Hugo Chavez - Democracy or not - News analysis

According to Peter Baker of the Washington Post, President Bush is on his way to Latin America to reassure the region that the U.S. is committed to what Bush calls "social justice" for the impoverished neighbors of the United States. In most of the articles about Bush's trip Hugo Chavez' name continues to appear as the nemesis to the Bush Administration. The U.S. corporate press uses such adjectives as leftist, firebrand, socialist, authoritarian, anti-semitist and dictator to describe Chavez. Also it seems clear that Chavez is anti-Bush as he has helped to orchestrate and has showed up at a number of rallies in Brazil and Uruguay protesting Bush and his attempt to sway public opinion about the U.S.
So why is Chavez so angry with the Bush administration? According to Greg Palast of the Progressive who interviewed Chavez in July 2006 states that the Bush administration supported the coup attempt in 2002. Also in the last election the main opposition group, Sumate of which the two founders of the nongovernmental organization which led the recall campaign against Chavez, faces eight years in prison for taking money from the Bush Administration and the International Republican (Party) Institute. No nation permits foreign funding of political campaigns. The National Security Strategy of the United States says "In Venezuela a demagogue (Chavez)awash in oil money is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region." And now with John Negroponte as Deputy Secretary of State increased U.S. covert operations are sure to escalate not only in Venezuela but in other Latin American countries which want to remain free from U.S. domination. And the reason for this is Negroponte as ambassador to Honduras helped run the contra war in Nicaragua in the 1980s which murdered thousands of innocent civilians in Honduras and Nicaragua. Since Condoleezza Rice has little expertise in Latin American Negroponte will set policy for the region.

So why does the Bush administration want Chavez out of office? According to the U.S. Department of Energy Venezuela has five times the oil reserves that Saudi Arabia has and its not the oil Bush needs, its the oil dollars to fund the $2 trillion in national debt. Chavez has in fact withdrawn $20 billion dollars from the U.S. Federal Reserve and has lent or committed like funds to Argentina, Ecuador and other Latin American countries. He wants nationalism for Latin America. An axis of South American nations comprised of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador are intent on implementing profound social reforms at home and opposing U.S. intervention in the region. Correa of Ecuador has announced that he will be closing the U.S. base at Manta.

So what has Chavez been doing to help Venezuela and other Latin American countries? In Palast's interview, Chavez states that up until seven years ago, Venezuela was a u.S. oil colony with all of the oil going up to the north and the gas was being used by the U.S. and not by us. Now we sell to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and some Central American Countries, Uruguay, Argentina. He has even donated gas to the Bronx. He believes in fair commerce not free trade. He also offered to help after the disaster of Katrina with dropping his price per barrel to $50 versus OPEC's $75 a barrel. Of course that offer was flatly rejected by the Bush administration. He has established an international humanitarian fund with the oil revenues. He would like to replace the World Bank whose president is Paul Wolfowitz, a known PNAC and NeoCon, and the International Monetary Fund with this International Humanitarian Fund that is an alternative way to conduct financial exchange. An example given was Venezuela sends oil to Uruguay for their refinery and they pay Venezuela with cows. This is being down with Argentina as well and also the transfer of technology - medical or software. Chavez has requested that all the foreign oil companies pay back taxes for using their oil and land and their contracts are not being renewed until they make restitution. According to the Center of Economic and Policy Research, it appears that household poverty in Venezuela has dropped nearly 5 percentage points 12.9% from 42.8% in 1999 when Chavez took office.
Health care is now provided to 54% of Venezuelans and he has instituted a progressive income tax, public works, social security and cheap electricity which is why he has become so popular with the poor. His popularity wanes with the old white elite who do not want to share their oil wealth.
So in order for the Bush administration to continue its world domination it needs the Venezuelan oil reserves and the only way that is going to happen is by removing Chavez from office and putting in a figure head that can be dominated by the U.S. And the only way Chavez can survive is to build a coalition of Latin American countries that can defend against the U.S. covert operations that we have become known for and to get the world's attention on what is happening. This story will be continued.