Hugo! (72 page)

While all that seemed a matter of debate, the one unmistakable hot
button issue was abolishing term limits on the president. If Chávez and
his allies tried to do so, they risked seeing Caracas and other parts of
the country go up in flames with the opposition violently taking to the
streets. They felt they had voted on the issue and won fair and square.

The key question was how Chávez was going to react to the first
major loss of his political life. Would he take the opportunity to step
back, reflect on what went wrong, and adjust his course? Or would he
blame the loss on things like ineffective aides and a failure to "get out
the vote?" Would Chávez abide by the voters' will and step down in
2013, or seek another way to remain in power, trying again to amend
the Constitution or even creating a prime minister-type post to stay on
as the power behind the throne? Giving up power clearly would not be
easy for Chávez — from as far back as his days in the military academy
in the early 1970s, he had devoted his life to his mission of transforming
Venezuela.

Would he be capable of beginning to publicly consider other ways
to serve Venezuela and the world, a bit like Jimmy Carter after he left
the U.S. presidency and devoted himself to humanitarian causes and
observing international elections? Martin Luther King Jr. achieved
great changes in the United States even though he was never elected to
a single public office. Did Chávez have the wisdom and humility to see
such possibilities, or was he truly blinded by a lust for power?

While the electoral loss represented a devastating setback for
Chávez, it also presented important opportunities for him and his
movement to grow and progress. It now became clear it was time to
focus on developing other leaders in the movement who could replace
Chávez when the day came for him to step down. The vote also seemed
to be a message that Chávez had to begin focusing more on bread-and-butter
issues at home rather than traveling the world to promote and
spread his Bolivarian Revolution. Crime and corruption were serious
problems that were threatening to spiral out of control and which
Chávez had done little to combat.

He was also facing problems on the economic front which were
posing growing threats. The Bolivar was badly overvalued, trading on
the black market in early 2008 at around 6,000 Bolivars per dollar as
opposed to the official rate of 2,150. As GDP continued to grow at a
breakneck pace, inflation in November 2007 jumped to 4.4 percent per
month, with annual inflation rising to 21 percent. Scarcities of basic
staples such as milk, rice and chicken were breaking out for a variety
of reasons. Producers cut output, claiming government-imposed price
controls meant they could not turn a profit, while demand shot up
because many Venezuelans had more money in their pockets thanks to
the oil boom and Chávez's social programs.

By late December 2007 and early January 2008, he gave some signs
he was listening to the unrest and responding. During Christmas week
he declared that he was reflecting on where his government was headed
and was adjusting course. "We are going to make this year one of truly
deep revision, of rectification and of revitalizing the revolutionary
process," he said. He called them the "three r's."

He shook up his cabinet again, replacing officials including the vice
president. His government lifted price controls on certain types of milk,
quickly boosting its availability. Chávez also declared a crackdown on
crime, corruption, inefficiency in the social missions, and the most basic
of problems — mounds of garbage that were accumulating in Caracas
during Christmas. "How is it possible that a government can't collect
the trash?" he complained. He called corruption a "cancer," and said,
"We inherited it but we cannot stay with this cancer our whole lives.
Either we defeat it, or it defeats us."

In one of his most remarkable moves, on New Year's Eve he announced
an amnesty for many of the people allegedly involved in the April 2002
coup against him including the four hundred who signed the infamous
"Carmona decree" wiping out democracy. The amnesty also extended to
those involved in the takeover and sabotage of oil tankers during the two-month
oil strike that nearly strangled the economy later that year. "It's a
matter of turning the page," Chávez said. "We would like a country that
moves toward peace."

Despite Chávez's decision to accept his loss in the referendum and play
by the democratic rules of the game, his image in the United States and
internationally remained poor. He was still depicted as a power-mad,
delusional dictator — a threat to the civilized world. Instead of taking a
balanced, realistic and sane look at Chávez, much of the media and the
public continued to feed hysteria about him, like something out of the
1950s McCarthy "red scare" witch hunt. They often demonized him
and concocted an impression of a man who seemingly was massacring
thousands of people and lining opponents up against a wall before a
firing squad, rather than presenting a more accurate picture of a strong,
even authoritarian president who, like any leader, had his flaws and
attributes.

It was not uncommon to see his name lumped in with Castro,
Hitler, Mussolini or even Osama bin Laden, even though his sins were
nowhere near those committed by these real dictators and terrorists.
Venezuela really did have legitimate elections, and a generally free press
where people could go on television and call Chávez a dictator — and
nothing happened. Tens of thousands protested freely against Chávez in
the streets — something unimaginable in Castro's Cuba. In Venezuela's
neighbor Colombia, evidence surfaced of links between U.S.-backed
President Alvaro Uribe's government and right-wing paramilitary death
squads. Few people seemed to care. Instead, Chávez, who clearly was
not involved with death squads, was the international pariah.

