HUGO CHAVEZ, VENEZUELA
AND HOW THE MORE THINGS
CHANGE THE MORE THEY REMAIN THE SAME
Peter H. Tveskov
January 17, 2006
You rarely see any mention of Venezuela in the
Travel sections of the newspapers, but a few weeks ago there was an article
about Caracas. They mentioned the hotel Tamanaco and the "Tarzilandia"
restaurant - a churrasqueria - as places to stay and eat. I was surprised, as
both places were prominent last time I visited Caracas forty years ago. I
often stayed at the Tamanaco although I much preferred the Hotel Avila located
on the opposite side of the valley, a classier and prettier location.
When I arrived in Venezuela from Denmark in 1948,
it was necessary to use the Carretera Vieja -"the old highway" -
between the Maiquetia airport in the port city of LaGuaira and Caracas.
LaGuaira had been seriously damaged during the seasonal rains that year and I
specifically remember the unique smell where the local cemetery had washed
away. The Caracas-LaGuaira railroad had also washed out and one could see
forlorn rolling stock along the way.
It was about a two hour trip up over the mountains
and down into the high valley in which Caracas is located. During the eight year dictatorship of General
Marcos Perez Jimenez in the fifties a new four lane super highway was built,
known as the Autopista. It reduced the trip to less than half an hour. At the
same time General Perez Jimenez - affectionately known by the expatriate
Americans in Venezuela as "PJ" - also built the cylindrical high
rise Hotel Humboldt on top of Mount Avila, the mountain range separating
Caracas from the coast - connected to the city by a cable car. The hotel,
which among other things had a skating rink, was never successful as the
altitude and cold was uncomfortable to the guests.
The Venezuelan newspapers now report that due to
lack of maintenance a viaduct on this highway has been damaged by the seasonal
rains and the road has been shut down indefinitely making it necessary
to use the Carreterar Vieja again. (The railroad was never rebuilt).
Flood damage to LaGuaira happens nearly every year
during the rainy season and Coronel Chavez' first confrontation with the US as
president occurred when the US offered unconditional aid and assistance during
the floods during his first year in office. He ordered the US to cease and
desist and for the US Navy ships to leave immediately - they did.
So how did Venezuela get from Simon Bolivar, El
Libertador, to paratrooper Lieutenant Coronel Hugo Chavez Frias?
Venezuela became independent of Spain July 5, 1811
following the war of independence. For the next 150 years or so a series
of civil wars and dictatorships of various durations and cruelty followed. The
country was officially a federal republic and many of these wars were caused
by warlords of the individual states, all of whom wanted to dominate the
country at some point or another. This period pretty much ended with the
nearly thirty year dictatorship of General Juan Vicente Gomez, who ruled as
president or power behind the throne. During Gomez' rule oil was discovered
and exploitation begun, creating great wealth for the country and its rulers.
Gomez also created a national army led by a professional officer corps
educated at the national military academy in Caracas and established a federal
military police force known as the Guardia Nacional, patterned on the Spanish
Guardia Civil and the Italian Carabinieri. Following the death of General
Gomez the country was ruled by a series of criollo military figures mostly
brought up in Gomez' army and mainly generals from the Andean western state of
Tachira. Most of these presidents tended to be more progressive than had been
the custom during the history of Venezuela and a group of civilian
politicians also appeared on the scene, the best known being Romulo Betancourt
and Rafael Caldera, leaders of the Accion Democratica and Christian Democrat (COPEI)
party respectively. Both eventually became elected presidents, but not until
after a military coup in 1949 which brought then Coronel Marcos Perez Jimenez -
also a "tachirense" - to power.
The country prospered during Perez Jimenez'
regime, but it was also a true dictatorship, complete with a brutal secret
police, political murders and repression of all political parties.
Perez Jimenez was overthrown in 1958 and was
followed by a true democracy that lasted for about forty years until the
advent of Coronel Chavez, who is not from Tachira but a mestizo from the
plains state of Barinas. While suffering from serious official corruption,
this period also saw the peaceful changes following free elections of
governments between the two major parties, unheard of in Venezuela's history.
A sitting president was even impeached and deposed during this period, all
proofs that democracy was indeed on the way in Venezuela.
During the same period the oil industry and iron
mining industry were peacefully nationalized and public corporations established to take the place of Mobil, Esso, Texaco, Shell,
Gulf and US Steel
Corporation. In general these nationalized corporations were well run and
gained the respect of the international business community. Foreign companies
continued to function in Venezuela as specialized sub-contractors for these
national corporations. The Venezuelan national oil company, Petroleos de
Venezuela, even decided to enter the down-stream market and purchased Cities
Service (CITGO) in order to market their refined products in the United
States.
