Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

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Philip
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Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Philip »

Hugo Chavez's death at the untimely age of just 58 is a massive blow to Socialist parties all across South and Central America.Rescuing his country from the vice-like grip of US oil companies,Chavez used his nation's oil wealth for social welfare schemes thus endearing himself to the population,which elected him thrice.He also survived a US planned attempted coup where three assassins came within a hair's breadth of killing him.Chavez however became the inspiration for a wave of socialist govts. to sweep the polls in many S.American states,where the poor and native tribals had been suffering for generations.His repeated electoral victories gave him iconic stature similar to that of Fidel Castro and comparisons with Eva Peron have been made.Venezuela now has an uncertain future.Maduro,his anointed successor should win easily in the pres. poll.,but running an efficient economy and staving off renewed plots from right-wing elements in cahoots with the US will be a major problem.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ma ... -dies-cuba
Hugo Chávez: Venezuela begins seven days of mourning after president dies in Caracas

Venezuelans began seven days of painful and public mourning on Tuesday night after the announcement that their president, Hugo Chávez, had died aged 58 after a long battle against cancer.

The country's vice-president, Nicolás Maduro – tipped as a likely successor – broke the news on Tuesday night, prompting a wave of grief in the nation's streets.

"We have just received the most tragic and awful information. At 4.25pm, President Hugo Chávez Frias died," Maduro announced in a televised address, his voice choking. "It's a moment of deep pain," he said.

Chávez died at a military hospital in Caracas, the capital of the country he has ruled since 1999. As soon as the news was announced, supporters gathered at the city's main square, Plaza Bolivar, and began chanting: "Chávez vive, la lucha sigue" – "Chávez lives, the battle continues."

People wearing the red beret the president was known for sang a popular folk song with the words: "Those who die for life cannot be called dead."

As messages of condolence came from many world leaders, perhaps the most significant was from Barack Obama. He said: "At this challenging time of President Hugo Chávez's passing, the United States reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government. As Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history, the US remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law and respect for human rights."

Chávez, the symbol of Latin American socialism, succumbed to a respiratory infection on Tuesday evening, 21 months after he first revealed he had a tumour. He had not been seen in public for three months since emergency surgery in Cuba on 11 December.

He will be given a state funeral in Caracas on Friday, likely to be attended by millions of supporters and leftwing leaders from across the globe who have been inspired by Chávez's doctrine of "Bolivarian 21st-century socialism", grateful for the subsidised energy he provided or simply impressed by his charisma. His death will also trigger a presidential election, to be held within 30 days, to decide who controls the world's greatest untapped reserves of oil.

His designated successor, Maduro, is likely to face Henrique Capriles, the losing opposition candidate in the presidential election held a few months ago in October 2012. Until then, according to the constitution, the interim president should be the head of the national assembly, Diosdado Cabello. However on Tuesday night the Venezuelan foreign minister, Elias Jaua, said Maduro was the interim president. It was not clear whether this would only apply until the official calling of the election and beginning of the campaign, or whether Maduro would remain in charge until the election result was determined.

Robert Menendez, chairman of the US Senate foreign relations committee, called for free and fair elections to replace Chávez. "Hugo Chavez ruled Venezuela with an iron hand and his passing has left a political void that we hope will be filled peacefully and through a constitutional and democratic process, grounded in the Venezuelan constitution and adhering to the Inter-American Democratic Charter."

Replacing one of most colourful figures on the global political landscape will be an immense challenge. Born to a poor family on the plains, Chávez became a tank commander and a devotee of South America's liberator, Simón Bolívar. A failed coup in 1992 propelled him into the limelight but it was his ballot box triumphs that made him an inspiration for the resurgent Latin American left and the most outspoken – and often humorous – critic of the US, the war in Iraq and George Bush, whom he described as a "donkey" and a "devil". Formerly one of the most dynamic political leaders in the world with a globe-trotting schedule and a weekly, unscripted TV broadcast – often hours long – Chávez shocked his countrymen in June 2011 when he revealed that Cuban surgeons had removed a baseball-sized tumour from his pelvic region.

After that, he underwent several rounds of chemotherapy and two more operations in what he described as a "battle for health and for life". His medical records were never made public, prompting widespread speculation about his imminent demise, but he and his supporters insisted he was recovering. Before the presidential election in October 2012, aides claimed he was well enough to complete a full term. During that campaign, Chávez was clearly affected by his illness. But although he made fewer and shorter appearances, he won more votes than in any of his earlier elections battles, prompting him to proclaim victory in a "perfect battle".

Fears about his health escalated after he rushed to Cuba for hyperbaric oxygen treatment on 27 November. Less than a fortnight later, he made a televised address in which he said that doctors had discovered malignant cells that required surgery and urged Venezuelans to vote for Maduro if he was incapacitated.

Since his operation in December, Chávez has been visited by family members and several of his closest political allies, including Fidel and Raul Castro of Cuba, Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa and Bolivian president Evo Morales.

Beyond a set of four photographs released last month that showed a remarkably hearty looking Chávez smiling in a hospital bed and flanked by his daughters, the president has not been seen or heard for three months. This prompted frequent rumours that the president was dead or on life support. The government denied this and said he continued to run the country by writing down his orders.

But officials acknowledged that Chávez suffered multiple complications after his surgery including respiratory infections and bleeding. He had to undergo more chemotherapy and drug treatments and could only breathe through a tracheal tube. He returned from Cuba on 18 February at his own request, said officials. Since then he has been treated at Carlos Arvelo military hospital in Caracas.

Hopes for a recovery dimmed on Monday, when minister of communications, Ernesto Villegas, said the president's condition had declined due to a "new and serious respiratory infection."

