The filmmaker Oliver Stone's documentary of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has re-energized a long-running debate about the future of Venezuela and what it means for democracy in other countries.
Mr. Stone argues the assault on human rights is of secondary concern, saying: "Why do you seek out the dark side when the guy is doing good things?" After all, "Most peoples' lives in this country have improved under Chavez."
Unfortunately, for the vast majority of Venezuelans, this statement could not be further from the truth. If you are among the millions living in barrios, you no longer trust that you will be protected, that services will be delivered, that your lights will stay on or that you will have access to clean water.
As a mayor for eight years of the commercial district of Caracas, I have seen firsthand how dreams have become more elusive for average Venezuelans, replaced by a dangerous sense of frustration and hopelessness.
Venezuela is now the murder capital of the western hemisphere -- with a 320 increase in homicides and a 1,400 percent increase in kidnappings since 2000. This pervasive state of insecurity affects all Venezuelans, especially those living in poverty.
Shelves are bare, and Venezuela's production capacity has deteriorated so much that we have had to increase food imports by 700 percent -- including goods such as meat and coffee that were once 100 percent locally produced. Prices are 650 percent higher since Chavez first took office. The recent discovery of 81,000 tons of rotting food in a government-controlled storage facility only added to the sense that this is a problem that the president has created.
Access to clean water and electricity is a similar story. Power outages are now a daily fact of life. Many government agencies have to close early in the afternoon because there is not enough electricity.
These worsening conditions have opened the door to more sinister developments, especially in the border regions with Colombia, where people speak of an alarming growth in guerrilla activity, including the FARC. Last week I visited el Alto Apure in this region and heard a mother of four describe the new reality:
"As mothers we fight a silent war against the recruitment of our children by the elenos or the boliches (the ELN and the FBL guerrilla groups)," she told me. "If we say something we risk our lives, walls listen in El Nula."
The government officially denies the presence of these groups in Venezuelan territory. However, those who live here say the groups are so pervasive that they now have absolute control of everything from gasoline distribution to the management of the health centers and the police. A middle aged shop owner who survived a recent kidnapping told me, "If you want something to get done you need to speak with the guerrillos, everything you tell the police or the army they will know, so its better to speak directly with them."
The most shocking testimony was given by a 17 year old boy who said many of his fellow students in school have been recruited as members of the guerrilla groups and go to school as informants. "They don't want to learn, they only go in order to inform the elenos what is happening in our school. [The guerillas] the offer them a salary and a motorcycle, and off they go." I asked him if any had been killed recently. The boy's 16-year-old friend looked him for permission to respond and said, "yes two weeks ago Jose Andres was killed, they said that it was an accident, but we know he died during a conflict between guerrilla groups. That happens all the time."
The difficulties here go beyond insecurity and guerrilla. This region was once one of the most productive meat production territories in Venezuela. More than 50 small, medium and large productive farms in this area alone have been confiscated and are currently controlled by the government. Production has plummeted. Land that had been full of the best cattle is now empty.
The pain has certainly undermined public confidence in Chavez, which is now at an all time low. In 2012, Venezuela will hold its next presidential election, and polls show that a majority of citizens believe it is time for a change. But change is by no means inevitable.
We in the opposition must first take responsibility for our own historical failings, and apply important lessons. It is not enough to be against Chavez. People need to hear how we will make their lives better in basic terms of safety, shelter, and a better chance to achieve dreams.
We must also be a more organized majority. In the past, we in the opposition have been our own worst enemy. Backroom decision-making and political infighting reminds the people of a past they do not want to return to. We need to show them something different: new leaders, transparent processes and ways to engage people directly in our decision-making processes.
Finally, the international community must be more engaged. The approach to Venezuela must not be unilateral but multilateral - led by institutions such as the Organization of American States.
What happens in Venezuela will have profound consequences for Latin America - and for global stability. If the playbook being used today in Venezuela is allowed to succeed without condemnation, it will be replicated not just in Latin America, but also in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
And for the average citizen, access to dreams would diminish even more.
Leopoldo Lopez was mayor of Chacao from 2000 to 2008. He won Transparency International's Award for the most transparent municipality in Venezuela. In 2009 he founded Voluntad Popular, a social organization with the goal of promoting democracy and human rights.
Are you ill or something? Firstly poverty is a relative term. What is considered poor in one country is rich in another. Secondly for most of human history 99% of people were "poor" in modern terms though I doubt all of these would have felt so at the time as they had little frame of reference. No doubt the peasant who found himself with a few extra pigs at the end of winter would probably consider himself (and be considered) rich. Thirdly I would suggest that something like genocide is a far greater violation of human rights as murder is not something that can be relativist.
Its is normal living when you spend all day long watching GLOBOINFECCION
The worst part about Hugo Chavez is his call for hate, violence. If he would call for unity and actually do some of the things he promises over and over again maybe everyone should be Chavista, if he called for peace between venezuelans maybe there wouldn't be so much hate out there, it saddens me how much anger people have in this country. His speeches are always filled with negativity and lies.
Corruption? just look into his own administration, I've seen their properties, I've seen their planes and their yachts, they have an amount of money you can't even count in your head. Diosdado Cabello? one of the richest venezuelans out there, believe me. Talk about hipocracy, is that socialism?
