Hugo Chavez strikes back

Sir:

For a Spectator writer who claims to be an official in Brown’s “Model UN”, the intellectual arrogance coupled with utter ignorance about the subject under discussion astonishing. I am a highly educated American living and teaching in Venezuela. I see the operations of the Chavez government on a daily basis and it should serve as a model for the kinds of program we desparately need in the U.S. right now. Venezuela is booming economically. The standard of living has risen dramatically under the Chavez government.

Venezuela has, since 1998, had a series of national elections all of which were honest, unlike the presidential elections in the U.S. in 2000 and 2004. Their election system has a verifiable paper trail so votes can be re-counted, unlike many jurisdictions in the U.S. And, unlike elections in the U.S., the presidential elections and referenda in Venezuela have been monitored by international agencies and found to be honest.

Comparing President Hugo Chavez to Hitler is absurd: President Chavez has neither invaded nor bombed any other countries; he has never been accused of condoning torture of prisoners nor extra-judicial executions, as has the U.S. and its drug-infested ally, Colombia. The majority of newspapers and media here are privately owned and routinely publish criticisms of President Chavez without prior restraint of any kind.

The social missions instituted by the Chavez government have radically changed the daily lives of the majority of citizens, providing free medical care where none was available at all before, vastly expanding free high school and university access, providing pleasant public housing in place of slums, and providing low cost food so every family has access to the basic necessities.

The U.S. government has long been engaged in a campaign to oust President Chavez and his democratic government, funding an opposition who, upon kidnapping President Chavez and seizing power in a short lived coup, immediately abolished the National Assembly and the Supreme Court. The U.S. funded opposition here is hardly a force for democracy.

Having failed at removing the democratically elected Chavez by coup, the U.S. next concentrated on an anti-Chavez publicity campaign, of which the instant Spectator column is representative.

The facts about Venezuela are the very opposite of what the Spectator’s author describes. I know. I live here. Come visit and see the real Venezuela. It is beautiful and a hotbed of true democracy.

Sincerely,