Latin America’s great socialist hope turned out to be just another banana republic autocrat.
Hugo Chavez probably defined himself first and foremost as an anti-imperialist, to which end he allied himself to Cuba, Iran, China, Russia, Belarus as well as having strong links to Qaddafi, al-Assad and Mugabe. A few characters on that litany of international villains have strong enough imperial interests to suggest that Chavez was not so much an anti-imperialist as an anti-American as well as evidently being quite in favour of authoritarianism. 
Despite this fondness for the tyrannical, Mr Green has made a point of denying that Chavez himself was a dictator and claims that he has a mandate to lead the country based on his victory in ‘clean’ elections. Mr Green may be confused on this issue as he goes on to detail a portion of the evidence that demonstrates why this is not true including the imprisonment of a judge that freed a critic of the regime, dismantling the free press and rigging the constitutional assembly to cement his hold over the country! Omitted from these relatively soft-pedalled accusations relating to Chavez’s election practices is the fact that during the most recent election the state-media was the only one allowed on the airwaves, he banned exit polls as entire cities questioned the irregularities of the electronic voting system and then he deployed his troops, bristling with the 100,000 new AK-47s, into the streets and threated his opposition, Henrique Capriles Radonski (whom he has labelled a ‘low-life pig’, a ‘secret Zionist’, a ‘Nazi’ and a ‘homosexual’) with civil war should he win the election. It seems that Mr Green made the case for Chavez’s elections being fraudulent well enough without this addition, the non-sequitur notwithstanding, but it doesn’t hurt to bear it in mind.
There is also the old accusation that the US sponsored the coup in 2002 against Chavez. When one looks at the history of US foreign policy in South and Central America the claim makes perfect sense; it is an almost unbroken sequence of illegal ‘Dirty-wars’, CIA backed coups, assassinations and atrocities but eleven years later in the era of Wikileaks the only evidence that has been produced to support this claim is that it seems sort of like the kind of thing that the Great Satan would do. Everything that we know about US involvement suggests that the sum of their actions were to provide a very limited warning to Chavez, an extremely hostile neighbour, that a coup might be coming. I wouldn’t bet a single Venezuelan Bolivar (£0.11 and plummeting- Venezuela now boasts the highest inflation rate in the world) that the United States weren’t involved but these are the kind of claims that require evidence.
Chavez’s regime bears close resemblance to that of Muhammar Qaddafi’s which also in its nascent form did seemingly great work in equalising wealth and raising the living standards of the poor, propelled by ever increasing oil exports and one-off payments from the crudely nationalising everything within reach – while simultaneously dismantling political and journalistic opposition. What vector can anybody imagine Chavez’s career following as he amassed power and his economy, infrastructure and support crumbled?
This speculation aside, it is a more concrete indictment upon Chavez to examine what the people of Venezuela are left with in the wake of their leader’s death: A kidnapping rate five times that of Columbia, a ballooning homicide rate that is now the fourth highest in the world and three times what is was when Chavez assumed power, soaring food prices, fleeing doctors from hospitals with not ten per cent of the supplies they need, a shattered judiciary and a media that has been stripped of all but the ruling party’s propagandists. Mr Greens wishes to give credit to Chavez for not being as bad as some other Latin American despots which in itself I don’t think is a particularly sensible position, but it seems that all Venezuelan’s are only lucky that he died before he could stoop that low. The only thing to regret about Chavez’s rather prompt demise is that it deprived the Venezuelan’s of a proper sic semper tyrannis moment.
Link to the original: http://www.wessexscene.co.uk/news/top-news/2013/03/06/chavez-dictator-or-democrat/
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Is it not a bit unfair to call Venezuela a “banana republic”: given that their chief export is oil?
I think you are spot on with regards to the comparison with Gadaffi. As I said in the comments in the other article its never a good idea for someone to be in power for such a long period. As sad as his death may be, it’s fortunate that Chavez won’t go down the same path. That said, whether or not future developments will improve Venezuela is another matter. It seems highly doubtful they’ll achieve Chavez’s dream of a Bolivarian revolution.
