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“The Threat closer to Home”: a book on Hugo Chavez's fake revolution

By Gustavo Coronel

For the last year and a half I had been planning and collecting material for a book in English on the authoritarian Venezuelan president and paratrooper Hugo Chavez and on his impact on Venezuelan society and the hemisphere. I was almost getting ready to start writing when I found out the book had already been written. It is “The Threat closer to home”, Hugo Chavez and the War Against America, by Douglas E. Schoen and Michael Rowan (Free Press, New York, 2009), just out of the press. Not only did the book contain almost all that I had wanted to say but also said better. It is a compact volume, extremely well organized, containing not only the most complete and up to date information on Hugo Chavez's performance during his ten years of almost absolute power but also a narrative on his origins and on what makes him tick.

The book has an introduction and ten chapters. The introduction actually outlines the plan for the book and contains both a list of Chavez's political and economic capabilities and the five-point plan he has been developing in his attempt to destroy the “evil empire”, as he calls the United States. Among his capabilities: absolute political control over Venezuela's resources; huge oil income; alignment with Iran; an armed force with sophisticated weaponry; alliances with terrorists and drug traffickers; and hard and soft assets in the United States superior to any other foreign power. The five point plan he has been following includes: The use of oil as a weapon; Venezuela's alliance with Iran; a symbiotic association with the Colombian guerrillas, FARC; the creation of anti-American economic and political regional organizations; and, the development of “soft assets”(influence) in the United States.

Chapters one and two tell the story of Chavez the child, the student at the military academy and the leader of the unsuccessful military coup that tried to oust democratic President Carlos Andres Perez, in February 1992, as well as his brief imprisonment and his liberation by short-sighted President Rafael Caldera. These two chapters essentially rely on the excellent book by Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera (“Hugo Chavez: The definitive biography.” Random House, New York, 2007). Highlights: (1), Chavez has a bipolar personality, developing since his early days a “genuine scorn” for the rich and the powerful; (2), In High School he fell under the influence of Jose Esteban Ruiz Guevara, a local writer and “zealous” communist; (3) he was a very mediocre student at the military academy, being admitted thanks to his ability as a baseball player; (4) During his studies he visited Peru and met Peruvian military dictator Juan Velasco Alvarado, who made quite an impression on him; (5), He became a Marxist conspirator during his studies and started to plan his military coup even before he graduated (the book claims he graduated last in his class. If so, Chavez has already revised this fact, since he now appears in number eight among the seventy graduates of his class); (6), The day of the coup he deceived his soldiers, telling them they were going to a parade, sending them instead into the battle for the presidential palace. Many died without knowing the reasons; (7) He spent less than two years in prison, although he should have been sentenced to 30 years for treason. President Caldera let him go.

Chapter three describes his election as president, his political performance and how he has been trying to convert what should have been a democratic presidency into an authoritarian rule. Missing here is a discussion on how he managed, during 1999, to convene a Constituent Assembly made up of his followers and how this Assembly eliminated all democratic institutions in the country: Congress, Supreme Court, etc, replacing them with organizations under his control. It was during that year, 1999, that he managed a progressive, “legal, coup that essentially transformed Venezuela into an authoritarian, undemocratic petrostate. The chapter contains a good description of the 2002 popular rebellion against Chavez and of his brief ousting from power. The authors convincingly show that, rather than a coup, planned by the U.S. against Chavez, his outing was the result of the top military refusing to accept his orders to repress the people and asking, instead, for his resignation, He did resign, as announced over national television by General Lucas Rincon (who later would, inexplicably, become Chavez's Minister of Defense).

Chapter four deals with Chavez's use of oil as a weapon to advance his “revolution”. This is an excellent treatment of a very complex topic, describing how Chavez has used his influence within OPEC to promote oil prices increases that have produced a significant transfer of financial resources to oil-producing countries. There are arguable statements such as “Chavez personally shorted the oil market by 3 million barrels a day” (I doubt that he ever had such power) and some small inaccuracies (Syria is listed as an OPEC member in page 76).

Chapter five is a description of Chavez's attempts at intervening in the internal political processes of neighboring countries and, in particular, of his progressive alignment with the Colombian narcoterrorists of FARC.The chapter describes FARC's early monetary contribution to Chavez presidential campaign and, later, the Chavez political, logistics and financial support of the terrorist group. This chapter also emphasizes the influence Fidel Castro has exercised over Chavez, to the point of his becoming an intellectual satellite of the Cuban dictator. A tragic result of this parasitic association has been the enormous subsidy Chavez has given Castro, some $ 12 billion and counting, mostly based on the delivery, during the last four years, of essentially free, 93,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan oil to the Cuban dictator.

Chapter six details the strange association of the Chavez regime with Iranian leaders, first with Khatami, later with Ahmadinejad. This is a strange liaison because it has no real ideological, commercial or cultural roots. It is entirely based on hatred for the United States. Still, the connection has provided Iran with an entry point to Latin America and, even, with a way to send Islamic terrorists into U.S. territories, provided with false Venezuelan documents. Their alignment within OPEC continuously promotes higher oil prices by attempts at cutting down on production and by tying to persuade the organization to abandon the dollar as its trade currency of choice.