What has changed though, is the population of
Venezuela. In 1948 there were about 5,000,000 inhabitants; today there are
over five times that many. The ruling class of the country had traditionally
been the white "criollos", while the lower classes were composed
mainly of mestizos and blacks, with some Indians in the southern parts of the
country as well as on the border between Colombia and Venezuela. After the war
thousands of European immigrants arrived in Venezuela, mainly from Spain,
Portugal and Italy, and between these immigrants and the well paid workers of
the large corporations - Venezuelan and foreign - a true middle class was
developing. While the upper class criollos were usually educated in private
colleges mainly run by Catholic orders or attended secondary schools in
the United States and Europe, the middle and lower classes depended on a
public school system, education, at least officially, being compulsory. I do
not know the demographic statistics of the country, but would venture a guess
that proportionally the lower classes have grown more than the upper classes.
Another positive result of the forty years of
democracy has been the removal of the military as a significant factor in
politics, a dramatic change for a country in which the military traditionally
was the government!
Due to the solid basis of the Venezuelan economy,
the currency, the Bolivar, used to be based on gold. Indeed the Bolivar, which
originally was fixed at Bs 5 to the $, a Bs 5 silver coin being identical in
size and silver content to a US silver dollar. By the time the national
resources were nationalized the Bolivar was worth 3.35/US $, the US $ having
dropped in value against the Bolivar.
Due to the chaotic international and internal
political situations, corruption and the energy cost crises in the
seventies, the Bolivar collapsed and now a dollar will buy over 2,000 Bs -,
that is if the Venezuelans are allowed to purchase foreign currency, which
since Mr. Chavez' takeover can only be done with official permission and a
reason deemed legitimate to the authorities.
Many of the descendants of the immigrants have
returned to their countries of origin and due to the explosive population
growth there are no longer enough jobs in the private and productive
government sectors, i.e. the oil industry, iron and steel industry, to accommodate the growing number of poor people. Coronel Chavez, not a criollo, promises
a bright future to these long ignored dark skinned members of Venezuelan
society. In many ways he is another Juan Peron catering to his "descamizados".
His red herring of course has to be the United
States, not a convincing red herring, as Venezuela's major industries have
long since been nationalized, but a traditional target for the very proudly
nationalistic Venezuelans. Chavez has established a relationship with Fidel
Castro's Cuba, bartering petroleum products for Cuban physicians, teachers and
other professional advisors.
The criollo classes have attempted and continue to
attempt to defeat Coronel Chavez. As another result of the new democratic
tradition, these attempts so far have been done constitutionally. Enough
political pressure was applied to Coronel Chavez early in the 2000s so that he
officially and in writing resigned. However, the people who took over from him
miscalculated badly by using extra-constitutional steps and were soon
defeated, Chavez returning in triumph. He immediately neutralized the armed
forces by retiring the senior generals - a few of whom had been involved in
the coup attempt - and by promoting his contemporaries in the officer corps,
granting significant pay raises to both officers and men in the process.
Chavez also tries to present himself as a new
Simon Bolivar and liberator of the oppressed peoples of the entire South
American continent. One of his first steps was to do away once and for all
with the illusion of the federal Venezuelan republic, changing the name of the
country to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He is establishing what is
euphemistically known as a military reserve, in fact a people's militia, and
has purchased 100,000 AK47s from Russia to arm these "reservists".
Time will tell how the Venezuelan professional armed forces will accept these
"reservists" and also how many of the AK47s will appear in
"armies of liberation" in other South American countries!
Is Chavez a threat to the US? Not unless either
his or our government miscalculates disastrously. Oil being a fungible
product, it would be difficult for Chavez to deny the US oil and if he does,
his new found wealth would also shrink and he might have to replace his
recently purchased Airbus presidential airplane with something a bit more
modest, especially if he no longer would need it for state visits to other
South American countries.
What is my interest in that beautiful and wealthy
country?
I emigrated there with my mother at age 14 and
finished my secondary education in the Colegio de San Jose de Merida - with
the rich criollos - and at the Liceo Andres Bello in Caracas - with the
children of the middle class and of the immigrants. I spoke no Spanish when I
got to Merida, but had ninety days to take an equivalency exam in order to
remain in the level where I had been placed. With the aid of one of the
Jesuit priests I learned two years' worth of Spanish language and literature
in ninety days and passed the exam. Three years later when the time came for
me to go to the university, Perez Jimenez had closed the Venezuelan
universities as the students were rioting against him. Instead I came to Yale,
arriving late one night in New Haven from Idlewild Airport by Greyhound bus. I
frankly did not even know exactly where New Haven was located, except that it
was reasonably close to New York. All kidding aside, the reason I chose Yale
was that an aunt who was a judge in Denmark had attended the Yale Law School
after the war and recommended the university.
Later in my professional career my wife and two
older children lived, toured and worked for a couple of years in
Venezuela. Over the years I kept in touch with some of my classmates from
Merida and Caracas, but unfortunately they are no longer with us.
