How Did Hugo Chavez Change The World
“The devil himself is in the house. The devil came here yesterday and it smells of sulfur still today." Hugo Chávez said on September 10th, 2006; defying President Bush in the United Nations (U.N.) assembly. Chávez as president of Venezuela since 1999, he defied the world by insulting Bush and other high rank political leaders. He has influenced governments of other countries by the power gained by oil such as Bolivia, Peru and Iran that has also defied the U.S. by selling military supplies to Iraqis. Chavez and his ideology have changed the world that we see, and was named by Time magazine, one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: 'The Devil's Recipe.'
Chávez has not only made commentaries about Bush, he has also commented about Mexican President, Vicente Fox, on November 2005. "Gentleman do not put with me, because you get out stung”. He said that because many of the 28 countries that they endorsed the proposal of the Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas (ALCA) (English: Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)). …show more content…
He did it because they depend economically on the United States. That caused that the relationship between Mexico and Venezuela almost succumbed, relation hurt before by President Castro, Chávez tutor.
His early life
Hugo Chávez has a military career office and he founded the left-wing Fifth Republic Movement, with his experience in that field he tried in 1992 a coup d'état1, trying to take out Carlos Andrés Pérez, the former Venezuelan president, but he failed.
Chávez was arrested and put in prison. While he was in prison, there was another coup d'état lead by few units of the Venezuelan Air Force but it failed. One year later, Rafael Caldera, before being president, used the turmoil to comment on the degradation of the government and increase of poverty in the country. Because of that, intellectuals associated with Caldera, helped to impeach Pérez. Chávez was pardoned two years after his
imprisonment.
Few moments after his release, Chávez got the national spotlight, giving him support for the elections of 1998. He reconstituted the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR, V of the Roman numeral five). While creating his campaign, he heavily based his ideology in the Bolivarianism founded by Simón Bolívar. In elections, Chávez won by 55% of the popular vote against the candidate of right-wing, Enrique Salas Römer that got 40% of the total popular votes.
Ideologies
Chávez has based his ideology in to people, Fidel Castro and Simón Bolívar. Bolívar was credited with leading the fight for independence of many Spanish colonies; those colonies where Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia. As stated before, he founded the Bolivarianism that its main purpose is to unify Latin-America. Castro, one of the followers of the Bolivarianism, he combined it with communism and it is what is now the government of Cuba. (DO NOT FORGET to leave feedback because it encourages the author to post more essays.) As his apprentice, Chávez has learned many things from Castro and he has applied it to the Venezuelan constitution of 1999. Some of the main points of that constitution are: Venezuelan economic and political sovereignty (anti-imperialism), grassroots political participation of the population via popular votes and referenda (participatory democracy), economic self-sufficiency (in food, consumer durables, etc...), instilling in people a national ethic of patriotic service, equitable distribution of Venezuela's vast oil revenues, and eliminating corruption.
Puntofijismo and the Boliviaranism
When he was elected by first time in office, he promised to change the politics and "laying the foundations of a new republic" (Wikipedia, 2007). One of his ideas was to get rid of the 'juridico-political embodiment of puntofijismo.' Puntofijismo comes from the Spanish Punto fijo, meaning fixed point. Venezuela was always ruled by dictators over 120 years, but a civilian-military alliance overthrew the then dictator Perez Jimenez. The promise of a democracy was there but it suddenly disappeared when the two mainstream political parties Accion Democratica and COPEI decided to share power exclusively between themselves under an agreement known as the Pact of Punto Fijo (La sombra de Bolivar, 2007).
The main purpose of the puntofijismo was to exclude the Left from politics. This created imbalance and the corruption started to rise to very high levels of government. The wealth was only distributed among rich people and politicians. Twenty-three million people were living I poverty and the oil-boom was in the rise. People started to think that the best way to rule the country was the use of Boliviaranism, that was based on real democracy, civil rights and patriotism. It became very popular in popular culture that even some music groups wrote about it. That’s when Chávez tried the coup d'état and gained a lot of popularity.
Problems with Americans
Money is power and it can be noticed clearly with Venezuela that is the fourth-largest foreign supplier of oil to U.S and the world's fifth largest oil producer. Venezuela supplies 14 percent of USA oil needs. Chávez is hated and loved by many Americans. In 2006 the Venezuelan petroleum company CITGO used its campaign of helping the needing by giving them a discount on gas heating. In the other side, Chávez’s haters wanted the Citgo sign in Boston to be removed because of the commentaries about Bush and its symbol resembles the company association with Chávez.
