I read, with some interest, and no little sadness, about the death of Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela earlier this week. It might seem a strange thing to say, considering the way that he’s been villified as an enemy to democracy, but I actually think that, in order to approximate the truth, we need to dig a little bit deeper.
One of the more interesting articles appeared on the HuffPost here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/chavezs-legacy_n_2821220.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
It’s well worth a look, and especially so for all the comments below, where it appears there are almost an equal number of Chavez supporters and denigrators. Generally, Chavez is presented in the (mostly US and US-led) media as being a dictator – locking up television station workers, refusing his opponents the right to speak out, devaluing democracy and building and maintaining links with ‘dangerous’ governments and organisations. In addition, he has supposedly amassed a personal fortune of more than $2 billion, all the while advocating that he was an ‘apostle for the poor.’
But here’s the thing: sure, we know that Venezuela’s wealth is based on oil, but in the time that Chavez was president, the following things happened (from the HuffPost article): Since his election, Venezuela’s GDP has tripled, unemployment has been cut in half, poverty reduced by a third, extreme poverty reduced to 10%, the gap between rich and poor reduced. On a social level, Chavism, with the help of petrodollars, has cut illiteracy in half, reduced infant mortality and increased life expectancy. And many Venezuelans credit him for these achievements.
Many other developing countries should be so lucky. By any measure, a country that has invested that much in people’s future prosperity should be lauded as a successful democratic nation – and don’t forget, Chavez was democratically elected a number of times – and those elections have as much veracity as others in ‘more developed’ democracies. Bush’s election comes to mind.
Assuming that these figures are real, and there’s no reason to think otherwise, is Chavez and Venezuela’s only crime their refusal to bow to the overt diplomatic pressure of the US? After all, we all know that the US has a long history of meddling in Latin America, and once the vast reservoirs of oil are thrown in, it’s hardly surprising that the US takes such an interest in Chavez. By refusing to kowtow to US pressures – and actively seeking out non US interests like Cuba and Iran, has Chavez given the US the right to interfere with his country? The US has, I don’t think, ever needed that right -they’d interfere – and they have – if they felt it was in the best interests of their own state.
I think Chavez’s only fault is that he’s been too successful – he has proven that there is another model of government to that of the US. And the fact that it’s been branded by others as a form of socialism or even Marxism has filled people with fear.