He was simply — and simplistically — seen as the devil incarnate, a
wicked man who was destroying one of the world's great democracies. It
was a cartoon caricature that much of the public swallowed. It seemed
there were few human beings on the planet worse than Hugo Chávez
who, ironically, still enjoyed widespread support in the country where
he actually lived and governed. In the United States, everyone seemed
to have an opinion about Hugo Chávez. He was reviled by millions even
though they had never spent a single day in Venezuela to observe firsthand
what was actually happening there. The demonization campaign
supported by Venezuela's elites and the Bush administration and echoed
on nearly a daily basis in the media was quite effective.

In a post-referendum piece,
The Chicago Tribune
contributed to the
hysteria with an editorial titled, "Hugo Chávez — Scarier than Hell."
The
San Francisco Chronicle
called him a "global blowhard." The
Kansas
City Star
gushed that Venezuela had just avoided allowing Chávez "to
become dictator for life."

A few months earlier, all hell broke loose in Macon, Georgia, when
Mayor Jack Ellis made the mistake of sending Chávez a declaration
of solidarity. Ellis praised Chávez for programs such as cheap heating
oil for low-income residents in the United States, but an avalanche of
hometown critics attacked him for siding with the tropical "tyrant."
One called Ellis's move "treasonous." A Democratic state representative
declared that the mayor's action "taints" the town. One local newspaper's
online message board was inundated with so many angry comments —
twenty pages worth — the paper decided to take it down.

The Venezuelan leader, of course, gave his critics ammunition
to dismiss him as a leftist buffoon. In the weeks leading up to the
referendum he got into a public spat with the leaders of Spain when
he denounced former Prime Minister José María Aznar as a "fascist,"
adding that "a snake is more human." Chávez was outraged that Aznar's
successor, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, was defending Aznar during a
summit of Latin American and Iberian leaders held in Santiago, Chile.
Chávez kept interrupting Zapatero. Finally, the King of Spain, Juan
Carlos, told Chávez in Spanish, "Why don't you shut up?"

The phrase became a hit among Chávez opponents, who printed
it on T-shirts and put it on their cellphones as a ringtone. The media,
of course, never fully explained the source of Chávez's rage against
Aznar — during the April 2002 coup when Chávez was kidnapped for
two days and by his account nearly executed, Spain supported the
revolt. On "dictator for a day" Pedro Carmona's second day in office,
two ambassadors visited him in Miraflores Presidential Palace — the
ambassadors from the United States and from Spain. To Chávez, Aznar
had officially endorsed the coup.

Chávez also flirted with moments of brilliance that could have
burnished his public image if they reached fruition. In late August 2007,
the right-wing Uribe invited his left-wing counterpart in Venezuela
to engage in negotiations with Colombia's leftist FARC guerrillas to
release several dozen hostages. They included three North Americans
and a former Colombian presidential candidate with French roots,
Ingrid Betancourt.

Relatives of the hostages expressed fervent support for Chávez's
efforts, saying they felt the greatest hope in years that their loved ones
might finally be released. But in November just as Chávez seemed
close to making progress, Uribe pulled the plug and removed him as a
negotiator. It was a few weeks before the referendum vote in Venezuela.
Uribe cited Chávez's alleged violations of protocol including a brief
telephone contact with Colombian military leaders. But to Chávez's
supporters it appeared Uribe and his major sponsor — the United States
government, which seemed to pressure the Colombian — did not want
to see Chávez succeed and found a reason to dump him.

The FARC then pulled a surprise, though, and said they would
release directly to Chávez three hostages including a three-year-old boy
said to be born to one hostage in captivity. The Venezuelan president
brought in a glittering array of international representatives including
former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner to accompany the rescue
mission in late December. Even the filmmaker Oliver Stone showed
up. Venezuelan helicopters adorned with Red Cross insignia flew into
Colombia to await directions from the FARC. It seemed like a Christmas
miracle was about to occur.

But the FARC suspended the operation, saying Colombia's military
was engaging in attacks that made the operation impossible to conduct
safely. Uribe called the FARC "liars." An angry Chávez charged that
Uribe had "torpedoed" an operation that would have embarrassed
the Colombian — whose own efforts to free hostages were largely
unsuccessful — and turned Chávez into a hero. Instead, to some he
ended up looking like a fool.

He won back some prestige a couple of weeks later when on January
10, 2008, the FARC finally released two women hostages. The three-year-
old, it turned out, had long ago been sent by the guerrillas to a foster
home in Bogota — as Uribe had claimed. By now the women's release was
almost anti-climatic, as most of the international observers summoned
by Chávez had gone home and the media paid less attention.