During winter of 2006, CITGO introduced a campaign to help poor American people in New York and Boston by giving them 40 percent below market prices of heating oil. To do that, 12 million gallons were supplied. Commercials were made using people that received that discount and in the commercials the supported mainly Venezuela and some Chávez.
After 20 years of good relationship and of a contract, CITGO and 7-11 (Seven-Eleven) broke relations because of the statements declared by Chávez in the U.N assembly. In the gas stations owned by 7-11 had “The fuel being dispensed is NOT CITGO fuel”. Proprietor of 7-11 chain-stores declared that the politic taken by Chávez affected the relations between Chávez, American people and 7-11. After those statements she decided to cancel the contract renewed in July of the same year.
A new beginning
In 1999, during his first term a new constitution was introduced. Between many things it forbade the privatization of Petroleos de Venezuela, SA. (PDVSA). By doing that it helped to move other countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). In that way it helped to Venezuela to receive better price for its oil. The price of oil almost doubled close to $20 a barrel.
Washington's hostility towards Venezuela became more pronounced, with senior officials questioning President Chavez' 'commitment to democracy' – this from a US administration that required the intervention of the Supreme Court to enjoy 'electoral' success! (The Revolution will not be Televised, 2007)
One of the main points of the constitution was to keep public goods out of private hands. Neo-liberalism was the main idea behind that point because government in Hispanic countries needed to cut services to the population, so, it could attract foreign companies to invest in. That caused increase in the difference of wage between wealthy and poor, going to very far extremes.
These days it can be seen in rural communities and even in the suburbs of Caracas, the poverty of regular people, that few have most of the wealth. The constitution helped the poor by giving them more access to public services. In some part they did not even have water and they needed to carry it in big bottles. (gotten from myopera.com/yeeliberto)It would they them hours from the well to their home. In 2006, most people started to get water and electricity in homes and streets, this made them feel more secure and think of Chávez as a good president.
Recall of vote
In 2004, the National Electoral Council (CNE) recalled a election named Venezuelan recall referendum. In this referendum, Chávez was questioned if he should be removed from office. People vote with the 59% not to recall him, and 41% voted yes. When the signatures gathered in the Súmate group, they were rejected by the CNE because they used approximately 50% dubious signatures, which 30 were from people that died and the 20% were totally invalid. Government was also tricky, because they used the idea to punish people that signed for the recall but no information about hurting someone has been found.
Prior to the 2004 election he released Bolivarian Missions to get more support of the popular vote. The "Mission Robinson", billed as a campaign aimed at providing free reading, writing and arithmetic lessons to the more than 1.5 million Venezuelan adults who were illiterate prior to his 1999 election (Wikipedia, 2007). "Mission Guaicaipuro", was a program billed as protecting the livelihood, religion, land, culture, and rights of Venezuela's indigenous peoples. “Mission Sucre” provided free and continuous higher (college and graduate level) education to the two million adult Venezuelans who had not completed their elementary-level education. “Mission Ribas” that provided high school level classes to the five million Venezuelan high school dropouts. Because these “missions” were free, people applauded Chávez and he war reelected easily.
Relations
Chávez has always tried to make friends in the Middle East to keep the oil prices high. The most important “friends” of Venezuela is Iran, which has defied the UN by constructing a nuclear plant and nuclear weapons. Venezuela was one of the only countries to vote against Iran being sent to the UN Security Council for its nuclear activities. This helped to unify the relationship between Iran and Venezuela.
Venezuela has many other allies; one of them is Cuba that in its history has had many conflicts with the USA, first with the revolution and then with the nuclear missiles from the USSR. By only being a close friend of Cuba, Venezuela was disliked by Americans even though they did not make anything “bad” to the world. Some of the foreign leaders friends of Chávez are Argentina's Néstor Kirchner, China's Hu Jintao, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
To break the relations more with the USA, Chávez stopped the buying of weaponry of the USA and increased the buying from Brazil, Russia, China and Spain. He also asked all active-duty U.S. soldiers to leave Venezuela. Additionally, in October 2005, Chávez banished the Christian missionary organization "New Tribes Mission" from the country, accusing it of "imperialist infiltration" and harboring connections with the CIA (Christianity Today, 2005).