Constitutional questions have been raised by his long hospitalisation and absence from public life, which he formerly dominated with dynamic and provocative appearances on his weekly television address, Hello Mr President.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ma ... figurehead

Hugo Chávez: poor boy from the plains who became leftwing figurehead


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ma ... h-american

Tributes to Hugo Chávez flow from South American leaders

Deep mourning for presidents who shared vision of 'Bolivarian revolution', while non-allies praise role in regional unity
Venezuelan leader leaves legacy of literacy and healthcare for poor alongside crumbling infrastructure and dependence on oil



When he failed to attend his scheduled inauguration on 10 January, the opposition asked who is running the country. The ruling party responded with a rally of more than 100,000 supporters, many carrying banners declaring "We are Chávez."
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by habal »

The US Is The Don Corleone
Of International Politics

By Adrian Salbuchi
3-3-13


A supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hangs a pair of shoes at the front of the US embassy in Caracas. (AFP Photo / Juan Baretto) South America - Venezuela in particular - has been the target of a coordinated campaign by the US government and private industry over the past few years. But those of us who have been paying attention know this is nothing new.

WikiLeaks recently published new documents showing that US global intelligence corporations like Stratfor and its foreign offshoot CANVAS worked hard over the past decade (aided and abetted by US Government agencies) in a failed attempt to overthrow Venezuela's democratically elected president Hugo Chavez.

Meddling in the 'Backyard'

The US corporate over-world has always worked closely with the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon promoting the overthrow - known as "regime change in rogue states" - of governments that do not automatically align to US interests; or, better said, of governments that do not automatically align with the interests of the supra-national global power elite that is deeply embedded inside private and public power structures in the US. This has been especially true throughout Latin America, traditionally America's geopolitical and economic backyard, from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego.

For example, September 11th of this year (of all dates!) marks the 40th anniversary of the CIA-backed, financed and orchestrated overthrow and assassination of Chile's democratically elected president, Salvador Allende.

Allende was replaced by a pro-US and pro-UK military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet. At the time, private corporations like ITT worked hand in hand with CIA operatives promoting strikes, social turmoil and waging psychological warfare through the local media. Then it was Chile; now it's Venezuela.

In fact, the 1970s and 1980s saw the Kissinger-designed and executed 'Condor Plan' finance and diplomatically support various military coups and regimes not only in Chile but in Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and other countries in the region.

Such US-UK support for authoritarian and criminal regimes would only stop when some Latin American general like Argentina's General Leopoldo Galtieri went too far by doing something really stupid, like Argentina's 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands.

Relatives of Argentine soldiers who died during Argentina's 1982 war over the Falkland Islands decorate tombs at a cemetery.

Barring that, all those US-backed coups used local military strongmen trained in the US Military's School of the Americas in Panama to do as they pleased in their local countries, as long as: (a) they kept those countries aligned to US geopolitical imperatives which during the Cold War meant being staunchly anti-Communist; (b) accepted Chicago-Boys-style financial dependency and artificially created public debts; (c) kept local populations in permanent fear and thus 'disciplined and orderly.'

Since the fall of the former Soviet Union, however, these tactics changed dramatically. Now US control over Latin American countries is centred on promoting 'democracy.' Well, actually, "the kind of democracy that we want to see," as Hillary Clinton so eloquently put it when visiting 'Arab Spring Egypt' back in March 2011.

Such money-controlled democracy is, of course, no democracy at all, but rather an obscene money-sloshing and media clownery system that catapults their favourite candidates into local positions of power.

When the US has its way as in Mexico, Colombia and Chile, and their candidates win local elections, then it's all business as usual. But when growing political awareness among the local populace elects presidents into power who prioritize the local national interest as in Ecuador (who just re-elected their fine president Rafael Correa), Bolivia (Evo Morales) and, most notably, Venezuela with Hugo Chavez, then the 'regime change' mega-juggernaut comes into full action.

Public And Private Initiative

In America, you never know whether it's the White House and Congress running the country and the corporate over-world, or if it's the other way around: The corporate over-world runs the White House, Congress and the country. Recent WikiLeaks documents released on Venezuela describes Stratfor as "a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency."

"The emails," WikiLeaks goes on to explain, "show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods."

The filtered emails cover a wide range of issues on the energy sector, especially oil; political change and the state of right-wing forces inside Venezuela; and the state of the country's armed forces. They also refer to Venezuela's relations with Cuba, China, Russia and Iran, and provide bleak projections for the economy and the financial sector.

The Serbian-based and US-supported Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) is yet another such 'global intelligence' front of what, in practice, are organizations specializing in engineering social turmoil - even civil war - as countries like Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria have painfully learned.

The leaked emails from CANVAS had them explaining their recommended strategy for toppling governments, as in one revealing message to Stratfor:

"When somebody asks us for help, as in Vene (sic!) case, we usually ask them the question 'and how would you do it?'. That means that the first thing is to create a situational analysis (the word doc I sent you) and after that comes "Mission Statement" (still left to be done) and then "Operational Concept", which is the plan for campaign... For this case we have three campaigns: Unification of opposition, campaign for [September 2010 parliamentary elections] and parallel with that a 'get out and vote' campaign." Very straightforward!


Stratfor's founder and chairman is one George Friedman, who is regularly interviewed in the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and CNN and is advisor to JPMorganChase, CitiGroup and Ernst & Young. Stratfor's president & CEO is Shea Morenz, who for many years was a senior officer at Goldman Sachs. Not exactly corporations and megabanks bent on promoting the common good of the people of Venezuela, or of any other country in Latin America or elsewhere.

Clearly, there are no sharp lines separating these private intelligence publishers and analysts, think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations, RAND Corporation, National Endowment for Democracy and major corporations, from public US-Government agencies like the CIA, NSA, USAID and the State Department.

In fact, throughout Latin America, lucid political observers will always keep an eye on what 'La Embajada' is up to. 'La Embajada' is Spanish for 'The Embassy' - not just any embassy, of course, but the local Embassy of the United States.

No surprise then to learn that this batch of WikiLeaks documents reveals US-based firms working to overthrow Hugo Chavez by assisting and financing opposition candidates like Henrique Capriles Radonsky, who was Chavez's main opposition candidate, coming in second place in last year's presidential elections.


Capriles Radonsky is strongly backed by US, European and Israeli interests, thanks to his notable alignment to those countries' objectives in Venezuela and the region. Of Jewish background - in a country with a very tiny Jewish community - Radonsky promises to steer Venezuela away from the close ties forged by Chavez with Iran, Cuba, Russia, China and (until it was overrun and destroyed by NATO) also Libya.