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You might have taken the words a little literally, ‘banana republic’ means based largely on a single export. It still isn’t quite true to say that of Venezuela but Chavez’s regime was certainly floating on oil exports from the looks of things. Obviously I’m not sure I agree with you that it’s sad that Chavez died, I think that he was increasingly autocratic and probably mentally ill. His brand of socialism looks like pure populism to me, he did all he could to consolidate power in his own hands and it’s hard to imagine that any of his wealth redistribution can last given the way things are going – more people are being killed in Caracas a day than in Baghdad and Kabul combined!
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What’s wrong with populism if thats what people want?
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Well I think most people would draw a line between functioning democracy and populism – Chavez instituting unsustainable policies to give one off handouts to the poor doesn’t make him a great emancipator in my eyes. In a country where 90% of their exports are oil he has managed to actually decrease oil production, it’s only rising oil costs that have kept the country afloat. The highest inflation in the world, food prices rising way above regional standards, crumbling healthcare – these are all things that will hit the poor the hardest. Don’t you agree that a politician who will say anything to placate the masses is not to be trusted? Historical precedents give good reason for suspicion…
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Sorry, just another note on this – populism isn’t the same as giving the people what they want. Polls showed that 65-80% of the people wanted Radio Caracas Television to stay open, Chavez still banned them because they were critics of his regime.
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Well, yes – that is pretty much what it is. It’s a political discourse where someone claims to seek to represent the interests of ordinary people over the elite. If he did something without public support, how are you claiming its populism? Or are you saying its not populism, but then that would go against what you wrote in the article. I’m not understanding your argument here.
Sorry, I was a bit unclear: I disagree with what you mean by populism, I didn’t use the word as a synonym for ‘democratic leader executing the will of the people’. I meant that he knows how to pander to the mob while acting against their interests.
My article was primarily concerned with the dictator vs. democrat question, rather than his policies/goals which I’ll publish today. Nonetheless, a few things to say
1) “the imprisonment of a judge that freed a critic of the regime, dismantling the free press and rigging the constitutional assembly to cement his hold over the country” – you are argue this means the elections weren’t ‘free’. I’d argue that why they show attempts for absolute power, they didn’t stop the actual elections being free. Very little evidence that terror/bullying was used to that effect.
2) ” What vector can anybody imagine Chavez’s career following as he amassed power and his economy, infrastructure and support crumbled?” – conjecture. This is an attempt at counterfactual history when in reality there is little to show that he would have ventured massively in despotism. Eternal Leader maybe, but I’d argue – on evidence – that he did not look to become tyrannical.
3) “Mr Greens wishes to give credit to Chavez for not being as bad as some other Latin American despots which in itself I don’t think is a particularly sensible position,” – a position used to make the point that Chavez is not a dictator, or at least if he is, its used in the lowest form possible, portraying none of the major elements of other dictatorships.
4) “He allied himself to Cuba, Iran, China, Russia, Belarus as well as having strong links to Qaddafi, al-Assad and Mugabe. ” – The big one. Chavez’s “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” foreign policy undoubtedly undermines much of what he did, but I’d say you make the mistake most of his detractors make by using this to detract from his domestic and foreign policy successes.
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1) So your point is that he *tried* to grab absolute power but didn’t quite manage so the elections are credible? Attacking and dismantling all but the state-run media on the pretense that they are imperial puppets while flooding the streets with a highly politicised army and threatening civil war if things don’t go his way are tghe tactics of Mugabe not a true democrat and they mean that the elections can’t be trusted. Apparently there was also a lot of suspicion of electoral fraud that nobody could report on – again, nothing but state-media!
2) Agreed which I think I pointed out in the sentence immediately following the one that you quoted. Although I don’t agree that the speculation is idle – if you can point to a single successful society on earth that began by imprisoning judges and scrapping the free press then I’ll lay down this point. Again, I think that the Qaddafi analogy is quite fitting…
3) Saying that he idn’t as bad is not the same as saying that he isn’t dictatorial, I agree that he is no Pinochet but I think this is one of the reasons to be glad that he died. I can’t think of any possible trajectory for a regime that started the way his did that doesn’t end in brutal dictatorship. For one thing we can look at his circle of friends and those he admired: If he doesn’t think that Qaddafi or Idi Amin or Mugabe or Ahmedinejad are vicious little megalomaniacs, what did that mean for his political future?
