Hugo! (45 page)

They took off for
Ciudad Bolívar, the "cradle" of South America's
independence movement from Spain. It was the eastern Venezuelan
city where Simón Bolívar had planned and then launched his
famous march across the steamy llanos and up the ice-capped Andes
Mountains into Colombia. In the city's central plaza thousands of
people laughed at Castro's jokes, cheered his speech, and sang "Happy
Birthday." Then he and Chávez flew deep into the Amazon jungle
to Canaima National Park. They flew past spectacular Angel Falls,
the world's tallest waterfall at 3,212 feet — fifteen times higher than
Niagara Falls. They also passed by the mysterious, ancient flat-topped
mountains called
tepuis
that inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic
adventure story
The Lost World
.

Castro called it the best birthday he'd ever celebrated. Still, his
friendship with Chávez was complicated, a double-edged sword. Many
Venezuelans remembered Castro's support for Marxist Venezuelan guerrillas
in the 1960s and still resented it. They wanted nothing to do with a
Cuba-style regime in Venezuela. While turning out crowds of supporters,
his visit also provoked protests. Other Venezuelans, especially among the
underclass, admired him for standing up to the United States. He was a
David who had survived forty years of subversion, attempted invasions,
and failed assassination plots. Still, even many Venezuelans who viewed
Castro as a hero didn't want a communist regime in Venezuela.

Castro had taken pains during his earlier trip in October to ease
fears that his Venezuelan ally was going to replicate the Cuban revolution
in Venezuela. "It's a lie that Chávez wants to implement the
Cuban model in Venezuela," he'd insisted. Some observers believed
Castro's talk was not just empty rhetoric or a cover for Chávez. Janet
Kelly, a US-born political analyst and prominent commentator in
Venezuela who was not sympathetic to Chávez, believed Venezuela's
leader was carving out an independent path despite seeing Castro
as an older brother or father figure. Chávez took obvious delight in
poking the United States in the eye by flaunting his
friendship with
the Cuban revolutionary, visiting the pariah Saddam Hussein, or carrying
out other provocative acts. But he was not another Castro.

"There is an admiration for Fidel, but it is linked not so much to
Cuba's domestic system, which I do not think Chávez is interested in
trying out, as it is to adopting some of Fidel's style, such as the David
against Goliath stance and the sense of humor that galls the other
side," Kelly said. "He is more a student of Fidel the defiant than Fidel
the Communist."

In Washington, DC, that was not the view among a new administration
about to take office. George W. Bush had squeaked past Al
Gore in a disputed presidential election a week after Castro visited
Venezuela. To run his Latin America policy, Bush soon recruited several
discredited figures from the Iran-contra scandal and the US dirty
wars in Central America in the 1980s. Some despised the Cuban leader
almost obsessively and were convinced Chávez was the new
Fidel
Castro. They were alarmed by his open friendship with the Cuban revolutionary,
his seeming sympathy for leftist guerrillas in neighboring
Colombia, and his criticism of Washington's $1.3 billion
Plan Colombia
aimed at eradicating drugs and rebels who — like much of Colombian
society — benefited from the world's largest cocaine industry. Their
sentiments were summed up in a
Washington Post
editorial about
Chávez that ran November 2, 2000: "The Next Fidel Castro."

Publicly the
Venezuelans maintained a semblance of diplomacy,
given the anti-American sentiments many top administration officials
harbored over the long and atrocious history of US intervention in
Latin America. Foreign Minister José Vicente Rangel, for one, had
deep ties to Chile. He would never forget the US-backed coup in
1973 that ended with the overthrow and
death of President Salvador
Allende. In a statement issued as 2000 drew to a close, Rangel characterized
relations between Venezuela and the Clinton administration
as "normal and cordial." He added that "the start of relations with the
new US administration . . . is seen with optimism and confidence by
the government of President Chávez."

That optimism would not last long.