Due to President Chavez's ailing health, this public-private US initiative is again hard at work promoting all opposition forces inside Venezuela, whilst they eagerly await good news (for them) about president Chavez's condition, hoping that he may have to relinquish the presidency he won late last year, which would mean new elections in a Venezuela without Chavez. That would spell real tragedy for that country.

A tragedy not just for Venezuela but for the entire region as well, where the US continues holding full sway in countries like Colombia - whose president Juan Manuel Santos is a member of the Rockefeller-funded, New York-based 'Americas Society' that promotes in-roads into Latin America for the powerful Council on Foreign Relations, whose head office is just across the street from them on Park Avenue at 57th Street. And Mexico recently elected pro-US rich-boy Enrique Peña Nieto as president. Two countries where it's business as usual.

'Make it look like a democratic election'

In advising on how to engineer destabilisation, CANVAS told Stratfor, that "We only give them the tools to use." Referring to the 2010 parliamentary elections, they wrote, "This year we are definitely ramping up activity in Venezuela... they have elections in September and we are in close connection with activists from there and people trying to help them (please keep this to yourself for now, no publication). The first phase of our preparation is under way."

So, this is "the kind of democracy the US wants to see." Or, as Don Corleone in 'The Godfather' would recommend to agents and operatives if he sat in the State Department or the CIA: "Make it look like a democratic election." Maybe Corleone's best disciples are actually running the show after all.




- Adrian Salbuchi for RT


Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV commentator in Argentina.www.asalbuchi.com.ar

© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization "TV-Novosti", 2005 - 2011. All rights reserved
Philip
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Philip »

Hugo Chávez: Death of a socialist

http://www.thehindu.com/news/internatio ... 481169.ece
Arvind Sivaramakrishnan

Hugo Chávez interview to “The Hindu”: Oil a tool to achieve equality
An enthralling presence: John Cherian on Hugo Chávez’s Kolkata visit

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frias, President of Venezuela, who died on March 5, 2013 at the age of 58, was a defining figure in Latin American politics for 15 years, becoming almost synonymous with the popular tide that has elected and re-elected left and centre-left governments across the continent in that time.

A gifted orator who could hold an audience for hours, Mr. Chávez combined political courage with immense conviction and an extraordinary sense of destiny. Born to schoolteacher parents in Sabaneta in 1954, he qualified in military arts and sciences at the National Military Academy, became an officer in a paratrooper unit, and started his political career in the early 1980s by founding a secret organisation, the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement, which took its name from the Latin American independence leader Simón Bolivar. His first big move was an attempted military coup against the government of Carlos Andres Perez in 1992, for which he was imprisoned for two years before being pardoned.

Mr. Chávez, however, renamed his group the Movement of the Fifth Republic (which a decade later merged with other groups to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or PSUV) and won the 1998 presidential election on a socialist manifesto, promising millions relief from a system which had put oil wealth into luxurious lives for the rich and profits for the oil corporations.

Mr. Chávez removed corrupt military officers and started a national reform programme. Venezuela, according to the United States Department of Energy, has the world’s largest oil reserves at 1.36 trillion barrels, and the new president promptly nationalised the main oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), putting the profits into very effective social programmes. Carles Mutaner, Joan Benach, and Maria Paez Victor note that between 2000 and 2010, social spending increased by 61 per cent or $772 billion; the country has the region’s lowest level of inequality, with a reduction in its Gini coefficient of 54 per cent. Poverty is down from 71 per cent in 1996 to 21 now, and extreme poverty is down from 40 per cent to 7.3. The social programmes, or Misiones, he started have reached 20 million people, and 2.1 million have received senior citizens’ pensions, a sevenfold increase under Mr. Chávez.

Social parameters

The country has also cut food imports from 90 per cent to 30 per cent of its consumption, and has reduced child malnutrition from 7.7 per cent in 1990 to 5 today; infant mortality has declined from 25/1000 to 13 in the same period, and the country now has 58 doctors per 10,000 people (as against 18 in 1996). As many as 96 per cent of the population now have access to clean water, and with school attendance at 85 per cent, one in three Venezuelans is enrolled in free education up to and including university.

Oil royalties help. A 2001 law cut the sale price share of foreign companies from 84 to 70 per cent, and they now pay royalties of 16.6 per cent on Orinoco basin heavy crude; they used to pay 1 per cent earlier. Exxon and Conoco Philips rejected these terms, as Deepak Bhojwani notes in the Economic and Political Weekly (December 22, 2012), and were expelled, but Chevron stayed.

Mr. Chávez of course infuriated the mainly white elites, some of whom talked of him in racist terms, as well as the United States government and press, both of which have consistently vilified him in language bordering on the delusional. The State Department greeted the 2002 coup against Mr. Chávez by expressing solidarity with the Venezuelan people and looking forward to “working with all democratic forces in Venezuela.” The statement also said Mr. Chávez had dismissed the Vice-President and Cabinet. In fact it was the coup figurehead, Pedro Carmona Estanga, who, according to the Notable Names Database, dissolved the national assembly, disbanded the Supreme Court, closed the attorney-general’s and comptroller’s offices, and repealed 48 redistributive laws meant to help the poor.

Yet huge public support for Mr. Chávez meant the putschist regime collapsed within days. The President was reinstated, but the then U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice hectored him to “respect the constitution.” Greg Palast points out in The Progressive that the George W. Bush administration’s National Security Strategy of 2006 called him a demagogue out to undermine democracy and destabilise Venezuela.

