Lagniappe

 

 

Gustavo Coronel:
Hugo Chavez, the Latin Terminator

Harlan Ellison’s imagination generated a collection of stories about a future war between the humans and the machines. With the humans winning, the machines decided to send a “terminator” to the past to kill the woman who would give birth to the leader of the humans. By killing this woman, the machines figured, they would be destroying the leader of the humans in the future. Harold Schwarzenegger was excellent in the role of the robot sent back in time to terminate with the woman. With efficient enthusiasm he started killing all women having the name of his target.

The films about the terminator are good to watch. The robot is very difficult to get rid of. When he appears done for, his skeleton rises again, until he finally succumbs and the humans go on to prevail in the future.

This terminator, conceived by Ellison as the ultimate agent of destruction, pales in comparison to Hugo Chavez. He is not a robot although he sometimes sounds pre-programmed, being capable of talking for eight hours non-stop. He is a populist, authoritarian, fascist leader with an anti-Midas touch. Everything valuable he touches is converted into rubbish.

This terminator started by destroying democracy in his own country. Venezuela used to be, during the 1960’s and 1970’s a model democracy. The deterioration of the democratic political leadership during the 1980’s and 1990’s led to the emergence of Hugo Chavez, who became president in 1999, on the assumption that change would be for the better. But it was for the worse. Today Venezuela is politically and socially in shambles and under the imminent danger of becoming a new Cuba.

The ability shown by Hugo Chavez for destruction has proven almost limitless. He destroyed the Group of Three, formed by Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela, because he felt that both President Uribe of Colombia and President Fox of Mexico were not his cup of tea. Becoming president he found an Andean Community of Nations in modest but persistent growth but he quickly started to undermine it. Even as he became the chairman of the Community he continued his attacks until he finally decided to take Venezuela out of the Group. In doing so he announced he would join MercoSur, surely a much better organization. In spite of the fact that Venezuela is in the north and the rest of the countries of MercoSur are in the south, he felt he would be much happier there than with his Andean neighbors. As a result of his initiative, the last two years have become a nightmare for MercoSur.

The original members have started fighting among each other and every time Chavez attends a meeting of the organization it ends in dispute and recriminations, since he tries to change the internal rules and objectives of the organization. The Congresses in Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay now oppose Chavez’s entry into the organization.

When President Bush decided to go on a Latin American tour Chavez decided he would also have his shadow tour. As Bush spoke in Uruguay he brought together a paid audience of Buenos Aires “piqueteros” coordinated by Luis D’Elias and Heda Bonafini to his insults against the U.S. president. This caused much indignation against President Kirchner and generated a rift between the president and his wife, now the “presidenta” and, apparently, determined to stay away from the terminator.

In 2006 he went to the General Assembly of the U.N. and gave the now famous “sulfur smell” speech where he spoke of Bush as the devil in front of dozens of amused and/or shocked delegates. In this speech he also proposed to move the headquarters of the organization away from New York, ideally to Venezuela. As a result he lost his opportunity to join the Security Council and the Venezuelan nation pilfered about one billion dollars he spent in trying to win votes for the U.N. seat.

Wherever he travels he brings discord and acrimony, or even natural disasters: earthquakes in Iran and Chile have taken place in his wake and great floods coincided with his recent visits to Bolivia. The year of his presidential inauguration was marked by the worst natural disaster in Venezuelan history, one that took more than 40,000 lives. His visit to Sadam Hussein started the dictator on a fatal slide.

After visiting Brazil Lula became entangled in a major corruption scandal that almost cost him his presidency. One of his visits to China came just before a severe drought that had the Chinese government thinking of importing water. He paid a brief visit to France that coincided with the most severe riots in Paris in years. His visit to Putin in 2005 came just before Putin’s electoral defeat in the Ukraine. When he went to see Castro the poor guy came crashing down fracturing arm and ribs and he has not been the same ever since. Too many coincidences, say Venezuelan experts in the mysteries of the “evil eye” and voodoo. Chavez has earned a reputation for being jinxed (“pavoso” is the Venezuelan term).

In Santiago de Chile a few days ago he practically annihilated the Summit of Latin American Presidents, all but guaranteeing its disappearance, when he insisted in talking out of turn. This loutish behavior led the King of Spain, the most senior member of this gathering, to tell him in clear and royal voice: “Why don’t you shut up?” This shot was also heard around the world, even more so than Bobby Thomson’s home run, because it was heard in countries where baseball is not known but dictators are. He also took some time to attack Chilean President Bachelet’s ideas on “social cohesion” as humbug.

After creating a couple of serious political crises in Chile and Spain he moved, undaunted to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he arrived in an aircraft of Cubana de Aviacion, the Cuban airlines. His Airbus 319, bought for $70 million some years ago has not been seen for some weeks now and Chavez has been traveling in older or borrowed aircraft, leading to rumors that the crew of the airplane could have deserted. In OPEC Chavez used his allotted time, and more, to attack and threaten the U.S. with cutting off Venezuelan oil supplies if they dared to attack Iran. He also asked to eliminate the dollar as the monetary unit for oil transactions by the organization and to convert OPEC into a socialist oriented organization. This brought immediate response from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, a conservative head of state, who said: “Oil is for development, not a tool for conflict and emotions”.

Algerian Minister of Energy Chakib Khelil, a good friend from the days in which he worked with the World Bank, said: “We would like to see a stable dollar”, closing the door on Chavez’s pretensions. With his antics Chavez could well be on his way to destroy OPEC.

In route to Saudi Arabia Chavez made a stop in Lisbon, reasons unknown. He was shown leaving the Cuban plane wearing a pair of Michael Jackson’s type shoes.

Could it be a coincidence that Michael Jackson is having such a rough time? Research should be done to establish since when has this association been going on, in order to get a more accurate bearing on Chavez true powers as a terminator.

Former Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt, not quite so verbose but certainly wittier than Chavez, once said: “I do not believe in witches but they sure can fly”. I think of this whenever I see Chavez’s face appearing on the TV screen, especially when he wears his favorite combination of scarlet red jacket and white socks, a combination guaranteed to attract the evil spirits.

Gustavo Coronel is a 28 years oil industry veteran, a member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), author of several books. At the present Coronel is Petroleumworld associate editor and advisor on the opinion and editorial content of the site. All Coronel's articles can be read at its blog lasarmasdecoronel. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

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Petroleumworld News 11/19/07

Copyright© 2007 Gustavo Coronel. All rights reserved.

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