said Raúl Leoni, a Venezuelan opposition leader who lives in Weston. ``The fact that you win an election doesn't make you eternal if you're not doing your job correctly.''
NO THREATS RECEIVED
Soto said no threats have been made against him or other members, though a fire bomb was placed under his car eight years ago after he made a television appearance supporting Chávez's unsuccessful coup. No one was injured and no arrests were made.
The Bolivarian Circles -- along with Chávez's controversial 1999 ''Bolivarian constitution'' -- are part of his overarching ``Bolivarian Revolution.''
Some 70,000 circles exist in Venezuela, made up largely of the working class. Typically, they meet weekly and engage in humanitarian projects such as providing food for the poor -- with military financing -- and building schools.
Critics compare the circles to Fidel Castro's Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
Several of the Venezuelans present at a recent documentary screening sponsored by a Hialeah circle work at blue-collar jobs in Miami and drive older cars -- a clear distinction from the largely well-heeled protesters at January's march.
''The only way to understand Venezuela is to understand the deep divisions of race and class. It cuts that way,'' said Jerry Haar, a senior research associate at the University of Miami's North-South Center. ``The lighter-skinned you are, the higher level of income, education and prominence you have in party politics. Chávez, being none of those things, is the odd man out.''
Both sides vehemently dispute the notion that only the poor support Chávez and that only the rich oppose him. The opposition has increasingly cut across the social spectrum as more people lose faith in the shaky administration.
Chávez supporters simply point to the group Clase Media en Positiva -- a Venezuelan-based organization of working professionals who support Chávez -- to show diversity in their ranks.
Elias Halabi, who recently fled Valencia, Venezuela, for Miami Beach after his home and car dealership were bombed, is a member of the group. ''I am a prosperous businessman and I sympathize with the ideas of Chávez,'' said Halabi, 48. ``Revolution is change. It's not a process towards communism. It's a process towards democracy and participation. The government before was a mafia.''
Indeed it is.
An old family friend when I was little was Judge Frank Scarlett ( Federal ) and I can well remember being a little boy on his porch when he told me:
"Johnny, people come to my bench all the time, and scream they want 'Justice!'
But if they really thought they were going to get it, they'd run screaming in the opposite direction..."
It is not about race, of course.
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