The U.S. press dutifully played its part. In September 2012, the WorldNet columnist Drew Zahn called Mr. Chávez a “socialist dictator”, when the President was about to win a fourth successive election. All those elections were of far greater probity than the respective U.S. presidential elections of 2000 and 2004; this time Mr. Chávez won by 11 percentage points on a turnout of 80 per cent. Other U.S. media bodies have spread partial truths about the Caracas government, saying it bloats the public sector and lets the budget deficit spiral. In fact, as Mark Weisbrot notes in the Guardian, 18.4 per cent of Venezuela’s work force is in the public sector, in contrast to Norway’s 29 per cent, and its 2012 budget deficit, projected at 51.3 per cent of GDP, is lower than the European Union average of 82.5 per cent; inflation has declined too, from 27 per cent in 2010 to 19 per cent now. Weisbrot also points out that the New York Times — which welcomed the coup — has taken 14 years, longer even than other American media outfits, to publish any arguments for Mr. Chávez. Carles Mutaner and colleagues comment that U.S. analysts ask what Venezuela will do when the oil runs out, but do not ask that about other oil exporters like Saudi Arabia and Canada; neither do critics note that the country’s interest payments are only about 3 per cent of export earnings.

On oil

One of Washington’s problems is that, as Greg Palast recognises, Mr. Chávez kept oil revenues within Latin America; unlike Saudi Arabia, which buys U.S. treasury bills and other assets, Venezuela at one point withdrew $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve, and since 2007 has aided other Latin American countries with $36 billion, most of which has been repaid back. In effect, this supplants the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and possibly also its neoliberal fellow-crusader the World Bank. Even more unpalatably for Washington, Chávismo represents a clear political programme for pan-Latin American transformation, which Palast calls a close replica of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, with progressive income tax, public works, social security, and cheap electricity. For Bolivarians, such things are rights; they are even reminiscent of T.H. Marshall’s view that they are integral to substantive citizenship. Worst of all for U.S. regional hegemony, Mr. Chávez himself said Venezuela is no longer an oil colony, that it has regained its oil sovereignty, and that he wanted to replace the IMF with an International Humanitarian Bank based on cooperation; Uruguay already pays for Venezuelan oil with cows. Mr. Chávez wished the IMF and the World Bank would “disappear”, and his passionate concern for Latin American countries’ sovereignty made him a decisive figure in the 2011 creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).

Mr. Chávez could also be ruthless; in 2010 a military court sentenced his former key ally Raúl Isaias Baduel to just under eight years for embezzlement after a long-delayed trial, and Baduel is now banned from future political office, almost certainly because he criticised constitutional reforms which would allow a president more than two terms. Mr. Chávez was, however, no doctrinaire leader. Although a Christian, he criticised clerical collusion with the ancien régime, and did not accept the Church’s authority in politics. And though a socialist, his model even includes a respect for private property. He also thought seriously about political economy. Bhojwani notes that he favoured a form of 21st century socialism partly derived from the work of Heinz Dieterich Steffan. For Mr. Chávez, ethics, morality, cooperativism, and associationism make for strong public economic activity and in turn protect the equality which is essential to liberty. The Venezuelan electorate has repeatedly endorsed this; in the December 2012 gubernatorial elections — the first ones in 14 years in which Mr. Chávez himself did not campaign — his allies won 20 out of 23 states. After the President’s win in October, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had sent him a message saying, “Your victory is also ours.” Billions, and not only poor people, around the world would agree: Tu victoria es también la nuestra.

arvind.sivaramakrishnan@thehindu.co.in
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by disha »

Phillip ji, Thanks for starting this thread.

Pity Chavez died early. South America lost an icon and a challenger to the corporate run US of A.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Lilo »

RIP Chavez.

May many such rooted leaders come up across the world to challenge as Chavez did, the injustices and exploitation of the transnational networks controlled by the West .
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by pentaiah »

A good counter balance to hyper power in Latin America is gone
So do we return to the regimes of 1970s a la Argentina?

The lure of oil is always inviting via Columbia
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by ramana »

Philip, Chavez had dual persona:anti-exploitation and socialist.
Its the former that has to be looked at as the latter was a means to an end.

he didn't stand for any body else to exploit the Venezuelans.
Some in Miami are celebrating his demise.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

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http://www.indianexpress.com/news/hugo- ... /1084403/0

Hugo Chavez's successor Nicolas Maduro a devotee of Satya Sai Baba

Former bus driver and union leader Nicolas Maduro, successor to Hugo Chavez, is an ardent follower of Satya Sai Baba. One of Maduro's offices features a large portrait of the late spiritual guru, whom he and his wife, Cilia Flores, visited at Puttaparthi in Anantapur district in 2005.

Maduro followed a simple strategy when he filled in for cancer-stricken Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez over the past three months: copy his boss's policies, his style and even his fierce rhetoric.
I am beginning to like this man already
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by alexis »

RIP Chavez

hopefully, his legacy will be carried thru by his successors.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Austin »

Before he went for his Cancer treatement , Chavez mentioned that US exported cancer to his country and the new President has accused US of killing Chavez via Cancer.

Not surprising if CIA managed to do this targetted killing via biological agent its an easy way to bump off or remove people from active politics with much ease compared to other methods.

US would be very happy to see him gone.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by nachiket »

R.I.P Chavez.
Before he went for his Cancer treatement , Chavez mentioned that US exported cancer to his country and the new President has accused US of killing Chavez via Cancer.
:rotfl:
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by habal »

Plenty of Latin American leaders who have taken anti-US stance have fallen prey to Cancer. Same was the case with Arafat. So yes, it's very likely some they are exposed to some form of toxicity via food chain or other sources. Maybe their food is spiked on long term by radioactive content which induces cancer. It will be admitted in 40 yrs hence when a nondescript note from SD as classified data is released as old news.

http://www.ibtimes.com/hugo-chavez-one- ... rs-1113495

-----------------
Cancer accomplished what other strategies failed. Chavez said earlier:

"Would it be so strange that they've invented the technology to spread cancer and we won't know about it for 50 years?"

"Fidel always told me (to) take care. These people have developed technologies," he said.

"Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat. They inject you with I don't know what."
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Philip »

Whatever the truth,from its past record,Chavez would be "public enemy no.1 " on the CIA's hit list.Look at the many attempts tried to murder Castro,including a plot to blow him up with an exploding cigar! In fact they almost did assassinate Chavez in the failed coup attempt which brought the people out oto the streets who restored his rule.The disease AIDS has long been suspected of being a secret programme that escaped from the lab.Even the Oscar winning movie "ARGO" has in its introdution the history of US assassinations and the coup against Mossadegh and propping up their headman,the Shah.Also notice how many anti-US leders worldwide last out when compared with those in the west.It all can't be just the diet what?

Chavez's influence went beyong his country and the Americas.He was a truly global figure who has changed the plitical landscape of Latin America as Fidel once did. Former US pres.Jimmy Carter,who oversaw a few elections in Venezuela ,praised him in a tribute saying that he was truly interested in bettering the welfare of the poor and underpriviliged in his country.RIP Hugo C.You will be sorely missed.
Last edited by Philip on 07 Mar 2013 16:55, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Sachin »

Philip wrote:Chavez's nfluence went beyong his country and the Americas.He was atruly global figure who has changed the plitical landscape of Latin America as Fidel once did.RIP Hugo C.You will be sorely missed.
The commies in Kerala have been eulogising Hugo Chavez for quite some time. And to be honest, that gave a wrong picture of him to me. The commies generally worship dictators and mass murderers like Mao and Stalin. But looks like Chavez was a different man all together, and he brought in development and prosperity for his own country.

PS: Though the Kerala commie may happily accept an H1B VISA, he does like any one who can spite USA. Part of "respect Chavez" come from this as well.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by habal »

an hitherto unknown facet of Chavez's life was reprinted in today's ToI dakshin editions.
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez owes life to priest from India

A week ago, the leader of Cuba's Catholic Church held a mass in Havana to pray for the recovery of Venezuela's hardcore socialist President Hugo Chavez from cancer in the pelvic region.

The 57-year-old Chavez, who once famously blamed the Americans for the cancer that first struck him last year, said: "I will live! I will overcome!" Ironically, it was an Indian priest who helped Chavez overcome a decade ago another cancer that plagues many Latin American nations - a coup d'etat.

In 2002, Father Kuriakose Bharanikulangara found himself at the centre of the country's volatile politics. On the night of April 11, he was woken up by an insistent phone call. Bharanikulangara, then the charge d'affairs of the Vatican embassy in Caracas, had no idea that the man on the other end was embattled President Chavez facing a coup.

"It was the most striking experience in my career," Kerala-born Bharanikulangara who spent 18 years as a diplomat for the Roman Catholic Church in places as disparate as Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Congo and the UN, said.

Bharanikulangara has recently been appointed by the Pope as the first bishop of the newly formed Faridabad diocese, where he is set to oversee Syro- Malabar Christians across North India.

On that night in 2002, with Venezuela in the midst of mass protests against Chavez's Bolivarian regime, it was Bharanikulangara who literally saved Chavez's life.

As four military generals held him and his wife hostage in a room in the presidential palace, Chavez pleaded to speak to the Vatican ambassador. They relented and history changed thereafter. "From his voice I could make out that something serious must have happened," the priest said.

Through Bharanikulangara's mediation and help from Rome, Chavez could leave the presidential palace safely, guaranteeing him passage to a remote island. Representatives of the Catholic Church acted as personal custodians to Chavez - a former Lieutenant-Colonel who was first elected in 1998.

"I had to mediate with the military generals to help Chavez," Bharanikulangara said. The coup lasted for just 47 hours. As soon as the Generals took over, pro-Chavez protests broke out across the country. On the first day, the military rulers shot dead as many as 60 people, triggering an upheaval that forced the new government to recall Chavez.
"Sometimes you can really make a difference," Bharanikulangara said. "Timely responsible decisions" by the church prevented the crisis from getting out of hand.

Socialist Chavez has since had a discordant relationship with the Catholic Church, but "even today he will remember that we helped him that day", Bharanikulangara said.

Settling in to what is likely to be a more stable post as the head of the new diocese, Bharanikulangara said his time as a representative of the Vatican would add a lot to his new job based out of Faridabad - which covers the national capital region ( NCR) as well as the states of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu-Kashmir and parts of Uttar Pradesh.

"I have lived outside India for more than 24 years. I directly witnessed how communities are growing in a migrant background," Bharanikulangara said.

Among the countries where he got a chance to experience complex multi-faith backgrounds was the three years in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pres ... 77380.html

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pres ... 77380.html

also http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130307/n ... ved-chavez
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by RamaY »

My prayers to Sri Chavez's family and I pray that he returns to earth to continue his journey and continue empower the people wherever he is reborn.

I do not think Sri Chavez is a socialist as the western propaganda wants us to believe. He is a true bhumiputra and patriot who fought for two decades to defeat the colonial powers, mindset and ideology and succeeded in his project for his motherland.
1/ The country has also cut food imports from 90 per cent to 30 per cent of its consumption, and has reduced child malnutrition from 7.7 per cent in 1990 to 5 today; infant mortality has declined from 25/1000 to 13 in the same period, and the country now has 58 doctors per 10,000 people (as against 18 in 1996). As many as 96 per cent of the population now have access to clean water, and with school attendance at 85 per cent, one in three Venezuelans is enrolled in free education up to and including university.

2/ Other U.S. media bodies have spread partial truths about the Caracas government, saying it bloats the public sector and lets the budget deficit spiral. In fact, as Mark Weisbrot notes in the Guardian, 18.4 per cent of Venezuela’s work force is in the public sector, in contrast to Norway’s 29 per cent, and its 2012 budget deficit, projected at 51.3 per cent of GDP, is lower than the European Union average of 82.5 per cent; inflation has declined too, from 27 per cent in 2010 to 19 per cent now.