Muppets or Puppets?
Oil gives power, power reigns above the powerless. Indirectly, there have been alliances and “puppets” put in government by Chávez. Some of the “puppets” that are consider are Vladimiro Montesinos from Peru, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (in Spanish: Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD) that almost won the 2006 election in Mexico by less than 1%, and Rodrigo Granda of Colombia. It cannot be proved that they are allies in any way but they have the same ideas such as Boliviaranism, communism and anti-capitalism.
Chávez has many points, some of them are bad, other good, and nobody can say it with precision. A rich has not been in the shoes of a poor and vice versa. With his missions he have helped many poor. He has gotten enemies and allies in this globalized world were the country with power can get as much enemies as it wants but there is a cost behind it. For example the USA is a powerful country that has gotten many enemies due to its power.(gotten from my.opera.com/yeeliberto)
As a powerful president, Chávez has changed the people’s minds allover the world. Doing that is very difficult, and the time will tell which changes it will bring. It only a matter of time to see what will Chávez will do next.
Sources:
The Revolution will not be Televised. David Power. March 2007.
April 2007 < http://www.chavezthefilm.com/index_ex.htm >. “Simón Bolívar” Wikipedia. 2007. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Bolivar >
“Hugo Chavez” Who2.com . 2006 http://who2.com/ask/hugochavez.html
“Chavez: Bush 'devil'; U.S. 'on the way down'” CNN.com . September 21, 2006. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/09/20/chavez.un/index.html
“Citgo” Wikipedia. 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citgo
“Chavez ships cheap fuel to American poor”. Alec Russell. The Washington Times. November 25, 2005. http://www.washtimes.com/world/20051124-103358-6731r.htm
“Chávez a Fox: "no se meta conmigo"” BBCMundo.com . November 13, 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_4434000/4434124.stm
“Bolivarianism” Wikipedia. 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarianism
Alford, Deann. (Christianity Today, 14 October 2005). "Venezuela to Expel New Tribes Mission". 09 November 2005. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/141/53.0.html
“Foreign policy of Hugo Chávez” Wikipedia. 20 April 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_Hugo_Chávez “Andrés Manuel López Obrador” Wikipedia. 20 April 2007.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrés_Manuel_López_Obrador
As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: 'The Devil's Recipe.'
Chávez has not only made commentaries about Bush, he has also commented about Mexican President, Vicente Fox, on November 2005. "Gentleman do not put with me, because you get out stung”. He said that because many of the 28 countries that they endorsed the proposal of the Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas (ALCA) (English: Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)). …show more content…
He did it because they depend economically on the United States. That caused that the relationship between Mexico and Venezuela almost succumbed, relation hurt before by President Castro, Chávez tutor.
His early life
Hugo Chávez has a military career office and he founded the left-wing Fifth Republic Movement, with his experience in that field he tried in 1992 a coup d'état1, trying to take out Carlos Andrés Pérez, the former Venezuelan president, but he failed.
Chávez was arrested and put in prison. While he was in prison, there was another coup d'état lead by few units of the Venezuelan Air Force but it failed. One year later, Rafael Caldera, before being president, used the turmoil to comment on the degradation of the government and increase of poverty in the country. Because of that, intellectuals associated with Caldera, helped to impeach Pérez. Chávez was pardoned two years after his
imprisonment.
Few moments after his release, Chávez got the national spotlight, giving him support for the elections of 1998. He reconstituted the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR, V of the Roman numeral five). While creating his campaign, he heavily based his ideology in the Bolivarianism founded by Simón Bolívar. In elections, Chávez won by 55% of the popular vote against the candidate of right-wing, Enrique Salas Römer that got 40% of the total popular votes.
