Venezuela: divisions harden after Chavez victory

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 3, 2004 by Bart Jones

Yet to his detractors, Chavez is nothing more than a messianic demagogue in the tradition of Argentine caudillo or strongman Juan Peron, offering short-term gratification to the poor masses through programs that are poorly run and will collapse when the oil money runs out. Peraza and fellow Jesuit Jose Virtuoso believe Chavez has failed to attack the major systemic problems plaguing Venezuela such as a corrupt judicial system, one of the most bloated government bureaucracies in Latin America, and rising crime and poverty rates.

An often-cited study by the Jesuit-run Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas says poverty and critical poverty have leaped by nearly 20 percent each, to 74 percent and 40 percent of the population, during Chavez's five years in power. Economist Robert Bottome says the bolivar has lost 71 percent of its value since 1999, while accumulated inflation is 187 percent. Former Caracas police chief Ivan Simonovis states that Caracas suffered 25,000 homicides in the last five years.

"The government of Chavez has been a bad government," said Virtuoso, a political scientist at the Jesuit-rim think tank Centro Gumilla.

Chavez's defects go beyond bad government, though, according to some critics who contend he is authoritarian or even imposing a communist dictatorship in Venezuela modeled after his friend Fidel Castro. They say Chavez is packing the Supreme Court with allies, intimidating the news media and seizing control of the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, one of the top four suppliers of oil to the United States. "Of course he's a communist," said Rodriguez, the businessman who now lives part-time in West Palm Beach.

But to Chavez's supporters, the accusations are driven by one basic fact: The poor have taken power in Venezuela for the frost time in the country's history, and the moneyed classes who live in gated mansions and travel to Miami for weekend shopping excursions don't like it.

"For the affluent sectors of the country the problem is not that there is poverty," said Edgardo Lander, a Harvard-educated political scientist at the Central University of Venezuela. "The problem is that the poor are organizing and mobilizing. And that signifies a threat of the 'dangerous classes.' The dangerous classes are dangerous if they mobilize, if they act, if they demand."

Lander likens the situation to a high-society party of "the white people, the refined people, the people who know how to speak well, who know how to hold the crystal cups to drink wine. Suddenly, into the party barge some people who don't have manners, who are poorly dressed, who haven't taken a bath and smell bad. They grab the food with their hands. They create the sensation they are taking over the country."

Chavez backers contend that if the economy is not doing well, it's because the opposition has destabilized the country by launching the failed 2002 coup against Chavez, the illegal two-month oil strike in December 2002 at a cost of $10 billion, and the constant street protests. Now that the opposition has resorted to democratic means to try to oust Chavez, the economy is rebounding and is expected to lead Latin America this year with 12 percent growth.