3/ One of Washington’s problems is that, as Greg Palast recognises, Mr. Chávez kept oil revenues within Latin America; unlike Saudi Arabia, which buys U.S. treasury bills and other assets, Venezuela at one point withdrew $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve, and since 2007 has aided other Latin American countries with $36 billion, most of which has been repaid back. In effect, this supplants the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and possibly also its neoliberal fellow-crusader the World Bank. Even more unpalatably for Washington, Chávismo represents a clear political programme for pan-Latin American transformation, which Palast calls a close replica of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, with progressive income tax, public works, social security, and cheap electricity. For Bolivarians, such things are rights; they are even reminiscent of T.H. Marshall’s view that they are integral to substantive citizenship. Worst of all for U.S. regional hegemony, Mr. Chávez himself said Venezuela is no longer an oil colony, that it has regained its oil sovereignty, and that he wanted to replace the IMF with an International Humanitarian Bank based on cooperation; Uruguay already pays for Venezuelan oil with cows. Mr. Chávez wished the IMF and the World Bank would “disappear”, and his passionate concern for Latin American countries’ sovereignty made him a decisive figure in the 2011 creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).
Narayana, Narayana, Narayana!
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by CRamS »

Amazing how US is a democracy at home, and but a street thug and dictator abroad. I mean, Chavez may have had his faults, but it is so disgusting that US picks fights with these small country rulers even as majority of the people there are opposed to US intervention.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by CRamS »

habal wrote:Plenty of Latin American leaders who have taken anti-US stance have fallen prey to Cancer. Same was the case with Arafat. So yes, it's very likely some they are exposed to some form of toxicity via food chain or other sources. Maybe their food is spiked on long term by radioactive content which induces cancer. It will be admitted in 40 yrs hence when a nondescript note from SD as classified data is released as old news.
And some dork or dorkette will the win the Pulitzer prize for that. Having said that, while there may be some statistical correlation, such a theory can be dismissed as a conspiracy. Tough to find any evidence. But make no mistake, US is very sure of its manifest destiny, its role in the world, its essential goodness, its cultural/moral/racial superiority, that any such diabolical act would be justified as a necessary undertaking from God's calling in pursuit of his mission.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Klaus »

Sanku wrote:Former bus driver and union leader Nicolas Maduro, successor to Hugo Chavez, is an ardent follower of Satya Sai Baba.
Very coincidental match with a southern Indian movie star, humble beginnings with strong spiritual underpinnings.

One could say that HC had taken forward Simon Bolivar's vision and legacy forward, he seems to have ensured that it will continue into its next iteration as well. They seem to have a strong streak of returnism, one which has parallels in the Indic of yore.

I'm somewhat convinced of the 'left-of-center producing men of action' stance of Atri ji in another thread.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by gunjur »

Chavistas begin search for Latin America's next 'Comandante'
--------------------------------------------------------------

Chavez's death sparks angst among allies used to deeply discounted oil
Cubans remember the so-called Special Period of the 1990s, when the Soviet Union's sudden collapse plunged the island into years of economic depression, with cars and buses disappearing from the streets for lack of fuel and rolling blackouts leaving the capital in darkness.

Now Cubans fear a return of hard times following the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose billions of dollars of oil largesse helps the island's economy function. Some Havana residents were even talking about hoarding candles on Wednesday.
More than a dozen other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, many of them economic minnows, have benefited to the tune of billions of dollars from the Petrocaribe pact that was created in 2005 with the goal of unifying the regional oil industry under Venezuelan leadership and countering U.S. influence.

Cuba alone receives about 92,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil a day to meet half its consumption needs, worth around $3.2 billion a year, according to an estimate by University of Texas energy analyst Jorge Pinon.

Havana pays about half the bill through a barter exchange in which tens of thousands of doctors, teachers and other advisers provide services in Venezuela. The rest goes into 25-year credits with 1 percent interest.

Nicaragua, perhaps the second-most dependent on Venezuelan oil after Cuba, gets nearly all its 12 million barrels a year from Caracas, worth about $1.2 billion,
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by pentaiah »

CRamS wrote:Amazing how US is a democracy at home, and but a street thug and dictator abroad. I mean, Chavez may have had his faults, but it is so disgusting that US picks fights with these small country rulers even as majority of the people there are opposed to US intervention.

Unlike US where there was effort to dis enfranchise some , he allowed every ex pat to vote, people from Miami went to Venuzuvela and vote for him or against


Banana Wars
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Banana Wars

United States Marines taking control of Fort Riviere during the occupation of Haiti in 1915
Objective Protect United States interests in Central America
Date 1898–1934
Executed by United States

Banana Wars
The Banana Wars were a series of occupations, police actions, and interventions involving the United States in Central America and the Caribbean. This period started with the Spanish-American War in 1898[1] and the subsequent Treaty of Paris, which gave the United States control of Cuba and Puerto Rico.
Between the time of the war with Spain and 1934, the United States conducted military operations and occupations in Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. The series of conflicts ended with the withdrawal of troops from Haiti and President Franklin D. Roosevelt




United States Marines with the captured flag of Augusto César Sandino of Nicaragua in 1932
Reasons for these conflicts were varied but largely economic in nature. The conflicts were called "Banana Wars", a term that arose from the connections between these interventions and the preservation of American commercial interests in the region.
Most prominently, the United Fruit Company had significant financial stakes in production of bananas, tobacco, sugar cane, and various other products throughout the Caribbean, Central America and Northern South America.
The U.S. was also advancing its political interests, maintaining a sphere of influence and controlling the Panama Canal which it had recently built, critically important to global trade and naval power.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by RamaY »

The vultures start their games...

Hugo Chavez leaves Venezuela in economic muddle
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Supratik »

It seems outside India many in the left are deeply nationalistic. Then why the malaise in the Indian left?
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by RamaY »

^ My theory...