Ideologies
Chávez has based his ideology in to people, Fidel Castro and Simón Bolívar. Bolívar was credited with leading the fight for independence of many Spanish colonies; those colonies where Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia. As stated before, he founded the Bolivarianism that its main purpose is to unify Latin-America. Castro, one of the followers of the Bolivarianism, he combined it with communism and it is what is now the government of Cuba. (DO NOT FORGET to leave feedback because it encourages the author to post more essays.) As his apprentice, Chávez has learned many things from Castro and he has applied it to the Venezuelan constitution of 1999. Some of the main points of that constitution are: Venezuelan economic and political sovereignty (anti-imperialism), grassroots political participation of the population via popular votes and referenda (participatory democracy), economic self-sufficiency (in food, consumer durables, etc...), instilling in people a national ethic of patriotic service, equitable distribution of Venezuela's vast oil revenues, and eliminating corruption.
Puntofijismo and the Boliviaranism
When he was elected by first time in office, he promised to change the politics and "laying the foundations of a new republic" (Wikipedia, 2007). One of his ideas was to get rid of the 'juridico-political embodiment of puntofijismo.' Puntofijismo comes from the Spanish Punto fijo, meaning fixed point. Venezuela was always ruled by dictators over 120 years, but a civilian-military alliance overthrew the then dictator Perez Jimenez. The promise of a democracy was there but it suddenly disappeared when the two mainstream political parties Accion Democratica and COPEI decided to share power exclusively between themselves under an agreement known as the Pact of Punto Fijo (La sombra de Bolivar, 2007).
The main purpose of the puntofijismo was to exclude the Left from politics. This created imbalance and the corruption started to rise to very high levels of government. The wealth was only distributed among rich people and politicians. Twenty-three million people were living I poverty and the oil-boom was in the rise. People started to think that the best way to rule the country was the use of Boliviaranism, that was based on real democracy, civil rights and patriotism. It became very popular in popular culture that even some music groups wrote about it. That’s when Chávez tried the coup d'état and gained a lot of popularity.
Problems with Americans
Money is power and it can be noticed clearly with Venezuela that is the fourth-largest foreign supplier of oil to U.S and the world's fifth largest oil producer. Venezuela supplies 14 percent of USA oil needs. Chávez is hated and loved by many Americans. In 2006 the Venezuelan petroleum company CITGO used its campaign of helping the needing by giving them a discount on gas heating. In the other side, Chávez’s haters wanted the Citgo sign in Boston to be removed because of the commentaries about Bush and its symbol resembles the company association with Chávez.
During winter of 2006, CITGO introduced a campaign to help poor American people in New York and Boston by giving them 40 percent below market prices of heating oil. To do that, 12 million gallons were supplied. Commercials were made using people that received that discount and in the commercials the supported mainly Venezuela and some Chávez.
After 20 years of good relationship and of a contract, CITGO and 7-11 (Seven-Eleven) broke relations because of the statements declared by Chávez in the U.N assembly. In the gas stations owned by 7-11 had “The fuel being dispensed is NOT CITGO fuel”. Proprietor of 7-11 chain-stores declared that the politic taken by Chávez affected the relations between Chávez, American people and 7-11. After those statements she decided to cancel the contract renewed in July of the same year.
A new beginning
In 1999, during his first term a new constitution was introduced. Between many things it forbade the privatization of Petroleos de Venezuela, SA. (PDVSA). By doing that it helped to move other countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). In that way it helped to Venezuela to receive better price for its oil. The price of oil almost doubled close to $20 a barrel.
Washington's hostility towards Venezuela became more pronounced, with senior officials questioning President Chavez' 'commitment to democracy' – this from a US administration that required the intervention of the Supreme Court to enjoy 'electoral' success! (The Revolution will not be Televised, 2007)
One of the main points of the constitution was to keep public goods out of private hands. Neo-liberalism was the main idea behind that point because government in Hispanic countries needed to cut services to the population, so, it could attract foreign companies to invest in. That caused increase in the difference of wage between wealthy and poor, going to very far extremes.
These days it can be seen in rural communities and even in the suburbs of Caracas, the poverty of regular people, that few have most of the wealth. The constitution helped the poor by giving them more access to public services. In some part they did not even have water and they needed to carry it in big bottles. (gotten from myopera.com/yeeliberto)It would they them hours from the well to their home. In 2006, most people started to get water and electricity in homes and streets, this made them feel more secure and think of Chávez as a good president.
Recall of vote
In 2004, the National Electoral Council (CNE) recalled a election named Venezuelan recall referendum. In this referendum, Chávez was questioned if he should be removed from office. People vote with the 59% not to recall him, and 41% voted yes. When the signatures gathered in the Súmate group, they were rejected by the CNE because they used approximately 50% dubious signatures, which 30 were from people that died and the 20% were totally invalid. Government was also tricky, because they used the idea to punish people that signed for the recall but no information about hurting someone has been found.