4) I think that these allegiances are almost enough to completely discredit him on their own. I also think as I said above that they *are* extremely important for judging what kind of leader he wanted to be. And what domestic successes? There is essentially no economic marker by which his regime could be called a success, the poor of Venezuela are in an extremely dangerous position. As I said to Nick above, more people are being murdered in Caracas (population of 2,000,000) than in Baghdad and Kabul combined (combined population of about 8,000,000) per day.
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1) No, what I’m saying is the two are not relevant. He didn’t attempt to gain power – this is someone who resigned when there was coup against him (He didn’t fight it). The army was undoubtedly politicised, but the elections were free and fair – verified by international observers. That’s why they are credible.
2) That outlook is coming from a POV of a citizen from a western liberal democracy. It’s not starting from that place, thus to put those expected values on it makes no sense. I think you could find a valid argument that the electorate would have eventually overturned Chavez – if he continued as president for years – once such values became ingrained in their society.
3 ) There is no absolute definition of what a dictator is – it is a flexible term based on historical comparison, thus I’m using those examples to show the claim he was a dictator is close to preposterous.
4) His circle of friends? Oh, so you believe a person is marked by those they are associated with – no wonder you’re a fan of drone strikes then. If you know a terrorist, you probably deserve to be killed
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1) I will just have to completely disagree with you on this. Without a free press, democracy isn’t possible even if Chavez didn’t have the ballot boxes stuffed (of course they actually used an electronic voting system which there have been a lot of questions over, but no government critics can investigate and *even* if they could, the judiciary is now completely tame to Chavez’s will after he locked up Maria Afiuni.
2) I don’t think democracy is just a Western value and I don’t think it just best for ‘our culture’. I think you’ve dodged the question here, Chavez has undeniably locked up judges and attacked Venezuela’s free press. He also threatened his opponent and the nation with civil war if he lost the 2012 election. Try and think of a single regime that started out this way and then became *less* authoritarian. It’s a one-way street.
3) I completely agree with you (and have already stated) that Chavez is much, much better than other Latin American dictators but it is a complete non-sequitur to state that this makes him a benevolent democrat.
4) Completely disparate cases! Chavez built alliances with some of the foulest dictators on earth and said that he admired them. This *obviously* gives us insight into his political thought. As I must have failed to impress on you before, I don’t think the drone strikes are always legal but I do also think that if your breaking bread with al-Qaeda’s leadership in a war-zone, you have kind of assumed that risk…
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Have you seen this HRW report?
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/09/18/decade-under-ch-vez
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I couldn’t honestly say that I have read all 230 pages of this report but I have gone over some of it. The fact that Chavez threw HRW out of Venezuela over it almost damning enough on its own…
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I probably should have prefaced that post by making it clear I posted that link as a response to the original Chavez article, which I felt treated him rather leniently, but I posted it here instead seeing as this is where the discussion seemed to be taking place.
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I referenced the report in my article, so I’m aware of it contents. No doubt Chavez was committing human rights offences, but generally I still don’t believe that made him a dictator of any sorts.
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So you did, although the link doesn’t seem to be working properly. WordPress muck it up?
I would be reticent in using an absolute term such as dictator, however by any objective measure Chavez’s behaviour domestically took an increasingly draconian nature. His political stranglehold would not have benefited Venezuela indefinitely.
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Too true; couldn’t have put it better myself. The fact that he has left a somewhat power vacum in the country shows he had far too much power in his hands.
“The US has been trying, unsuccessfully, to topple the Cuban government for more than 45 years now and it remains. The rise of Chavez to power was very frightening to US elites. He has an enormous popular support. The level of support for the elected government in Venezuela has risen very sharply and it is now at the highest in Latin America. And Chavez is following an independent course. He’s doing a lot of things that the US doesn’t like a bit. For example, Argentina, which was driven to total ruin by following IMF orders, has slowly been reconstructing itself by rejecting IMF rules, and has wanted to pay off its debt to rid itself of the IMF. Chavez helped them, and he bought a substantial part of the Argentine debt. To rid oneself from the IMF means to rid oneself from one of the two modalities of control employed by the US: violence and economic force. Yesterday, Bolivia nationalized its gas reserves; the US is only (only??) opposed to that. And Bolivia was able to do that partly because of Venezuelan support.”
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