Yet in many ways the worst news coming out of Venezuela is about economic and social decline the country is going through as a result of the Chavez regime. Draconian policies which may seem well intentioned are leading to problems throughout society, while efforts to reduce poverty seem to have utterly failed. All of the country's vast petrochemical wealth which Chavez promised to use to alleviate the suffering of the pot is instead going into the pockets of a new class of corrupt officials and favored businesses in a system which looks a lot more like fascism than Bolivarian socialism.
The combination of land redistribution and price controls has totally disrupted Venezuela's economy with effects which are particularly bad for the rural and urban poor. Being given land seized from agro-businesses may seem great for small farmers, but it doesn't do much good if the government sets artificially low prices for basic produce which are so low that you cannot sell staples like milk and eggs without taking a loss. And other farm products aren't worth growing either because importers with government connections can bring those products in from outside the country and undercut the price you'd have to charge. The result is that the shelves of markets in Venezuela are filled with imported luxury goods which the average citizen cannot afford and they don't have basic staples like milk or eggs or other locally produced goods because farmers can't afford to sell them. So the poor go without, the farmers don't farm, once productive land lies fallow and importers grow fat off of government policies.
Despite all of Chavez' claims of reform and wealth redistribution the sad reality is that Venezuela's GINI rating which represents the gap between rich and poor has gotten worse, not better, from .44 to .48 under Chavez' rule. Wealth has been redistributed, just not to the poor. It's been taken from the old bourgeoisie and redistributed to a new ultra-wealthy class referred to as 'Boligarchs' or the 'boliburguesía'. Venezuela's new rich make their money off of government contracts, trade monopolies and pure corruption from within the government. Corruption is widespread, with Venezuela ranked as the second most corrupt nation in the Americas right behind Haiti, and as the 17th most corrupt nation in the entire world. Nothing gets done without a bribe and government officials and their relatives grow fat off of petrodollars and criminal graft.
In this atmosphere of corruption, it's hardly surprising that Venezuela is turning into the organized crime center of the region. Criminal gangs increasingly rule the streets, granted impunity because of their informal alliance with the Chavez regime which needs their strong-arm manpower. Criminal organizations from nearby countries like Colombian drug cartels, gun runners, blood diamond merchants, terrorist groups, white slavers, prostitution rings and kidnap extortionists have all begun to move to Venezuela because it's so easy to buy off the authorities, the ports and borders are wide open, and no one seems to care what you do so long as you bring money into the country and line the right pockets. Since Chavez has been in power the amount of cocaine shipped through Venezuela has increased from 75 tons a year to 276 tons a year. The whole criminal world seems to be flocking there. If you need an Iranian missile, a Chinese AK-47, an illegal African diamond, a Philipina slave girl for your harem or a kilo of Colombian cocaine, Venezuela is the place to shop for it. In the last four years the Chavez government has shown virtually no interest in controlling internal crime or international criminal traffic through the country and turning a blind eye has made many officials hugely wealthy.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - brian
Dave: 'I've written enough stories about Venezuela and Hugo Chavez' slow march towards totalitarianism'
and thats all they are Dave, stories by an obsessed fanatic.
2 - brian
Dave: 'Most people seem to have made up their minds about Chavez, either against him or for him despite all the evidence, so they probably aren't listening anyway.'
You need to read your own writing...YOUVE made up your mind, and invent stories to fill up that empty space.
en eg:
'Despite all of Chavez' claims of reform and wealth redistribution the sad reality is that Venezuela's GINI rating which represents the gap between rich and poor has gotten worse, not better, from .44 to .48 under Chavez' rule. Wealth has been redistributed, just not to the poor.'
This is real desperation....its also completely bogus, as is your link:
'Problem with link
Unfortunately the link you have requested on Economist.com is not valid.
If you followed this link from another website, you may wish to inform the referring site that link is invalid.'
HAhahaha
3 - Lapdog
Why worry about Chavez in Venezuela when there's a crazy gang of thugs in the White House?
I mean get serious for a moment.
Bush and his gang are war criminals but you're freaking out about Chavez who's only crime is trying to give the poor in his country a head start.
The Venezuelan pie is going to be divided up a bit more evenly and the greedheads are having fits. As I've said before, if they don't want to be part of a just society they're free to leave.
Chavez is on the right track and I hope he stays on it for the next 10 years at least.
Here's an honest look at Venezuela.
4 - brian
Dave: 'Through all of this, Chavez sails on as a popular demagogue, posturing, making speeches, raising his fist and using threats and hollow promises to bind the people to him as he gradually closes the fist of tyranny on every aspect of life in Venezuela'
He is popular and the mass of people love him for making promises and keeping them; so before you lose any more hair, dave, i suggest you consult them barrio poor, who make up Chavez base (as opposed to Bushs 'base')
'Bush gazed around the diamond-studded $800-a-plate crowd and commented on the wealth on display.
