| IS VENEZUELA THE NEXT HAITI? |
| Written by Maria Elena Salinas |
| Tuesday, March 09 2004 |
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| What do you do when a democratically elected head of state becomes a threat to democracy? That is a question that diplomats have been struggling with for years. In Haiti, after weeks of political violence that cost dozens of lives, several countries -- including the United States -- pressured President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign, even though he had been democratically elected. Would they do the same thing with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela?
Like Aristide, Chavez is a populist leader who came into power as a champion of the poor, but he has failed to end extreme poverty. Like Aristide, Chavez has managed to antagonize the country's powerful elite. Like the Haitian leader, Chavez relies on armed thugs to take care of his dirty work.
But unlike Chavez, Aristide didn't have military force to keep him in power. He disbanded the army and replaced it with a 5,000-man police force in a country of 8 million people. Chavez, on the other hand, routinely uses the power of his military forces to quell any insurrection against him. Haiti's institutions were falling apart, while Venezuela's, although questionable, are solid.
Another difference is that while Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere, Venezuela is oil-rich. It is, in fact, the fifth-largest oil producer in the world, and it accounts for 14 percent of the oil imported by the United States.
In the past few weeks, political violence has escalated in Venezuela, and so has the tension between Chavez and President George W. Bush. Chavez recently threatened to stop oil exports to the United States if Bush even thought about imposing economic sanctions against his country, as the United States did in Haiti. He accuses the United States of trying to destabilize his country by supporting the opposition, and he makes Bush personally responsible for the deaths that have occurred during clashes between the opposition and his followers.
The violence stems from the inability of the opposition to get a recall election off the ground. Twice they have collected the millions of signatures required for the recall, and twice the signatures have been invalidated on technicalities by pro-Chavez election authorities.
Chavez, a former military coup leader, was elected by a wide margin in 1998 and then was re-elected after a plebiscite that reformed the constitution. But his government has since been accused of becoming corrupt, authoritarian and repressive. His close relationship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro has led thousands to flee in fear that he might be leading the country toward a Cuban-style dictatorship. Chavez vows to stay in power until 2012, confident that he will win yet another re-election.
The U.S. government denies Chavez's accusations that it was behind a coup attempt against him in 2002, but President Bush has now publicly expressed his support for the opposition's effort to hold a recall election. Chavez's reaction has been to attack Bush, calling him an illegitimate president and challenging his tenure: "Let's see who will last longer -- Bush in the White House or me in Miraflores (the Venezuelan presidential palace)."
Aristide did not resort to rhetoric or verbal confrontation with world leaders, as Chavez has. But his pleas for help in controlling the incessant violence were ignored. His inability to work with opposing forces made him lose credibility and the support of the international community. In Venezuela, the Organization for American States and the Carter Center for Democracy have been trying to mediate between the opposing factions, but the country remains polarized.
The Bush administration does not hide its disdain for Chavez, much the same way it criticized Aristide up until the day he headed out of Haiti on a flight to Africa. But removing democratically elected Chavez from office will be a much more difficult task. Venezuela will probably not be the next Haiti, but if something is not done soon, it could end up being the next Cuba. |