Prior to the 2004 election he released Bolivarian Missions to get more support of the popular vote. The "Mission Robinson", billed as a campaign aimed at providing free reading, writing and arithmetic lessons to the more than 1.5 million Venezuelan adults who were illiterate prior to his 1999 election (Wikipedia, 2007). "Mission Guaicaipuro", was a program billed as protecting the livelihood, religion, land, culture, and rights of Venezuela's indigenous peoples. “Mission Sucre” provided free and continuous higher (college and graduate level) education to the two million adult Venezuelans who had not completed their elementary-level education. “Mission Ribas” that provided high school level classes to the five million Venezuelan high school dropouts. Because these “missions” were free, people applauded Chávez and he war reelected easily.
Relations
Chávez has always tried to make friends in the Middle East to keep the oil prices high. The most important “friends” of Venezuela is Iran, which has defied the UN by constructing a nuclear plant and nuclear weapons. Venezuela was one of the only countries to vote against Iran being sent to the UN Security Council for its nuclear activities. This helped to unify the relationship between Iran and Venezuela.
Venezuela has many other allies; one of them is Cuba that in its history has had many conflicts with the USA, first with the revolution and then with the nuclear missiles from the USSR. By only being a close friend of Cuba, Venezuela was disliked by Americans even though they did not make anything “bad” to the world. Some of the foreign leaders friends of Chávez are Argentina's Néstor Kirchner, China's Hu Jintao, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
To break the relations more with the USA, Chávez stopped the buying of weaponry of the USA and increased the buying from Brazil, Russia, China and Spain. He also asked all active-duty U.S. soldiers to leave Venezuela. Additionally, in October 2005, Chávez banished the Christian missionary organization "New Tribes Mission" from the country, accusing it of "imperialist infiltration" and harboring connections with the CIA (Christianity Today, 2005).
Muppets or Puppets?
Oil gives power, power reigns above the powerless. Indirectly, there have been alliances and “puppets” put in government by Chávez. Some of the “puppets” that are consider are Vladimiro Montesinos from Peru, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (in Spanish: Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD) that almost won the 2006 election in Mexico by less than 1%, and Rodrigo Granda of Colombia. It cannot be proved that they are allies in any way but they have the same ideas such as Boliviaranism, communism and anti-capitalism.
Chávez has many points, some of them are bad, other good, and nobody can say it with precision. A rich has not been in the shoes of a poor and vice versa. With his missions he have helped many poor. He has gotten enemies and allies in this globalized world were the country with power can get as much enemies as it wants but there is a cost behind it. For example the USA is a powerful country that has gotten many enemies due to its power.(gotten from my.opera.com/yeeliberto)
As a powerful president, Chávez has changed the people’s minds allover the world. Doing that is very difficult, and the time will tell which changes it will bring. It only a matter of time to see what will Chávez will do next.
Sources:
The Revolution will not be Televised. David Power. March 2007.
April 2007 < http://www.chavezthefilm.com/index_ex.htm >. “Simón Bolívar” Wikipedia. 2007. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Bolivar >
“Hugo Chavez” Who2.com . 2006 http://who2.com/ask/hugochavez.html
“Chavez: Bush 'devil'; U.S. 'on the way down'” CNN.com . September 21, 2006. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/09/20/chavez.un/index.html
“Citgo” Wikipedia. 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citgo
“Chavez ships cheap fuel to American poor”. Alec Russell. The Washington Times. November 25, 2005. http://www.washtimes.com/world/20051124-103358-6731r.htm
“Chávez a Fox: "no se meta conmigo"” BBCMundo.com . November 13, 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_4434000/4434124.stm
“Bolivarianism” Wikipedia. 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarianism
Alford, Deann. (Christianity Today, 14 October 2005). "Venezuela to Expel New Tribes Mission". 09 November 2005. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/141/53.0.html
“Foreign policy of Hugo Chávez” Wikipedia. 20 April 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_Hugo_Chávez “Andrés Manuel López Obrador” Wikipedia. 20 April 2007.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrés_Manuel_López_Obrador