Venezuela: divisions harden after Chavez victory

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 3, 2004 by Bart Jones

Even if the Catholic University figures are accurate, Chavez supporters assert that the missions have offset much of the economic downturn. The United Nations says life expectancy has increased under Chavez from 72.8 years to 73.7 years; infant mortality has dropped slightly and literacy has risen from 90.9 percent to 92.9 percent.

Many people in the slums told NCR that they don't feel their lives are worse under Chavez, and actually are much better. "He's the only president who has fought for the poor," said Rosa Gonzales, 43, who lives in a tin shack in one of the poorest barrios in Caracas, Nueva Tacagua. Many of her neighbors said they were going to vote for the first time in their lives in the referendum.

Even critics who question the effectiveness of his programs acknowledge his brilliance at connecting with the poor masses. "The man speaks the language of the poor," said Peraza. "The man touches the souls of the poor."

Like all of Venezuela, the Jesuits themselves are divided over Chavez, who grew up in a mud hut and is dark-skinned like most poor Venezuelans, in contrast to the light-skinned elite. Fr. Miguel Matos, a prominent leader of Venezuela's popular movement in the barrios, says he believes the Chavez project, while not perfect, overall is positive.

He says that in contrast to recent Venezuelan presidents who were corrupt, alcoholic or womanizers, Chavez is a role model of a teetotaling, personally honest, hard-working leader (he sleeps as little as three or four hours a night and works seven days a week). Matos adds that given Venezuela's culture of corruption and other national idiosyncrasies such as putting recreation first and work second, any reform project will be difficult to wage and flawed from the beginning.

Opponents march freely

To Chavez supporters, one of the most searing and widely reported accusations about his project--that he is installing a communist dictatorship--is absurd. Opponents freely march by the hundreds of thousands in the streets. Critics openly call for coups on television, including some generals who declared themselves in open rebellion against Chavez during a months-long occupation of the Plaza Altamira in upscale Altamira. None of them or the leaders of the 2002 coup or the leaders of the oil strike went to jail.

"What would happen in the United States if a group of active generals in the army organized a coup against the president of the republic?" asked Lander. "Would they have been let free as if nothing happened?"

"Can you imagine that in the United States a group of active generals install themselves in a plaza and declare themselves in disobedience to the president of the United States and this goes on for months and nothing happens?"

Even some of Chavez's fiercest critics who are concerned about his autocratic tendencies concede that allegations that he is installing a Cuba-type dictatorship are Far-fetched. "This is not a dictatorship," said Petkoff, the former guerrilla leader. "It's a country with a president who is authoritarian, personalist, a caudillo, but in the end a democratic country."