Only India has the majority people following a non-abrahamic faith.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by svinayak »

CRamS wrote:Amazing how US is a democracy at home, and but a street thug and dictator abroad. I mean, Chavez may have had his faults, but it is so disgusting that US picks fights with these small country rulers even as majority of the people there are opposed to US intervention.
US is particularly worried about Venuzuela giving access to Russian military and navy in their region and close quarters to North/Central america. One massa person connected to the agency was almost howling during 2009 how Russian navy come to Venezuela and the north american and central american waters. This is against the Monroe doctrine and it has been broken by Chavez.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Sushupti »

@Javedakhtarjadu
In Hugo Chavez we have lost a man who was born to be the leader of men Brave, gutsy . Savior of the poor. Always called a spade a spade


I hope he will have guts to say the same while delivering his speech at WIEF Wharton.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Agnimitra »

Supratik wrote:It seems outside India many in the left are deeply nationalistic. Then why the malaise in the Indian left?
Do you mean there are not nationalists in the Indian Left? If so, I beg to disagree. There are quite a few of them, especially among the rank and file. But the thing is, everything about them, including their nationalism, is driven by a compulsive identification with the "underdog" along with an "us versus them" mentality. So they are nationalistic about India as long as India is seen as a recovering colony fighting back against imperialism, etc. Within India, however, they feel the need to identify with "low caste" against "high caste", or "minority" against "majority", etc. They are a confused lot, because they are driven by an emotional tone that is fairly low - angry and self-righteous. Many of them can be converted to a Dharmic Left with a little work and patience.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Philip »

One paper today gave the manes/pics of 6 Latin Am. leaders ,who have opposed US interference in their affairs who in recent times have suffered from cancer.Most of them are slowly recovering.They include Argentina's Kirchner,Brazil's Lula,etc.

6 Latin American Leaders Who Criticised US Policies Fall Ill Of Cancer Simultaneously

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/20 ... 85298.html
Russian Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov today demanded an international investigation into the death of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, claiming it was “far from a coincidence” that six leaders of Latin-American countries who had criticized the U.S. simultaneously fell ill with cancer.

“How did it happen that six leaders of Latin American countries which had criticized US policies and tried to create an influential alliance in order to be independent and sovereign states, fell ill simultaneously with the same disease?” Zyuganov told Russian state television, urging an investigation under “international control” into Chavez’s death.

Zyuganov is accurate so far as his claim that six Latin-American leaders were diagnosed with cancer within a relatively close period of time, most notably Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in December 2012, although later analysis proved that she had never actually suffered from the illness.

Current Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo, and the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have all been hit with cancer in the last few years. In 2006 it was also reported that retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro was also diagnosed with cancer.

latin american leaders cancer

Zyuganov’s comments follow similar rhetoric by Venezuelan Vice President Madurs, who in the hours before the announcement of Chavez’ death accused “the historical enemies of our homeland” of being responsible for Chavez’ cancer, claiming that Yasser Arafat had also been “inoculated with an illness.”

Hugo Chavez himself once speculated that the United States had a cancer weapon after being diagnosed with the disease in 2011. “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented the technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?” he stated.

“Fidel [Castro] always told me, ‘Chávez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat … a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what,’ Chavez added.

The fact that Chavez was almost certainly the target of numerous CIA assassination plots has bolstered the belief amongst some that his cancer could have been surreptitiously induced as a means of unseating Chavez from power, successfully achieving what a 2002 coup failed to accomplish.

Source: http://www.infowars.com/russian-leader- ... vez-death/
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Supratik »

Carl wrote: Do you mean there are not nationalists in the Indian Left? If so, I beg to disagree. There are quite a few of them, especially among the rank and file. But the thing is, everything about them, including their nationalism, is driven by a compulsive identification with the "underdog" along with an "us versus them" mentality. So they are nationalistic about India as long as India is seen as a recovering colony fighting back against imperialism, etc. Within India, however, they feel the need to identify with "low caste" against "high caste", or "minority" against "majority", etc. They are a confused lot, because they are driven by an emotional tone that is fairly low - angry and self-righteous. Many of them can be converted to a Dharmic Left with a little work and patience.

If you are talking about leftist supporters then yes, many are nationalists but take up anti-national positions through direction of higher authorities or sheer brainwashing. About the leadership I am yet to find one. The Indian left in the US has been in cahoots with anti-Indian and anti-Hindu forces for close to three decades. That has been the general experience.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by rajanb »

Vaya con Dios, Hugo Chavez, mi Amigo

By Greg Palast, Vice Magazine


08 March 13


In 2005, Reverend Pat Robertson - channelling the frustration of George W Bush's State Department, said, "Hugo Chavez thinks we're trying to assassinate him. I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."


Despite Bush's providing intelligence, funds and even a note of congratulations to the crew who kidnapped Chavez (we'll get there), Hugo remained in office, re-elected and wildly popular.


But why the Bush regime's hate, hate, HATE of the President of Venezuela? Reverend Pat wasn't coy about the answer: It's the oil.


"This is a dangerous enemy to our South controlling a huge pool of oil."


A really BIG pool of oil. Indeed, according to Guy Caruso, former chief of oil intelligence for the CIA, Venezuela hold a recoverable reserve of 1.36 trillion barrels - a whole lot more than Saudi Arabia.


If we didn't kill Chavez, we'd have to do an "Iraq" on his nation. So the Reverend suggests, "We don't need another $200 billion war... It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."


Chavez himself told me he was stunned by Bush's attacks: Chavez had been quite chummy with Bush Senior and with Bill Clinton.


So what suddenly made Chavez "a dangerous enemy"? Just after Bush's inauguration in 2001, Chavez' congress voted in a new "Law of Hydrocarbons." Henceforth, Exxon, British Petroleum, Shell Oil and Chevron would get to keep 70 percent of the sales revenues from the crude they sucked out of Venezuela. Not bad, considering the price of oil was rising towards $100 a barrel.


But to the oil companies, which had bitch-slapped Venezeula's prior government into giving them 84 percent of the sales price, a cut to 70 percent was "no bueno". Worse, Venezuela had been charging a joke of a royalty - just one percent - on "heavy" crude from the Orinoco Basin. Chavez told Exxon and friends they'd now have to pay 16.6 percent.


Clearly, Chavez had to be taught a lesson about the etiquette of dealings with Big Oil.


On April 11, 2002, President Chavez was kidnapped at gunpoint and flown to an island prison in the Caribbean Sea. On April 12, Pedro Carmona, a business partner of the US oil companies and president of the nation's Chamber of Commerce, declared himself President of Venezuela - giving a whole new meaning to the term, "corporate takeover".