"This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores," quipped the GOP standard-bearer. "Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."' CBS News report
5 - brian
Dave: 't's already old news that when tens of thousands of student protesters took to the streets of Caracas, Chavez had the army attack them and ultimately had masked chavista thugs gun down 8 students on the university campus in the grand Latin American death squad tradition'
Moer lies peddeld by an obsessive compulsive...and YOUR link returns this:
'404 - Page Not Found
This might be because you typed the web address incorrectly. Please check the address and spelling ensuring that it does not contain capital letters or spaces.
It is possible that the page you were looking for may have been moved, updated or deleted.'
Those snipers are like the onesin april 2002....unidentified but clearly antichavistas
6 - Lapdog
With help from the New Statesman we get both sides of the story:
"Skirmishes in major Venezuelan cities in recent weeks have culminated in a shoot-out in Caracas at the Central University on 7 November, leaving nine people injured."
Read the rest including the comments
7 - Dave Nalle
Why Brian, I'm sorry. The RTF editor for some reason inserted extra spaces at the end of the URLs. I've fixed it for you because I know how eager you are to read some actual facts about Venezuela.
Now back to your regularly scheduled shilling.
dave
8 - Lapdog
Nalle's scare tactics re the constitutional revisions are really getting tedious. I'm going to tack up this Rational observation by Prof. James Petras and then make a cup of delicious organic fair trade espresso coffee.
"The amendments providing for unlimited term elections is in line with the practices of many parliamentary systems, as witnessed by the five terms in office of Australian Prime Minister Howard, the half century rule of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, the four terms of US President Franklin Roosevelt, the multi-term election of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair in the UK among others. No one ever questions their democratic credentials for multi-term executive office holding, nor should current critics selectively label Chavez as an 'authoritarian' for doing the same."
There's more honest commentary on the amendments here.
9 - Dave Nalle
Last time I checked the Australians, Japanese and British didn't have thugs stationed outside the polls to remind people how to vote, Lapdog. That makes a big difference when it comes to getting elected president for life.
And how about the provisions allowing Chavez to declare a state of emergency and arrest people without any kind of due process and hold them indefinitely?
But thanks for linking to that article. I hadn't realized prior to this that Global Research was a tranzi front group. The bias in that article makes their lack of objectivity abundantly clear.
All you have to do is look at the changes Chavez is pushing and if you have any ability to think for yourself the possibilities for abuse are impossible to ignore.
Dave
10 - Clavos
"All of the country's vast petrochemical wealth which Chavez promised to use to alleviate the suffering of the pot is instead going into the pockets of a new class of corrupt officials and favored businesses in a system which looks a lot more like fascism than Bolivarian socialism."
True, but it should also be noted that even more of the petrodollars are leaving the country; some to shore up inept and bumbling "allies" like Evo Morales in Bolivia and Fidel Castro in Cuba (more than $2 BILLION this year alone), Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and to subvert governments of countries opposed to him (Colombia). He's also sending enormous amounts of money to countries he hopes one day will align with him (Argentina).
This is money that belongs to the people of Venezuela, but they get no say-so in its distribution to foreigners.
11 - Clavos
"the four terms of US President Franklin Roosevelt,"
Poor example; for reasons we all know....
12 - Dave Nalle
True, Clavos. One of the articles I linked to had a bizarre story about a Chavez agent caught entering Argentina with a suitcase full of cash.
What I find ironic is all the fuss raised over the efforts of the US to help negotiate Iraq's oil revenue deal which includes substantial distributions to the general population, while not one squawk is raised about how venezuela mismanages their petrodollars.
dave
13 - Clavos
Chavez is systematically (but ignorantly) destroying the economy of a country that has the potential of being one of the richest in the world. In addition to the GINI, he's got uncontrollable inflation and a severe balance of payments problem, as well as rising national debt, which he's exacerbating by selling gasoline at prices radically below market, despite the fact that he has to buy the gasoline elsewhere, due to his lack of refinery capacity.
What irony. If it weren't so serious it would make a great Keystone Kops comedy.
The sad part is that those who vote for him are largely not sophisticated or educated enough to see what he's doing with their economic future and patrimony, so they keep voting for him because he promises them improvements in their lives which are mostly undelivered so far.
And BTW, I'm more convinced than ever that brian and lapdog work for him; they were on this article like ducks on a junebug.
14 - troll
Dave - this is an opinion piece
did you label it 'news' simply to get an argument going over 'journalistic integrity' again- ?
15 - troll
*This is money that belongs to the people of Venezuela*
really - ? I imagine that just as in the US the money belongs to the government to spend and distribute as 'representatives' of the people
further - isn't your sentiment a bit insincere - ? where was the upset during the years that foreign investors drained the country's wealth - ?
16 - troll
if Chavez is able to build a more or less independent South American Union won't the investment have been worth it - ?
...btw lack of refinery capacity is being addressed in several countries in SA as well as in Syria
17 - T
Hugo Chavez is a madman. My wife is Venezuelan. We've seen the bodies on the street after Armed Chavistas break up a peaceful pro-democracy rally. 8 students dead? It's nothing new. Anonymous threats against peoples families? It's happened to her father.
