[News] Why do so many people believe in Chavez?

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Why do so many people believe in Chavez?

<http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=25968>http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=25968

VHeadline.com commentarist Oscar Heck writes: Several anti-Chavez people 
have recently asked me why so many people believe in Chavez, not only in 
Venezuela but abroad as well 
 knowing that Chavez was behind the military 
coup against former Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez’s (CAP’s) 
government in 1992? The real question is why do so many people support a 
leader who initially chose the path of violence rather than the 
“diplomatic” or “political” or “democratic” path?

The question is very good 
 but it is difficult to answer because I believe 
that it has to do with certain elements that many “westerners” would have a 
difficult time coming to grips with.

Here are some examples of what I wish to convey:

Imagine getting up at 4:00 a.m. every morning to go to work. You take three 
buses to reach your office and it takes about two hours. However, before 
taking the bus, you have to walk up a steep hill from the barrio to get to 
the bus stop. The hill is so steep that it takes you about 20 minutes to 
walk it to the top where the buses are. You work from 8:00 a.m. till 6:00 
p.m. and you return home via the same route 
 arriving at about 9 p.m. 
 5 
days per week. On Saturdays you work at the same job from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 
p.m. (it is considered a half day). You have Sunday off and only a few paid 
vacation days per year. So far, this doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary. 
But here is the catch. You are an administrative assistant and your salary 
is Bs.300,000 per month. This is equivalent to about US$150 at the official 
exchange rate and about $100 at the black market rate. Of this (say $150), 
you spend $3 per day in bus fare 
 that is, about $78 per month which 
leaves you with $72 
 of which you spend about $2 daily in food 
 which 
leaves you with $16. You still have to pay rent which costs you $50 
monthly, food for your two children which costs about $100 monthly, 
medicine, clothes and school books. You are in the hole now by over $200 
every month 
 and when you ask the owner (your boss) for a raise he 
threatens that he will hire someone who “is willing to work” 
 or he tells 
you that he cannot afford to pay any more. You are 28 years old and have 
been doing this kind of work for over 5 years now. You have 40 more years 
of work to “look forward to.”

Imagine another scenario. Imagine working as a laborer for minimum wage for 
20 years at a certain factory. You work 6 days per week, 12 hours per day. 
Sometimes, when you come home, late at night, your wife asks, “When will 
the owner give you a raise?” Your reply is, “Don’t worry dear 
 they are 
good to us 
 they are good people 
 one day they will help us.” Every day, 
as you struggle up the mud paths to get to the main street, you work and 
re-work this hope in your mind 
 and you are certain that they will help 
you 
 and your wife and your 5 children. One day, as always, you show up to 
work at the usual time, just after dawn. There is a crowd outside the door 

 it is the other employees, hundreds of them. They are talking and appear 
agitated. The company’s doors are locked and chained. Eventually everyone 
goes home and repeats the same thing the next day. That day things are a 
little different, the doors are still locked and chained and the same crowd 
is present. The difference is that it has become known that the owners shut 
down the company (never to reopen again) and left the country to Spain. The 
last few days of wages and indemnities are never paid to you or to any of 
the other factory workers. How can you face your family now? What will they 
say? What do you do? In anguish and desperation, your heartbeat speeds up, 
you feel faint and fall to the ground. When you awaken you are in hospital 

 they tell you that you had a stroke 
 and two years later you are dead. 
You were 55 years old.

Imagine that you were born partially malformed 
 you walk with a severe 
limp. You had a boyfriend once, but he died. You do not know how to read or 
write because there was no public school where you were brought up 
 and 
your parents did not have the money to send you to private school. The only 
jobs you feel comfortable doing are washing clothes, cooking and cleaning 
 
so this is what you have been doing for the last 60 years. “Luckily,” you 
say to yourself, “the wealthy family who hires me (6 days per week) allows 
me to eat some of their food, they are kind enough to allow me to sleep in 
their home six days per week 
 and they even give me a salary of $30 per 
month.” They are good people you say to yourself. “I am lucky to have this 
job.” You are over 70 years old now 
 and you still do the same job 
 and 
you still cannot read or write 
 because you were too busy working like a 
slave with no time or energy left to study. But you accept it, even though 
you feel like dirt, even though you feel small, even though you have lost 
your dignity 
 but you are proud and do not show the pain, to anyone except 
your boyfriend, but he is dead now.

