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<font size=3><br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=5 color="#A80000">Why do so many people
believe in Chavez?</font><font face="verdana" size=2><b> <br><br>
</b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4><a href="http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=25968">http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=25968</a><br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=2><b>VHeadline.com commentarist Oscar
Heck writes:</b> 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?<br><br>
<b><i>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.<br><br>
</i></b><u>Here are some examples of what I wish to convey:<br><br>
</u></font>
<dl>
<dd>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)</i>. 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)</i>, 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)</i> 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.”<br><br>
<dd>Imagine another scenario.</u></b> 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.<br><br>
<dd>Imagine that you were born partially malformed</b> … 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)</i> 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.<br><br>
</dl><font face="georgia" size=2><b><i>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. <br><br>
</i></b></font><font face="georgia" size=3>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd><font face="georgia" size=4 color="#7F0000">Do you see the
connection?<br><br>
<dd>Do you feel the pain?<br><br>
<dd>Do you hear the truth?<br><br>
</i></font>
</dl><font face="georgia" size=2><b><i>So … what is it that instigated
Chavez to carry out the coup against CAP? <br><br>
</i></b></font><font face="georgia" size=3>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 <i>(mostly in Caracas and some other major cities)</i>.
<br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=2><b><i>“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.</i></b></font><font face="georgia" size=3> <br><br>
The wealthy <i>(the 20%)</i> can do it, and they do it on a regular
basis. They can afford to buy provisions for several weeks or months …
<br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=4 color="#7F0000"><i>… and “everybody”
in Venezuela <b><u>knows</u></b> this … and so did CAP.<br><br>
</i></font><font face="georgia" size=3>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
</font><font face="georgia" size=2><b><i>“everything is
normal.”</i></b></font><font face="georgia" size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=2><b><i>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.<br><br>
</b></font><font face="georgia" size=4 color="#7F0000">So who is
right?<br><br>
</i></font><font face="georgia" size=3>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? <br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=2><b>… or Chavez, who has regularly
apologized and asked for forgiveness in public for his use of violence in
the 1992 coup against CAP?<br><br>
</b></font><font face="georgia" size=4 color="#7F0000"><i>So who is
right?<br><br>
</i></font><font face="georgia" size=3>The wealthy Venezuelan <i>(who is
almost certainly anti-Chavez)</i> who was able to afford to stock up on
basic foodstuff in 1989?<br><br>
… or the poorer Venezuelan who had nothing to eat and had to “steal” to
survive?<br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=4 color="#7F0000"><i>So who is
right?<br><br>
</i></font>
<dl>
<dd><font size=2>My dear friend who has suffered silently for years since
the stroke-provoked death of her 55-year-old husband?<br><br>
</b></font>
<dd><font face="georgia" size=3>or my dear friend who is in debt for $200
every month?<br><br>
<dd>or my 70-plus year-old lady friend who continues to work as a maid
for $30 per month?<br><br>
</font>
<dd><font face="georgia" size=2><b>or the person who hires my dear
friends for slave-like wages?<br><br>
</b></font>
</dl><font face="georgia" size=3>In the event that I have not been able
to express myself <i>(and my feelings)</i> to the desired degree, I
highly suggest that readers rent <i>(or buy)</i> the movie called
“Romero.” This excellent movie carries the same type of message … and it
is done in a superb and very real fashion. <br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=5 color="#7F0000">It will make you
cry.<br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=2><b>Watch the film … and then ask the
question once again:<br><br>
</b></font><font face="georgia" size=5 color="#7F0000">“Why do so many
people believe in Chavez?”<br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=5>Oscar Heck<br>
<a href="mailto:oscar@vheadline.com">oscar@vheadline.com</a><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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(415) 863-9977<br>
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