Every year you go to Venezuela the degration of everything hits you in the face. More people on the street. Infrastructure collapse. Complete lack of staple goods. Milk, flour, sugar, gone. Chavez helping the poor? The army of homeless, desolate, unemployed is expanding exponentially. The ranchos stretch as far as you can see in every direction. On the coast, in Caracas, Maracaibo. They get bigger every time I go. Before Chavez downtown Caracas was beautiful, now everywhere you look are homeless. Mostly lower wage workers that were downsized since the economic reforms have crushed the country.
He puts up a low price grocery store that has no food in it, waves a flag. "See what the great Chavez does for you!" It's like cutting a man with an axe and then praising yourself for giving him a band-aid.
And it is going to get worse.
Venezuela was positioned to be the most powerful country in Latin America. Caracas was called the Paris of South America. Now I feel safer in a Bangkok alley at 3am than downtown Caracas at noon.
Everyday I pray none of my friends there are part of an "accident" simply because they signed a petition.
Chavez has positioned his goons in every branch of government. He owns the legislative and judicial branches. He even owns the electoral committee. There is no way to oppose him. You can't vote him out when he counts the votes (something we Americans should think of with electronic voting).
I hate to say this, but the only way Venezuela will ever repair itself is for Chavez to have an accident like he has sentenced so many to.
18 - troll
T - I'm sad to say: prepare yourself to be attacked as a fraud and an agent of the wealthy opposition...or a 'Nalle clone'
eye witness reports are not welcomed here by those who give their unwavering support to Chavez
19 - Franco
#17 "T
Very interesting information and very thankful to receive it. I too hope he will be taken out by one of his own.
Stick around and you will see what troll means in post #18.
20 - Franco
#18 "troll
T - I'm sad to say: prepare yourself to be attacked
Battle stations troll, nnaw " nnaw " nnaw- dive!, dive!, dive!, " nnaw " nnaw " nnaw.
eye witness reports are not welcomed here
I sware I about fell out of my chair.
troll, you have gone from humanist to guerilla jungle fighter is the year I have known you. Now I’m not complaining or putting down, as I will have to confess too that some causes warrant to measure. Who’s going point today?
21 - troll
beware of gorillas in human clothing
22 - Clavos
...or guerillas in humanitarian clothing...(Chavez, not you, troll)
23 - Lapdog
We now have an 'eye witness' report from some US dude who hangs around Bangkok alleys at 3am who can't get the story straight about students being shot during a demonstration.
They should stay away from T boy before he has them buried alive.
Friend of yours, Franco?
24 - Palomudo
Dave is a sorry example of a journalist who has sold his ethical soul to the media owner devils.
The media industry today is in the hands of a few globalists who lie to the world to achieve a one world goverment.
Anyone interested in learning what Venezuelans are voting for see the attached link, an analysis of the reform.
25 - Dr Dreadful
I'm not going to sing the praises of Chavez (although he is always good entertainment value, especially when he attends the UN or international summits), but I feel it's always healthy to exercise a little dissent against the unrelenting hostility to him (and, to a lesser extent, Ahmadinejad) on BC. Some of Dave's statements are misleading, and a quick glance at some of the things he links to will show one why.
...had masked chavista thugs gun down 8 students on the university campus...
As I've noted before, none of the news agency stories about the student shootings made any claim that the gunmen were police, army or any kind of government agents. All we have seems to be hearsay.
...in a speech this week Chavez declared that anyone who votes against his proposed constitutional changes in the December 2nd election is a traitor...
Well, that's not quite what he said, according to the linked report:
'"He who says he supports Chavez but votes 'no' is a traitor, a true traitor," the president told an arena packed with red-clad supporters. "He's against me, against the revolution and against the people."' [my emphasis]
Still strong words, but not as sweeping as Dave makes out.
Chavez' attempt to threaten his own people seems to have had the opposite of the desired effect as the most recent poll shows likely voters split 49% to 39% against Chavez' proposed constitutional revisions.
Again, caution is needed. As Moonraven pointed out on another thread a few days ago, the pollsters did not go into the barrios, where support for Chavez is highly concentrated. Like the favelas in Brazil, these neighborhoods are basically giant squats and do not appear on any maps. So the polling method - which according to the linked report was done like this: "The homes visited by survey field staff were in blocks selected randomly by computer from maps of cities nationwide" [my emphasis again] - which although in a US context would have been fair and reasonably accurate, in Venezuela excludes a whole dimension to the voting picture.
I'm not comfortable with a lot of the power consolidation that has gone on in Venezuela. I was very uncomfortable with the opposition boycott of the recent parliamentary election there. Without it I suspect Chavez would still have won, but his government would have had a greater degree both of legitimacy and harnessing.
But I'm equally uncomfortable with accepting the views of Dave and others on face value, especially in the face of - it must be said - a very articulate and persuasive opposite take on Venezuela from Moonraven. Dig a little deeper, is all.