Chávez was loved and hated in equal measure

Mobhare Matinyi, Washington DC. The Citizen, Tanzania. Thursday, 07 March 2013 22:17

As American diplomats, politicians, and some corporate executives express their utmost happiness over the death of President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías of Venezuela, one of their worst enemies, the people of South America are grieving bitterly over the loss of their beloved leader.

President Chávez passed away on Tuesday aged 58 in the capital Caracas after suffering from cancer for sometime. He led Venezuela from 1999 until his death having been the founder of the Fifth Republic Movement, a political party formed in 1997 to fight for the right of the majority dark-skinned Venezuelans, who were marginalized by the minority whites called the “Spanish.”

That people’s movement united with some political and social groups in 2008 and formed the largest left-wing party in the Western Hemisphere called the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

A strong believer of the Bolivarian Revolution, Chávez’s ascendance to power in 1999 rejuvenated the socialist movement of South America so much that he became a hero to millions of deprived people across the continent. Today, the leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Uruguay and the Caribbean island of Dominica, have declared periods of official mourning to show respect for Chávez.

It is not an exaggeration to state that the whole continent of South America is grieving for the man American capitalist elites and leaders hated so much. Far away to the east in the Persian Gulf, Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has also proclaimed a day of mourning calling Chávez a “martyr”.

But why was he both loved by many and hated by the powerful? It all starts with the political philosophy he believed in, the line of Simon Bolivar, a Venezuelan military and political leader who fought for the independence of South America from the Spanish Empire the same way George Washington did for the United States against the British.

Bolivar, born in 1783 and died in 1830, is a giant figure in the Americas who led the liberation of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Chávez always wanted to emulate Bolivar in the same way Barack Obama does Abraham Lincoln.

After coming to power, Chavez, a former paratrooper decided to fight poverty by hooks and crooks, and although the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) may disapprove of his economic performance, they do agree that he very much succeeded in poverty reduction. Isn’t that the essence of economic planning any way?

The outspoken, charismatic and pragmatic leader turned slams into brick houses, provided medical care to millions, took to school millions who had no hope of education, and provided land to the landless that had been condemned by brutal capitalist policies of past pro-Western governments.

To succeed in his ambitious programmes, he had to squeeze exploiters, mostly Western oil companies, and a couple more American firms like the Heinz Corporation and Koch Brothers. He focused more on the oil business since Venezuela, according to the former chief of oil intelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Guy Caruso, has a reserve of 1.36 trillion barrels of recoverable oil, more than Saudi Arabia.

Here is an example of how the Venezuelan strongman did according to the New York Times: “Just after Bush’s inauguration in 2001, Venezuela’s congress voted in a new “Law of Hydrocarbons.” Henceforth, Exxon, British Petroleum, Shell Oil and Chevron would get to keep 70 percent of sales revenues from the crude they pumped out of Venezuela.”

That decision was painful because the previous deal allowed them to pocket 84 percent. He didn’t stop there, he raised oil royalties from a mere one percent to 16.6 percent. Literally, his parliament became a powerful house for passing various laws to liberate the 80 percent of the population who had become poor because one per cent wanted it that way.

Make no mistakes, Chávez was a tough dictator and he bruised many, justly and unjustly, but this guy knew what he wanted for his people; he never allowed his country to be looted by powerful Western corporations and their governments, and thus, he could not have become a friend of anybody in the Western capitals. Otherwise, what wrong did he commit?

Hence, it was not a surprise that on April 11, 2002, a democratically-elected Chávez was kidnapped at gunpoint and flown to an island in the Caribbean Sea. Interestingly, Pedro Carnoma, the president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce and a business partner of the American oil firms, declared himself president amidst cheers from the US Ambassador Charles Shapiro.

His people, angry and armed, marched to the Presidential Palace ready to kill the coup plotters forcing Carnoma to return him back to office in 48 hours. To be brief, Chávez was loved because he stood for his country and his people, and that is the sacred duty of any leader, be it in the Americas or Africa!