Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has emerged as the United States’ most formidable adversary in Latin America since Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba more than 45 years ago.
Flush with oil money, a leftist ideology and virulent anti-Americanism, Chavez has solidified his control over Venezuela while using the country’s wealth to raise his profile across the region. American policymakers have few options to counter the charismatic former paratrooper whose incendiary rhetoric and populist programs are popular on a continent gripped by poverty and resentful of American power.
One U.S. priority is to foil Venezuela’s bid for a rotating seat on the United Nations Security Council that comes open next year. The U.S. is concerned that Chavez will continue backing Iran in its nuclear standoff with the West and is pressuring Latin American nations to support the candidacy of Guatemala, a close American ally.
Calls Bush `donkey,’ `terrorist’
But Chavez’s oil wealth gives him leverage–the threat of economic sanctions, such as those against Cuba, would not work against Venezuela–and he seems to revel in thumbing his nose at President Bush, calling him a “donkey,” a “drunkard” and a “terrorist.”
In April, Chavez threatened to expel U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield after government supporters pelted Brownfield’s vehicle with eggs and tomatoes. Chavez condemned the attack but accused the ambassador of stirring up trouble in hopes of prompting a U.S. invasion. The Bush administration denies it has any intention of toppling Chavez but says the battle between the United States and Venezuela could determine the fate of Latin America.
“There are two different models or visions for the future,” Brownfield said last month. “We express and support one. The government of Venezuela expresses and supports another.
“Eventually, it’s a matter for … the peoples of the region to decide which vision best represents the direction they want.”
The United States and Venezuela were once close allies, but relations deteriorated rapidly after the Bush administration gave tacit support to a brief 2002 coup against Chavez that failed.
Since then, Chavez has used the nation’s oil to finance his so-called Bolivarian Revolution at home while challenging a U.S. administration that is unpopular in much of Latin America.
While the United States promotes capitalism, free trade and the fight against global terrorism, Chavez sees Bush as the No. 1 threat to world peace and his capitalist model as bringing poverty to the continent.
Ignoring U.S. criticisms and pushing what he describes as a “multipolar” world free of American imperialism, Chavez is bankrolling Cuba, has won a key ally in newly elected Bolivian President Evo Morales and strengthened ties with other U.S. adversaries such as Iran.
More Top Picks Drum Set
His effort to promote a Latin American economic accord at the expense of the U.S. hasn’t gained much traction. But Chavez’s influence has grown in the last year as he offers billions of dollars worth of discounted oil to his neighbors, free eye surgery throughout the region and other assistance, experts say.
By the time the United States announced in May that it was banning American arms sales to Venezuela, Chavez already was looking elsewhere for weapons, something he says is necessary to defend the nation and “our sacred revolution.”
In early June, Chavez celebrated the arrival of the first shipment of 100,000 assault rifles from Russia, and he later announced that Venezuela would purchase 24 Russian combat aircraft to replace aging U.S. F-16 fighters.
“Venezuela can’t be blackmailed,” Chavez said at a theater packed with raucous student supporters early last month. “We are a free country.”
Carlos Romero, a political scientist and expert in U.S.-Venezuela relations, said U.S. policymakers are hamstrung in countering Chavez because his political opposition is weak and Venezuela is one of America’s larger suppliers of oil.
Romero said “regime change” is off the table given that the U.S. has lost faith in the Venezuelan opposition’s ability to provide a credible alternative to Chavez. Instead, Romero says, the U.S. is applying a “tourniquet” to contain Chavez.
One element of the policy is criticizing Chavez at every turn, such as recently naming Venezuela as a nation that is uncooperative in the fight against terrorism. Venezuelan officials rejected the charge.
Another tactic is to block Venezuela’s bid to join the UN Security Council.
At the same time, Romero said, American diplomats are working behind the scenes “to try and convince the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean that Chavez is a danger for everybody.”
Some analysts say the policy is finally slowing Chavez, who appeared for the first time to overplay his hand on the international stage by openly supporting left-wing nationalist Ollanta Humala in Peru’s recent presidential election.
Humala lost to Alan Garcia, who castigated Chavez for interfering in the campaign.
Accusation of `imperialism’
“Imperialism does not come only from great powers but also from nearby domination, by those who seek to subordinate and steer us because they have wealth,” Garcia said after his victory.
Chavez also became an issue in this month’s disputed presidential election in Mexico, where the apparent winner, conservative Felipe Calderon, caught up to his leftist rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador after running attack ads alleging similarities between him and the Venezuelan leader.
Few experts believe Chavez’s setbacks in Peru and Mexico will dampen his ambitions.
With petrodollars pouring into government coffers, Venezuela’s economy is growing 9 percent annually, unemployment has fallen, and Chavez is plowing huge sums into subsidized food, education and health care.
While experts question whether the effort could be sustained if oil prices eased, the programs are helping Venezuela’s impoverished majority and setting Chavez up for a landslide re-election in December.
“Unless something important happens, Chavez is going to win,” said Luis Vicente Leon, a Venezuelan pollster.
Yet most Venezuelans do not believe America is the enemy, Leon said, despite Chavez’s verbal pounding of the U.S. and his effort to train a large militia to fight against Yanqui invaders.
Venezuelan poll on Bush
A January 2006 poll indicated that 46 percent of Venezuelans held an unfavorable view of Bush, though Leon pointed out that Bush fares about the same or even worse in U.S. opinion polls. Some experts believe Chavez’s anti-American rhetoric is aimed more at boosting his popularity outside Venezuela than in winning the hearts and minds of his compatriots.
“Venezuela is a country whose principal relations, whose principal markets, where people go to study, is the United States,” said Ana Maria Sanjuan, a sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela.
“In Venezuela, there doesn’t exist an objective reason for anti-imperialism like Cubans have because of the embargo,” she said.
Even Venezuelans who participated last month in war games to prepare for an invasion said they don’t believe U.S. Marines will land here anytime soon.
“Our countries are friends,” said Henry Avila, 36, a fisherman who was helping transport weapons to counter an imaginary occupation force. “At no point are they going to invade.”
Still, with bilateral relations at a nadir, Venezuelan and U.S. officials are currying favor in each other’s countries through direct assistance.
While Chavez has given discounted heating fuel to low-income residents in New York, Massachusetts and other states, U.S. Ambassador Brownfield spent one morning last month donating 17 desktop computers to a youth center in La Vega, a hillside slum in Caracas.
More Top Picks Panasonic Homechef 4 In 1
There, Brownfield received a warm greeting–a marked contrast with the April incident when his car was egged.
“This donation is very, very important,” said Maria Flores, a Catholic nun who is the center’s director. “An enemy wouldn’t help us in this manner.”
———-