Despite the setbacks, Chávez still enjoyed the support of the
majority of Venezuelans. The irony of the referendum vote was that if
he had made it only on the question of abolishing limits on re-election
and left out the 21st Century Socialism elements, he might well have
won.

Yet in the barrios of Venezuela and the impoverished countryside,
certain doubts were starting to grow. Many felt it was time for Chávez
to deliver on issues like crime that were affecting people's daily lives and
spend less time preaching about lofty and sometimes nebulous ideals
like 21st Century Socialism. They believed it was time for him to step
down from the throne a bit and get back in touch more directly with
the people and the themes that originally brought him to power. If he
didn't, his Bolivarian Revolution might find even more turbulent waters
ahead, and deal a devastating blow to the Latin American Left, setting
it back for years. If revolution in the name of the poor could not work in
oil-rich Venezuela with a powerful and charismatic leader like Chávez,
some wondered, where could it?

I am grateful to a number of people who helped nurture and make this
book possible. A colleague at
Newsday,
Thomas Maier, first suggested
to me the idea of writing a book, and served as a valuable, patient, and
insightful guide throughout the process. I owe a debt of gratitude to
Tom for his many hours of support and advice.

In a way the book's origin can be traced to 1992, when I first arrived
in Venezuela and was befriended by a number of people. My greatest
guide to discovering the country at the grassroots level was community
organizer Xiomara Tortoza, who regularly took me into the barrios of
Caracas and exposed me to a world where most of the population lives
but commentators rarely venture. In addition to her friendship, Xiomara
and her family offered me an invaluable education in what Venezuela is
like from the viewpoint of the impoverished majority.

Another great friend, Americo Sanchez, made Los Bucares, his
bed-and-breakfast in Mérida, available as a base of operations and provided
countless hours of insightful conversation about Venezuela and
the Hugo Chávez phenomenon — including some that took place
during spectacular biking trips in the Andes.

My longtime journalism mentor, the Reverend Raymond A.
Schroth, S.J., whom I had the good fortune to meet and study with as
an undergraduate at Fordham University in the late 1970s, helped make
it possible for me to tell the story of Venezuela and Chávez by connecting
me with Steerforth Press. I thank Thomas Powers and Chip
Fleischer at Steerforth for giving a first-time author a chance, and the
entire Steerforth team including Christa Demment-González, Kristin
Sperber, and Helga Schmidt.

Tom Roberts of
The National Catholic Reporter
was generous
enough to send me on a reporting assignment to Venezuela to cover
the critical 2004 recall referendum against Chávez, and the story I
wrote was one of the seeds from which this book sprouted. The Fund
for Investigative Journalism in Washington, DC, generously provided
funding that helped me conduct some of the research for the book on
subsequent trips back to Venezuela.

A number of people read parts of the manuscript and offered valuable
suggestions, or assisted me in other ways, including much-needed
encouragement when the project seemed overwhelming. They include
my parents, Frank and Claire Jones, Nataly Lucena, Hildebrando
Lucena, Lauli Iriarte, Greg Cascione, John Bingham, Lisa Sullivan,
Eric Wingerter, William Camacaro, the Reverend Richard Dillon, Ed
and Jo Connelly, Marta Harnecker, Daniene Byrne, Stacie Walker,
Kathy McNeely, and Matilde Parada.

People in Venezuela were generous in granting their time for interviews
and conversations; my thanks to Herma Marksman, Angela Zago,
Fernando Ochoa Antich, Mario Ivan Carratú, Agustín Blanco Muñoz,
and Francisco Arias Cárdenas, who spent hours talking about the development
of the Bolivarian movement and made extensive efforts to
arrange an interview for me with an extremely busy President Chávez.
Also helpful in that regard were Maximilien Arvelaiz, Alex Main, and
Willian Lara.

Special thanks to Charles Hardy, who at one time or another did
many of the things mentioned above. Charlie patiently read through
the manuscript, made valuable suggestions based on his own long experience
in the country and skills as a writer, and was a faithful ally in
tracking down information, materials, telephone numbers, and other
contacts in Venezuela — never an easy task. He did all this while he
was completing his own book about the country, which speaks volumes
about the character of this former missionary priest.

My greatest thanks go to my wife, Elba, and my son, Frank, who
valiantly put up with the long stretches I spent in the "little office" and
offered the kind of support and acceptance that is critical to an undertaking
of these proportions. Elba's devotion and love could not have
been made clearer by the patience she demonstrated as she cared for
Frank on her own during long periods that I was away. I can only hope
my own love and adoration for her goes a little way toward making up
for the time we spent apart.