Venezuela's
public school system was in a state of collapse when Chávez
took over the presidency. Schools lacked books, paper, and pencils.
Paint peeled off walls. Ceilings leaked. Classrooms overflowed with
children. The dropout rate was alarming — half the students never
finished high school. One in ten never got through elementary school.
Many teachers and principals showed up for work when they felt like it.
Nationwide strikes often shut down the schools for weeks. Even when
they were open, the level of instruction was questionable. "I don't know
what's worse," commented one longtime US Maryknoll missionary,
Lisa Sullivan. "When the schools are on strike, or when they're open."

Chávez made attacking the decay a top priority. One of his first
acts was banning the "registration fee" many public schools improperly
charged parents to enroll their children. The first year the fee was eliminated,
an estimated four hundred thousand children who should have
been attending school, but were not, signed up, according to the government.
The second year that figure grew to a total of one million.

Chávez also attacked the quality of
education. He established five
hundred
"Bolivarian schools" during his first two years in office that
served as pilot programs. The schools offered a full eight-hour day as
opposed to the half-day shifts in most public institutions. They provided
students a free breakfast, lunch, and snack every day, free uniforms and
books, and sometimes even computers in the classroom. Many also
offered health care teams of pediatricians, social workers, nutritionists,
and psychologists. Chávez poured money into the
Bolivarian schools
and the system in general. Spending on education grew from 3.3 percent
of gross domestic product in 1999 to 5.2 percent in 2001. Teachers'
salaries doubled. Libraries filled with books. Government workers or
Plan Bolívar 2000 soldiers plugged holes in leaky roofs.

The Bolivarian schools weren't perfect, but they were a vast improvement
over most public schools. At one Bolivarian school established on
the Fort Tiuna military base in Caracas and initially overseen by an
army colonel in a khaki uniform decked out with medals, parents were
knocking down the door to get their children in. After its first year of
operation, it was at full capacity and had a waiting list of more than sixteen
hundred families.

Like most of Chávez's initiatives, this one quickly came under
attack from the middle and upper classes and the media. They charged
that Chávez wanted to "Cubanize" the schools — including the private
ones most of their children attended — and use them to impose a leftist
ideology. Their fears were heightened when a former Marxist guerrilla
and sociologist named Carlos Lanz helped produce a proposal for the
government to overhaul the system and update the curriculum.

By October 2000 Chávez had stepped up his attack on the system. He
issued a decree creating a corps of senior-level supervisors empowered to
inspect public and private schools and recommend dismissals of teachers
and directors in public ones. Chávez's plan, known as
Decree 1,011, set
off a firestorm among the moneyed classes, who incorrectly claimed
that the recommended dismissals could extend to private schools. Along
with the supposed "Cubanization," they viewed the decree as a direct
intervention in the lives of their children. They adopted a slogan: "
Don't
Mess with My Kids!"

The government insisted it was not trying to Cubanize the schools, just
as it was not trying to Cubanize the economy or political system. Education
Minister Héctor Navarro said the government was simply looking to crack
down on abuses, like the teacher he discovered in one school who regularly
had sex with his teenage students. Navarro believed other reasons
also lurked behind the clamor. The corrupt party machines of AD and
COPEI still controlled the schools, which they used as a patronage trough to
appoint inept, no-show, or abusive teachers and principals.

The opposition to Decree 1,011 coalesced on January 19, 2001. Five
thousand parents and teachers marched to protest the reform project.
It was the first major street protest against Chávez and the first time in
years — maybe ever — that well-to-do Caraqueños took to the center of
grimy downtown Caracas with megaphones and signs. Two weeks later,
the marchers were back. This time they headed to the Supreme Court,
where they demanded justices strike down Decree 1,011.

Chávez responded two days later by leading his own march of five
thousand parents, teachers, and students who supported the reforms.
He blasted those opposing the project as a well-off elite who looked
upon the majority poor as "scum." The decree, he pledged, "is going to
be carried out, and I will be supervisor number one."

