By John Leschak

Last Wednesday, Bart Jones, a Newsday reporter and a biographer of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, gave a lecture on Chavez’s life, which was sponsored by the University’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program. Jones wrote “HUGO! The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution.”

Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador are facing intense pressure over the intrusion of a Colombian military force that had tracked and killed a Colombian guerilla leader in Ecuador, according to reports in the international press. As a result, both Venezuela and Ecuador have stopped diplomatic relations with Colombia.

Chavez is said to be a powerful player in the Andean shake-up.

Jones explained Chavez’s past, describing Chavez’s life as a child, born and raised in a mud hut with no running water or electricity. Like a majority of the Venezuelan population, said Jones, Chavez lived in miserable poverty with little to no access to medical facilities and public utilities.

In Chavez’s teenager years, he was a huge baseball fan and dreamed of going professional. However, Chavez eventually gave up on his dreams of professional baseball and instead entered the Venezuelan military academy. He graduated from the academy in 1975.

In 1982, Chavez organized a conspiracy within the Venezuelan military to overthrow the government, said Jones, because Chavez and hundreds of other soldiers were disgusted by the things the Venezuelan government ordered them to do such as an instance in 1989, Jones explained, when the military was ordered to repress poor people who rioted because of the increasing prices of food.

“The repression of the Caracazo food riots was one of the worst massacres in modern Latin American history,” said Jones.

In 1992, Chavez launched a coup against then-President Carlos Andrez Peres, who had authorized the repression of the 1989 riots. “Although the coup failed militarily, it succeeded politically,” Jones said. Chavez was jailed, but was pardoned by a new president in 1994. He became a folk hero, Jones said, and in 1997, he ran for president and won.

Although immensely popular with Venezuela’s poor, Chavez was despised by the upper class. In 2002, the elites attempted to overthrow the Chavez government and Chavez was kidnapped by rebels. However, after two days, he was rescued by loyal soldiers.

Jones rejected the claim by many Americans that Chavez is a dictator.

“Although his government is not perfect, he is not a dictator,” Jones said. Jones referred to the election last December in which Chavez’s proposal for a constitutional referendum was rejected by voters. “Chavez accepted the results. This certainly is not the activity of a dictator,” said Jones.

The debate over Chavez in America is similar to the irrational hysteria of the McCarthy era, Jones contended.

“The media calls Chavez a dictator, but they pay no attention to the death-squads that are currently authorized by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe,” said Jones.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. (Wikipedia Commons)