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American People must Look beyond what Media Publish about Venezuela

February 1, 2008
If we read journals and watch TV in the U.S., we are told that the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is a “dictator, an authoritarian, an anti-American and a threaten for democracy” in his own country and region. But leaders who try to represent poor people’s voice are generally discredited by the media and hated by those who are in power.

Nowadays, we celebrate in the name of Martin Luther King, Jr., but when King led demonstrations in the suburbs of Chicago or denounced Vietnam War, the media treated him bad as they do with Chávez. In addition, King was seriously threatened and blackmailed by the FBI.

The idea that Venezuela is authoritarian or dictatorial under Chávez’s government is absurd. The people that have visited the country during the last nine years can corroborate it. Most Venezuelan media oppose the government, more than in the rest of the world (including the United States). Chávez and his allies have won ten elections and the most important have all been proved by international observers. Last month, Chávez lost a referendum that would have eliminated the limit of terms of office that any president can rule. It would also have ratified a movement towards “the XXI Century Socialism.”

It is about “socialism” that respects private property and the private sector whose participation in the current economy is the higher than before Chávez took power.

Nevertheless, after loosing for a tiny difference, Chávez accepted the results immediately and last Sunday he announced a change in the policy in accordance to the demands of the people. He said that the government will lessen its efforts to reach a political change and it would concentrate on solving some important problems such as crime and public services.

The relations with Chávez, Bush administration and the rest of the world are often mistaken. The common description of the U.S. role in the coup détat that got Chávez out of power in 2002 is that they offered a “tactical support.” But “tactical support” is what Bush’s administration gave to the oil strike of pro-opposition sectors in 2002-2003; which devastated the economy in order to overthrow the Venezuelan government.

In fact, according to the U.S. Department, Bush administration financed opposition leaders who were involved in the April 2002 coup détat. Officers of the White House and the State Department also lied during the military coup, trying to convince the people that the change of government was legal.

According to U.S. documents, instead of apologizing because of supporting these acts to overthrow the government and destabilize Venezuelan democracy, Bush’s administration kept on financing additional pro-opposition efforts and still does it today; including the recent student movement in Venezuela.

Chávez is not the only target of Bush administration in the region. Just a week ago, Evo Morales, the first indigenous President in Bolivia, denounced again Washington’s support to the right-wing forces in Bolivia. Most of Latin America countries including Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay have center-left governments that understand that the hostility of Bush’s administration towards Venezuela represents a reaction before the loss the illegal power over sovereign peoples, considered by the U.S. as their “backyard”. Even the Brazilian President Lula Da Silva has supported Venezuela.

In Venezuela, the economy (the GDP) has increase up to 87% since the government took the control of its national oil industry by early 2003. Poverty has been reduced to a half, most of the population can access health services and school for free. Venezuelan people have elected Chávez several times for the same reasons the U.S. people are preferring Barack Obama. They see a representative of hope and change in that country.

(By Mark Weisbrot/ MinCI, Venezuela)
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