Redstate

By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Contra Tyrannum | Featured Stories — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

It is not and should not be all that hard for writers nowadays to take down the pretensions to greatness and progress that Hugo Chavez would have us all readily accept. But few skewer Chavez as effectively as does Amir Taheri:

I FIRST met Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's flamboyant president, after one of his earlier trips to Iran. With a few colleagues, we dined at an Italian restaurant in Paris.

The conversation touched on a range of topics, but two themes dominated. The first was his "determination" to end poverty in Venezuela. "There is no need for anyone to be poor in a country as rich as ours," he asserted as he sipped his Chateau Lafitte. "Give me four years, just give me four years!"

The second main theme was Chavez's claim that the Catholic Church, prompted by "wealthy oligarchs," was trying to sabotage his social revolution.

Chavez claimed to be the ideological heir of Simon Bolivar, the father of Latin American liberation from colonial rule, and recalled his hero's commitment to "secular government." Bolivar had said that while the individual was free to have whatever faith he wished, the state should have no religion. As for society, its sole religion should be freedom within the rule of law.

In that context, Chavez was particularly critical of the theocratic system established by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He said he admired the Iranian revolution and had fallen in love with Iran's natural beauty and cultural richness - "ah, those roses in Isfahan!" - but was uneasy about the mullahs' attempts to impose their version of Islam on all Iranians.

Well, Chavez has had eight years - twice as much as he had demanded in that Paris restaurant.

Thanks to rising oil prices, Venezuela has garnered something like $180 billion net in oil export revenues. That income has been topped by $30 billion worth of government borrowing. That means a total of $210 billion, not taking into account the government's other revenues from taxes and custom duties.

Yet, under Chavez, Venezuela's public debt (domestic and foreign) has risen from $21 to almost $47 billion. His own government's reports show a steady rise in the number of people below the poverty line. Despite a $5 billion bonanza from the seizure of foreign funds from the Venezuelan Central Bank, the government last year issued bonds worth $4 billion to cover a looming budget deficit.

Check for more below the jump . . .

Read it all. You will find that Chavez has warmed to the legacy of Khomeini and of course, he is now one of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bestest buddies. If the working people Chavez claims to champion received even a dollop of such friendship, they might be significantly better off than they are today.

But of course, we all know that's not going to happen. The working people do not attract Hugo Chavez's sympathy. They are only useful to him as political props.