In Chapter seven the authors discuss the links between Chavez and the Jihad and Islamic terrorism. In particular, the connections with Iran and Syria are described in detail. The presence of Hizballah in Venezuela is documented and the Guajira peninsula and the island of Margarita mentioned as the two main areas where this presence is more prominent. According to the authors American action against this threat has been slow, although finally starting to materialize. This chapter is well researched and gives bothe names and details of Hizballah activity in Venezuela or by Venezuelans.

Chapter eight is dedicated to the “useful idiots”, the group that promotes Chavez's “revolution” and identifies with, and admires the strongman. These idiots, say the authors, are not really concerned about Venezuela or Venezuelans. They simply, in the words of Vargas Llosa, “ project their grievances against their own societies onto the Latin American scene”. I strongly believe that most of Chavez's “admirers” in the United States are simply Bush's political enemies who have assumed that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. They couldn't care less our country. The chapter lists some notable members of this group: Noam Chomsky, Joseph Stiglitz, Victor Navasky, Brenda Stokeley, Cindy Sheehan, Jesse Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Bill Fletcher, Sean Penn, Naomi Campbell, Oliver Stone, Barbara Walters, Joseph Kennedy III, Bill Delahunt, Chris Dodd and, above all, Jimmy Carter. Some of the members of this group such as Danny Glover and Joseph Kennedy III have actually received money from Chavez and several have been “special guests” of the strongman, all expenses paid. Carter, in particular, accepted as clean a referendum won by Chavez, which, in the opinion of the authors, had been won by the opposition. Other active supporters in the United States and Europe, not listed in the chapter, such as Ignacio Ramonet, Richard Gott, Mark Weisbrot, Gregory Wilpert and some U.S. based members of “academia” are guns for hire.

Chapter nine, “Chavez as Spin Doctor”, describes the capacity shown by Chavez to say one thing one day and the opposite thing next day. Whenever he sees that his idea is rejected he goes back and takes a detour but never loses sight of his original objective. This has been the case with his attempts at being president for life or with his role as spokesperson for the Colombian narcoterrorists. One day he stated the FARC were patriots and an army of liberation and a few weeks later he called them outlaws and demanded that they give up their arms.

In Chapter ten the authors offer a recipe to thwart the Chavez threat. They advance a short-term strategy and a long-term plan. The short-term strategy contains four points: (1), a significant reduction of U.S. dependence on Venezuelan oil imports; (2), Sanctions against Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism; (3) Support for Colombia's Free Trade Agreement and its anti-drug war; and, (4), an expanded arms embargo of Venezuela. At first sight it would seem that not all of the four strategies have the same rank, the first two probably having a somewhat greater impact on Chavez's future. When put together, they do offer a reasonable path to accelerating Chavez's exit from power and curbing his pretensions of hemispheric hegemony. The long-term plan is somewhat more nebulous although thought provoking. It has to do with the initiative by the United States of “The Alliance of the Americas”, a combination of the Kennedy's Alliance for Progress and a Marshall Plan, to be presented as a carrot and stick proposition, in the same manner Marshall described his plan in a Harvard speech in 1947: “Any government willing to assist.. will find full cooperation… any government which maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us”. Particularly interesting in this chapter is the discussion by the authors of the reasons why some Latin American regions (Puerto Rico, Chile, Costa Rica) have developed more rapidly than others (Haiti, Paraguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela). This discussion would probably merit a book on its own. The basic proposition advanced by the authors is that wealth creation can only exist in the proper political and social environment. A striking example offered in the book is the high GDP of Latin Americans living in the United States, some $22,000, as compared to Latin Americans living in Latin America, exhibiting GDP's per capita of $3,000 (Bolivia) to $11,000 (Chile). There is no doubt that the proper environment is fundamental, as well as the proper attitudes. I believe, with Douglass North, that laws and constitutions are secondary to attitudes in achieving social progress. Venezuela has had 27 constitutions and the current one has 350 articles. Bolivia just voted one with 410 articles. They are both impractical and impossible to implement. Their very unrealistic nature invites cynicism and condemns its implementation to failure, especially if leaders like Chavez and Morales are the first ones to use them as toilet paper.

This book by Douglas E. Schoen and Michael Rowan offers researchers on the Chavez' decade a credible and welcome change from sugary biographies and long essays on Chavez by the likes of Richard Gott, Rosa Elizalde and Luis Baez, Bart Jones, Gregory Wilpert, Mark Weisbrot, Larry Birns, Heinz Dieterich, Norberto Ceresole, Marta Harnecker, William Izarra and other members of “pendejos sin fronteras”. They put together a hard act to follow.

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. Petroleumworld does not necessarily share these views.

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Petroleumworld News 01/31/09

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