So 
 when people ask me why do so many people believe in Chavez rather than 
supporting the typical upper-class, “educated,” paler-skinned, Latin 
American politico 
 I have a difficult time explaining.

The typical Venezuelan politician is the one who hires maids and allows 
them to sleep and eat at their home for 6 days of the week 
 and who is 
“kind” enough to pay her a stipend as a token of humanitarian gesture.

The typical Venezuelan politician is the one who promises to help his 
factory workers and then shuts down the factory and runs off to live in 
Miami, Aruba, Costa Rica or Spain, unfettered 
 without paying the factory 
workers their due wages and indemnities.

The typical Venezuelan politician is the boss who threatens to replace you 
with someone who “is willing to work” or who tells you that he cannot 
afford paying you a better wage 
 while he takes extensive family vacations 
in Miami and lives in a ten-room, five-bathroom home.

Do you see the connection?

Do you feel the pain?

Do you hear the truth?

So 
 what is it that instigated Chavez to carry out the coup against CAP?

As far as I understand, it all stemmed from the El Caracazo 
 in late 
February through early March 1989 
 when CAP’s government decreed a set of 
severe fiscal and economic measures which led to the mass hoarding of basic 
food stocks by manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and the 
wealthy 
 which led to mass-ransacking of food outlets, stores, warehouses 
and industry by poorer Venezuelans who needed to eat 
 which led to CAP 
suspending most constitutional guarantees and setting curfew 
 which led to 
CAP ordering the police and military to arbitrarily shoot people on the 
streets (mostly in Caracas and some other major cities).

“Everybody” in Venezuela knows that poorer Venezuelans (the 80%) have 
traditionally lived day to day to barely survive 
 unable to purchase food 
for future emergencies or needs.

The wealthy (the 20%) can do it, and they do it on a regular basis. They 
can afford to buy provisions for several weeks or months 



 and “everybody” in Venezuela knows this 
 and so did CAP.

When the mass hoarding began, some of the 80% began to panic (as should 
have been expected) 
 which led to the ransacking 
 which led to thousands 
of innocent people being cruelly assassinated under CAP’s orders. The 
estimates range from 2-3 thousand to 10 thousand dead, but nobody knows the 
real figures 
 especially because CAP’s government and the complicit, 
without-shame, co-collaborating “corporate” media covered up reality by 
stating “everything is normal.”

Chavez was in the military at the time 
 and he refused to participate in 
the mass slaughter. This event propelled Chavez to where he is today, coup 
included.

So who is right?

CAP and Carols Ortega (and many others) who have been calling for the use 
of violence, assassination (and US military intervention) to get rid of 
Chavez?


 or Chavez, who has regularly apologized and asked for forgiveness in 
public for his use of violence in the 1992 coup against CAP?

So who is right?

The wealthy Venezuelan (who is almost certainly anti-Chavez) who was able 
to afford to stock up on basic foodstuff in 1989?


 or the poorer Venezuelan who had nothing to eat and had to “steal” to 
survive?

So who is right?

My dear friend who has suffered silently for years since the 
stroke-provoked death of her 55-year-old husband?

or my dear friend who is in debt for $200 every month?

or my 70-plus year-old lady friend who continues to work as a maid for $30 
per month?

or the person who hires my dear friends for slave-like wages?

In the event that I have not been able to express myself (and my feelings) 
to the desired degree, I highly suggest that readers rent (or buy) the 
movie called “Romero.” This excellent movie carries the same type of 
message 
 and it is done in a superb and very real fashion.

It will make you cry.

Watch the film 
 and then ask the question once again:

“Why do so many people believe in Chavez?”

Oscar Heck
<mailto:oscar at vheadline.com>oscar at vheadline.com

The Freedom Archives
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San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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