In the end Chávez was not supervisor number one. Amid the
uproar, the government backed off. It implemented a less controversial
reform program, although it kept the
Bolivarian school concept and
continued to open more. Still, withdrawing Decree 1,011 was Chávez's
first major defeat after a string of overwhelming victories.

He was facing growing criticism on other fronts, including
his attempted intervention in Venezuela's largest union, the
Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (
CTV). Long controlled by
Democratic Action, the CTV was a bastion of corruption and thuggish
tactics. Many workers felt it represented the interests of business
owners more than employees. In December 2000 Chávez's forces won
a nationwide referendum calling for democratic internal elections in
the CTV. But international labor organizations accused the government
of illegally intervening in a private union, and of trying to substitute
for it a government-controlled organization. Voter abstention
in the referendum was high — 77 percent.

CTV leaders abided by the referendum results, and stepped down to
make way for direct elections among the rank and file. But they sought
revenge against Chávez, launching a series of strikes by oil workers,
steel workers, and teachers in early 2001. By October the CTV held
direct elections. That in itself was an achievement for the Chávez government.
But its candidate, Aristóbulo Istúriz, lost badly to AD's candidate,
Carlos Ortega, who headed the oil workers' union, Fedepetrol.
The old CTV may have been corrupt, but it also won some benefits for
workers over the years. The Chavistas alleged fraud amid high abstention
and widespread irregularities, but the results stood.

Instead of unions, Chávez looked to the MBR-200 to focus his
political organizing efforts. In June 2001 he announced that he was
relaunching the movement. He called on women, peasants, students,
"honest" journalists, and other supporters to form "
Bolivarian Circles"
to defend and propel his peaceful revolution. The move was aimed at
revitalizing the
MBR-200 and better organizing his disorganized mass
of supporters. Some believed he was concerned that the MVR, increasingly
under the influence
of Luis Miquilena, was engaging in the backroom,
Fourth Republic politics his movement was pledged to destroying.
Their suspicions increased when Miquilena resigned as minister of the
interior in early 2002.

Based loosely on the original study circles Chávez instituted when
he started his conspiracy in the army, the Bolivarian Circles were made
up of small groups of neighbors, ideally between seven and eleven
people. They studied the new constitution, formed sewing cooperatives,
ran job training programs, cleaned streets, organized children's
sports programs, and conducted literacy classes. Chávez encouraged the
groups to apply for government funding for local projects like buying
playground equipment or improving roads and bridges. It was part of his
notion of active "participatory democracy" as opposed to "representative
democracy." By some estimates, a million and a half people, or nearly 10
percent of the country's adult population, eventually joined a circle.

While Chávez saw the circles as democracy in action, his opponents
and the media depicted them as the armed and violent shock troops of
Chávez's revolution. They compared them to Cuba's Committees for
the Defense of the Revolution, neighborhood watchdog groups aimed
at stamping out dissent. After Chávez announced the formation of the
circles, the opposition blamed them for every incident of street violence
that broke out.

In reality, the vast majority of circles were busy filling potholes or
studying the thoughts of Simón Bolívar. Some participants were armed,
but so were members of the middle and upper classes. Thugs existed on
both sides.

While Chávez was encouraging the growth of the Bolivarian Circles,
he was also turning his attention to Venezuela's indigenous population.
He won praise for helping set aside three seats in the constitutional
assembly for representatives of the nation's five hundred thousand
Indians, and for helping to pass a constitution that enshrined their
rights in unprecedented ways. They included recognition of communal
landownership and implementation of
bilingual education. He also for
the first time in Venezuela's history named an
indigenous person to the
cabinet with his appointment of Wayuu Indian Atalá Uriana Pocaterra
as environmental minister.

