Hugo Chavez arrives in London on Sunday

[AYOUB]

Chavez: "I'm ugly … black mixed with Indian, that's me ... I'm not going to change!"

 

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[AYOUB]

Clinics, cheap food boost support, but poverty remains high in Venezuela

May 8, 2006. 05:34 AM

TIM HARPER

WASHINGTON BUREAU

 

 

LAS MAYAS, Venezuela—From here, high atop Caracas, as the dust kicks up from the packed van hurtling down the clay roads offering the only means of temporary escape from this poverty, it is hard to see Hugo Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution."

 

What you can see are sheets of scrap metal cobbled together to form a shantytown that provides shelter for 25,000 in what used to be a forest.

 

You can see the sign advertising a clinic, until you realize it, too, is scrap, used to keep out the elements, not advertise a needed service.

 

You've already seen the piles of garbage in the streets of the barrios down below, the pharmacy behind bars to deter thieves, the piles of sewage pipes on the street representing a construction project stalled by bureaucratic wrangling, the "chop shop" street where stolen cars are stripped for parts.

 

In the kitchen inside a hovel, volunteers are stirring an eight-kilogram pot of lentils, enough to feed 150 at lunch with government-supplied food. There's chicken, but the women running the kitchen say they haven't seen meat for some time.

 

Poverty remains stubbornly high here, and has risen to more than 50 per cent during Chavez's reign, even as the economy recovers from a debilitating national strike in 2002-'03 — and is growing.

 

But if Chavez is to be returned to power in elections next December and beyond — how many years is a favourite parlour game in Venezuela — he will draw his strength from the squatters in the forest and the neighbourhoods below.

 

It won't come from his decisions to rewrite the constitution, or rename the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, or rename his congress the National Assembly.

 

It won't be because he added an eighth star to the flag, in a nod to the Simon Bolivar proposal of the 19th century, or because he changed the horse in the country's coat of arms so it gallops to the left, not the right.

 

These are the vanity decisions of a leader often consumed by hubris.

 

He will do it by importing some 17,000 Cuban doctors and Cuban medical supplies to provide much-needed health care to the masses.

 

He will do it by feeding the poorest of the poor in subsidized supermarkets where cheap lentils and pasta are packaged in plastic advertising articles of the Venezuelan constitution, and by launching ambitious literary programs.

 

He will do it by providing free tuition to his Bolivar University and bringing food and health care each day to Parque Carabobo for the homeless of Caracas.

 

He does not have universal support in the poor barrios outside Caracas, but people will tell you things are improving.

 

"No government is perfect," says Fernando Aranguren, a fast-talking aspiring politician who glad-hands everyone in his barrio as he acts as the Toronto Star's guide and bodyguard, though he appears to tilt only slightly on the plus side of 100 pounds.

 

"The revolution will never be perfect because it is run by men, not by machines," he says. "There is corruption, there are defects.

 

"But day-to-day, for the first time, a government has appealed to the masses because he has taken notice of the masses.

 

"Yes, we have garbage on the streets. But there is garbage on the streets of Brooklyn, too."

 

Alejandro Herrero, a 73-year-old whose family has run a store in this neighbourhood since the 1940s, says he sees the good in Chavez, but is not shy about "constructively criticizing him."

 

"In some ways, things have improved," he says. "People are receiving more now and they are sharing in the petrol wealth inside the country.

 

"But he is also sharing a lot of it outside."

 

Herrero has hit on one of the common criticisms of Chavez, who is accused of spending too much money earned by Venezuela's natural riches on trying to build alliances outside the country to further his own personal ambitions.

 

The right-wing opposition Primero Justicia tells voters Chavez has pledged $4 billion (U.S.) in new social programs this year, while he is spending $16 billion (U.S.) in an effort to win support for his particular brand of socialism outside the country.

 

The centrepieces of Chavez's social revolution are the clinics in the barrios, clean two-storey brick structures with second-floor apartments for the Cuban doctors.

 

In the waiting area are posters backing Chavez and pictures of Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro embracing. The doctors' program will now be expanded to Bolivia. New President Evo Morales agreed to sign on when he met Chavez and Castro in Havana late last month.

 

Nurse Carmen Hernandez says the doctors can treat up to 40 patients a day, and will attend emergencies day or night.

 

"Before the doctors came," she says, "people had to go to hospital. Very often they died in the hospital.

 

"They were poorly served."

 

At Chavez's chain of Mercal subsidized supermarkets, staples such as chicken, rice, pasta, milk and cooking oil can be purchased at substantial discounts.

 

"It is working," one diplomat said. "He is getting food to the poorest of the poor."

 

The supermarkets look like campaign headquarters with grocery shelves.

 

One Chavez poster exhorts voters to choose him for "Seven More Years — For Now."

 

Another celebrates "The Motherland, Free and Glorious."

 

Even the packaging touts Chavez programs.

 

Damelis Castro grabs a bag of lentils in a wrapper printed with Article 322 of the Venezuelan constitution, avowing the country's right to security and defence.

 

Mixing self-defence and cheap food is a blessing for Castro, who says it's a way for the people to understand what their government is doing. Shopping in a state-run supermarket with low prices can save 40 per cent, sometimes 50 per cent, on her weekly grocery bill, she says.

 

And who does she have to thank for that?

 

Her face brightens. "Hugo Chavez," says Castro, standing beneath a poster extolling the Venezuelan leader's virtues.

 

Chavez says Mercal is serving an average of 15.6 million people a month, and provided 1.5 million tonnes of foodstuffs to Venezuelans last year.