US Ambassador Charles Shapiro immediately rushed down from his hilltop embassy to have his picture taken grinning with the self-proclaimed "President" and the leaders of the coup d'état.


Bush's White House spokesman admitted that Chavez was, "democratically elected", but, he added, "Legitimacy is something that is conferred not by just the majority of voters." I see.


With an armed and angry citizenry marching on the Presidential Palace in Caracas ready to string up the coup plotters, Carmona, the Pretend President from Exxon, returned his captive Chavez back to his desk within 48 hours. (How? Get The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, the film, expanding on my reports for BBC Television. You can download it for free for the next few days.)


Chavez had provoked the coup not just by clawing back some of the bloated royalties of the oil companies. It's what he did with that oil money that drove Venezuela's One Percent to violence.


In Caracas, I ran into the reporter for a TV station whose owner is generally credited with plotting the coup against the president. While doing a publicity photo shoot, leaning back against a tree, showing her wide-open legs nearly up to where they met, the reporter pointed down the hill to the "ranchos", the slums above Caracas, where shacks, once made of cardboard and tin, were quickly transforming into homes of cinder blocks and cement.


"He [Chavez] gives them bread and bricks, so they vote for him, of course." She was disgusted by "them", the 80 percent of Venezuelans who are negro e indio (Black and Indian) - and poor. Chavez, himself negro e indio, had, for the first time in Venezuela's history, shifted the oil wealth from the privileged class that called themselves "Spanish", to the dark-skinned masses.


While trolling around the poor housing blocks of Caracas, I ran into a local, Arturo Quiran, a merchant seaman and no big fan of Chavez. But over a beer at his kitchen table, he told me, "Fifteen years ago under [then-President] Carlos Andrés Pérez, there was a lot of oil money in Venezuela. The ‘oil boom', we called it. Here in Venezuela there was a lot of money, but we didn't see it."


But then came Hugo Chavez, and now the poor in his neighbourhood, he said, "get medical attention, free operations, X-rays, medicines; education also. People who never knew how to write now know how to sign their own papers."


Chavez' Robin Hood thing, shifting oil money from the rich to the poor, would have been grudgingly tolerated by the US. But Chavez, who told me, "We are no longer an oil colony," went further... too much further, in the eyes of the American corporate elite.


Venezuela had landless citizens by the millions - and unused land by the millions of acres tied up, untilled, on which a tiny elite of plantation owners squatted. Chavez' congress passed in a law in 2001 requiring untilled land to be sold to the landless. It was a programme long promised by Venezuela's politicians at the urging of John F Kennedy as part of his "Alliance for Progress".


Plantation owner Heinz Corporation didn't like that one bit. In retaliation, Heinz closed its ketchup plant in the state of Maturin and fired all the workers. Chavez seized Heinz' plant and put the workers back on the job. Chavez didn't realise that he'd just squeezed the tomatoes of America's powerful Heinz family and Mrs. Heinz' husband, Senator John Kerry, now US Secretary of State.


Or, knowing Chavez as I do, he didn't give a damn.


Chavez could survive the ketchup coup, the Exxon "presidency", even his taking back a piece of the windfall of oil company profits, but he dangerously tried the patience of America's least forgiving billionaires: The Koch Brothers.


Elected presidents who annoy Big Oil have ended up in exile - or coffins: Mossadegh of Iran after he nationalised BP's fields (1953), Elchibey, President of Azerbaijan, after he refused demands of BP for his Caspian fields (1993), President Alfredo Palacio of Ecuador after he terminated Occidental's drilling concession (2005).


"It's a chess game, Mr. Palast," Chavez told me. He was showing me a very long, and very sharp sword once owned by Simon Bolivar, the Great Liberator. "And I am," Chavez said, "a very good chess player."


In the film The Seventh Seal, a medieval knight bets his life on a game of chess with the Grim Reaper. Death cheats, of course, and takes the knight. No mortal can indefinitely outplay Death who, last night, checkmated the new Bolivar of Venezuela.


But in one last move, the Bolivarian grandmaster played a brilliant endgame, naming Vice-President Nicolas Maduro, as good and decent a man as they come, as heir to the fight for those in the "ranchos". The One Percent of Venezuela, planning on Chavez's death to return them the power and riches they couldn't win in an election, are livid with the choice of Maduro.


Chavez sent Maduro to meet me in my downtown New York office back in 2004. In our run-down detective digs on Second Avenue, Maduro and I traded information on assassination plots and oil policy.


Even then, Chavez was carefully preparing for the day when Venezuela's negros e indios would lose their king - but still stay in the game.


Class war on a chessboard. Even in death, I wouldn't bet against Hugo Chavez.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Supratik »

Also we should look at Chavez from the point of view of native Americans versus the white, exploitative, colonial elite that rules much of latin America and have virtually taken over Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Philip »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... oning.html

Venezuela launches inquiry into Hugo Chavez 'poisoning'
Venezuela will set up a formal inquiry into claims that deceased president Hugo Chavez's cancer was the result of poisoning by his enemies abroad.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Suppiah »

Wasnt he dropping hints that he's the mahdi himself? May be they have different laws
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Gerard »

If Maduro wins, he may be forced out after a few months. He doesn't have the charisma of Chavez and the economic and social problems Venezuela faces would overwhelm any leader. There were 21,692 murders last year, 19,336 the previous year. This rate (73 murders per 100,000 people, 200 per 100,000 in Caracas alone) is the highest in South America. By comparison, Pakistan has a murder rate of 7 per 100,000.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Pranav »

It's good that Venezuela is not a banana republic relying on voting machines with non-verifiable foreign installed software. Some day India may learn from them.
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Re: Chavez .Venezuela/S.America's Socialist icon dies

Post by Gerard »

Venezuelan candidate Maduro puts curse on rival voters
The acting president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has put a curse on citizens who do not vote for him in next week's election.

He likened his main rival candidate, Henrique Capriles, to Spanish conquerors fighting indigenous people in the 16th Century.

A centuries-old curse, he said, would fall on those who did not vote for him.

Mr Capriles responded by saying the only curse for Venezuelans would be if Mr Maduro won the election.
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