But while Chávez was winning accolades, he also had a problem. His
predecessor, Rafael Caldera, had opened up half of the pristine Imataca
rain forest reserve in southeastern Venezuela to large-scale logging and
gold and diamond mining, as well as signing an agreement with Brazil to
construct a 470-mile high-voltage electricity line to carry power from the
Guri hydroelectric dam in Venezuela into northwest Brazil.

The line was to cut through the nine-million-acre Imataca reserve,
home to several indigenous tribes. Twice the size of Switzerland, Imataca
was a modern-day Eden boasting a variety of wildlife few places in the
world could match: jaguars, pumas, red howler monkeys, neon-colored
butterflies, and the world's largest eagle, the endangered harpy. It was also
home to Canaima National Park.

The Caldera government saw Imataca as a potential source of vast
untapped wealth. It held gold deposits thought to be worth billions of
dollars. Over the centuries it had attracted explorers including Sir Walter
Raleigh looking for the legendary golden city of El Dorado. The government
envisioned dozens of mining companies flocking to the region. It
even proposed constructing a five-hundred-room hotel on sacred
Pemon
lands in Canaima.

By mid-1998 bulldozers and workers with chain saws had started
carving a swath through the forest, leveling some of the Pemons' yucca,
corn, banana, and pineapple crops. The Pemons reacted quickly. With
some wearing red loincloths and their faces streaked with warpaint, they
rolled huge logs across the only highway cutting through the region.
When workers erected massive steel towers, tribe members snuck out in
the middle of the night and knocked some down. As the project progressed,
they toppled at least thirty. The government had to send in troops
to protect the towers.

Chávez inherited this mess, and in October 2000 said he was willing
to talk to the tribes. He also appointed a commission to ensure that the
Indians' concerns were acknowledged. But he declared that "the project
does not cause ecological damage" and must go forward. Venezuela and
Brazil had a legally signed contract that would heavily penalize Venezuela
if it was not fulfilled.

The following August, with Fidel Castro at his side, Chávez and
Brazilian president
Fernando Henrique Cardoso inaugurated the $400
million power line. Business interests were pleased. Environmentalists
and some indigenous leaders declared that Chávez had betrayed them.

Less than a month later, events two thousand miles away shook the
world.

Muslim terrorists flew airplanes into the
World Trade Center in
New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The attack
was to dramatically impact relations between the United States and
Venezuela.

Two days after the attacks, in a nationally broadcast address
Chávez condemned the terrorists' actions and called for a minute of
silence in commemoration of the victims. But the following day he
also urged the United States not to launch the "first war of the twenty-first
century" in
response. Two weeks after that, he urged world leaders
to search for the causes of terrorism rather than merely hunt down terrorists
and punish them.

The United States, of course, was preparing to launch the first war
of the twenty-first century. On October 7 it commenced bombing in
Afghanistan after the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden.
The United States enjoyed widespread support for the action. But
Chávez was disturbed by the civilian "collateral" damage inflicted by
the bombings.

He went back on television Monday, October 29, and held up
what purportedly were photographs of dead children in Afghanistan.
Chávez was sickened. "We must find solutions for the problems of terrorism.
We must find the terrorists," he said. Then, lowering his voice,
he added: "But not like this." He paused as the camera focused on the
grisly photographs. "Look at these children," Chávez continued in a
quiet voice. "These children were alive yesterday. They were eating
with their parents and a bomb fell on them." He went on: "This has
no justification, just like the attacks in New York didn't, either. The
killing in Afghanistan must stop . . . You cannot fight terror with
terror." He called the United States bombing campaign a "slaughter
of innocents."

The US government was enraged. The State Department called
Chávez's comments "totally inappropriate." President
Bush expressed
"regrets" over the statements. That Thursday the United States ordered
its ambassador, Donna Hrinak, to Washington for "consultations." Two
days later Chávez tried to repair the damage, asserting on his radio
program that his comments were misinterpreted. "I want to be your
friend," he said in English.