 

A couple of blocks away, a line of the homeless has formed in front of the Mision Negra Hipolita, where they'll receive a basic meal and glass of orange juice.

 

Workers will offer "rehabilitation" if they need it, and ask them to counsel others on the street in return.

 

But worker Elba Vasquez concedes the program has not made much of a dent in the homeless problem in Caracas.

 

"What can we do?" she asks. "If they choose to live on the streets, they will do so because we can't force anyone into rehabilitation."

[General Duke]

Hugo is mot welcome...

[AYOUB]

^^^ As ambiguous as ever.. Was that 'most welcome' or 'not welcome'

 

 

 

Chavez offers oil to Europe's poor

Venezuelan President promises fuel to the needy and proclaims 'final days of the North American empire' before visit to Britain today

 

Sunday May 14, 2006

The Observer

 

 

Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez arrives in London today with an extraordinary promise to offer cut-rate heating oil for needy families in Europe, modelled on a similar campaign in the US which has been seen partly as a bid to embarrass President George Bush.

Last night Chavez also issued a taunting obituary for the 'American empire' on the eve of a visit where he will be shunned by Downing Street but welcomed by London Mayor Ken Livingststone.

 

Chavez said in Vienna yesterday that the 'final hours of the North American empire have arrived ... Now we have to say to the empire: "We're not afraid of you. You're a paper tiger."'

 

Referring to his supply of heating to poor American families last winter, Chavez told a meeting of political supporters: 'I'd like to do the same here in Europe.'

 

He was addressing an 'alternative summit' held alongside a three-day meeting of leaders from the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean in the Austrian capital. 'I want to humbly offer support to the poorest people who do not have resources for central heating in winter and make sure that support arrives,' he said.

 

Though he said that Venezuela has two refineries in Germany and one in Britain, he did not provide further details about how the supply scheme would work. But he said Venezuelan ambassadors in Europe were looking into the matter. 'You Europeans can help us greatly. Your European social networks can make sure the support arrives where it should,' Chavez told the conference.

 

This past winter, Venezuela delivered cut-rate oil to low-income Americans through Citgo, the Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company.

 

Chavez appealed to the audience to unite and promote social change. For example, he said, more business should be steered toward smaller companies to the benefit of labourers in poorer regions, and that doing so would cut out intermediaries. 'We have to unite all possible movements, otherwise the world is not going to change,' he said.

 

Chavez, with a growing regional profile built on a mix of populist rhetoric and his country's oil wealth, has been publicly feuding with Bush, whom he has likened to Adolf Hitler - with Tony Blair dismissed as 'the main ally of Hitler.'

 

While Downing Street has pointedly emphasised that Chavez's visit to Britain is private, with no official contacts planned, London's mayor yesterday defended his decision to host a luncheon in honour of the Venezuelan leader.

 

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Livingstone said that Chavez had been responsible for significant social reforms and called him 'the best news out of Latin America in many years.'

 

Dismissing human rights groups' concerns about Venezuela's treatment of political opponents, Livingstone said: 'He's won 10 elections for his party in the last decade and he's pushed through a whole programme of social reform.

 

'Venezuela was like a lot of those old Latin American countries - a small elite of super-rich families who basically stole the national resources. He's now driven a new economic order through, you've got for the first time healthcare for poor people, illiteracy has been eradicated.'

 

Chavez is scheduled to begin his visit with an address on his social reforms and a meeting with supporters at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London today. Tomorrow, he will meet left-wing Labour MPs and trade union officials and hold a joint news conference with Livingstone at City Hall.

 

Tomorrow evening, Chavez is due to give a lecture at Canning House, an institution that works to strengthen commercial and cultural ties between Britain and Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. On Tuesday, the final day of the visit, the Venezuelan leader is due to open a museum and speak at Banqueting House in Whitehall.

 

Livingstone said that one reason he was keen to welcome Chavez was because of the potential benefit for the capital from a strong financial and economic relationship with Venezuela.

 

'The reason he [Chavez] wants to come to London is because clearly, as the Latin American economies really begin to emerge from the American shadow and grow, they don't want all their eggs in the Washington basket,' Livingstone contended. 'They're looking for allies in Europe and Asia and it's very much in London's interests that as Venezuela's companies go, they should see London as a natural home every bit as much as Madrid.'

 

The mood surrounding Chavez's two-day trip contrasts sharply with the warm welcome he received from Blair during an official London visit five years ago.

 

Relations with the Venezuelan leader have frayed badly as Chavez has drawn steadily closer to Fidel Castro's Cuba and tried to galvanise South American opposition to US policies.

 

Earlier this year, Blair declared in the Commons that Venezuela 'should abide by the rules of the international community,' adding that it would help further if Cuba became a 'functioning democracy.'

 

Chavez reacted to the remarks, and denounced Blair as a 'pawn of imperialism.'

 

The Venezuelan leader then further angered Downing Street by declaring that the Falkland Islands rightly belonged to Argentina. 'Tony Blair, you have no moral right to tell anyone to respect international laws, as you have no respect for them, aligning yourself with Mr Danger [bush] and trampling on the people of Iraq,' he added. 'Do you think we still live in the times of the British empire?'

 

Venezuela's embassy in London has played down the reluctance of Blair to take any part in the Chavez visit, issuing a statement last week pointing out that he had already had an official welcome during his 2001 trip to London.

 

 

The Observer

[General Duke]

leave it out mate. Hugo is welcome to our lovely abode...