In this country people live scared, not just people with money, talk to someone who lives in a barrio, they even kidnap them for their hard working salary, they can't go out at night because there are daily shoot outs between criminals or they might get killed for a pair of shoes.
I can go on and on, about what's wrong with this country, it's not just Chavez's fault, his leeches also have culprit but he is the head of state.
contrary to what some people believe, democracy in venezuela is alive and well. That's why people in venezuela who oppose chavez, getting funding from the american government. Funding to help them defeat chavez in an election.
What is taking place in venezuela is also taking place in the rest of south america.If you have an issue with venezuela then you should have an issue with bolivia, and the rest of the continent.This may offend some people but the resources of south america belong to the people of south america, not the american empire.
Chavez is only out to promote Chavez, and he is willing to drag his country into the toilet in order to do it. After 10 years, this evidence is overwhelming, and yet the "know-nothings" like Oliver Stone, and some of the posters below, struggle harder and harder to maintain the fiction that Chavez is another Bolivar.
Yes, Chavez has won elections, but he gets to select his opponents (by disqualifying and arresting the most promising candidates, like Leopoldo), controls the media, by controls the rules of game. When his candidates are defeated, he strips powers away from the new officeholder (see Ledezma, mayor of Caracas, who lost his budget to a Chavez appointee).
Leopoldo's disqualification was ruled illegal by the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights. See http://www.todanoticia.com/2710/cidh-demanda-venezuela/?lang=en
The so-called statistics cited below don't change the fact that murders and kidnappings are now higher than anywhere in the western hemisphere, the electrical infrastructure is collapsing, and people can't buy what they need due to shortages and inflation. These problems are far worse today than they were in 1998.
Most of the posters here don't live in Venezuela, and haven't experienced the misery first hand. It's bad.
America under Faux News.
Chavez is only interested in being the Fidel Castro of South America and will do anything to insure that inclusive of election fraud, murder and an open declaration of his divine right to be leader until death.
If you want a history lesson in what imperialist have been doing in south america, you might want to read profit over people,and hegemony or survival.A caring imperialist is an oxymoron.
America is the largest terrorist State on the Earth and is becoming ever more repugnant.
The Famine of 500,000 Colombians who have formerly productive farmland chemically sterilized by US Military attempts at erradicaion of coca is only one of the crimes against humanity by the Terrorist State of America.
I love my Honduran friends and Venezuelan friends and empathize deeply with the Colombians who suffer, the Mexicans who suffer and all for the lie of a drug war that was begun to fund the CIA.
You've successfully boiled your ( the US) view point down to blind allegations and assumptions based on bad information and contrived anecdotes
Some reading material about your self proclaimed "debunking" that has essentially been ri.pp.ed off from the previous false debunkings....
http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/07/06/lat-film-critic-shouldnt-throw-at-stone/
http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/07/09/for-newsweeks-latin-america-correspondent-its-the-stocks-that-count/
http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/06/29/larry-rohter-responds-on-south-of-the-border/
It is the mass spread of this sort of misinformation and f.e.a.r m.o.n.g.e.r.i.n.g that leads to unjust coups (recently Honduras)(and don't forget the previous coup in Venezuela, where the popular movement, despite painting Chavez as "evil", fought against US backed death squads and put Chavez back into power) US Occupations ( currently Costa Rica and Columbia) and Invasions either by US or US backed counter-insurgents (d.e.@.t.h squads) (see Latin America in the 70's and 80's).
whether americans like it or not, chavez rules venezuela, and he rules well.
Viva La Revolución
greetings from turkey.
From 1998-2006, infant mortality has fallen by more than one-third. The number of primary care physicians in the public sector increased 12-fold from 1999-2007, providing health care to millions of Venezuelans who previously did not have access.
There have been substantial gains in education, especially higher education, where gross enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999-2000 to 2007-2008.
The labor market also improved substantially over the last decade, with unemployment dropping from 11.3 percent to 7.8 percent. During the current expansion it has fallen by more than half. Other labor market indicators also show substantial gains.
Over the past decade, the number of social security beneficiaries has more than doubled.
Over the decade, the government’s total public debt has fallen from 30.7 to 14.3 percent of GDP. The foreign public debt has fallen even more, from 25.6 to 9.8 percent of GDP.
Inflation is about where it was 10 years ago, ending the year at 31.4 percent. However it has been falling over the last half year (as measured by three-month averages) and is likely to continue declining this year in the face of strong deflationary pressures worldwide.
center for economic policy and research (CEPR)
"The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators", February 2009.
Executive Summary
The current economic expansion began when the government got control over the national oil company in the first quarter of 2003. Since then, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has nearly doubled, growing by 94.7 percent in 5.25 years, or 13.5 percent annually.
Most of this growth has been in the non-oil sector of the economy, and the private sector has grown faster than the public sector.
During the current economic expansion, the poverty rate has been cut by more than half, from 54 percent of households in the first half of 2003 to 26 percent at the end of 2008. Extreme poverty has fallen even more, by 72 percent. These poverty rates measure only cash income, and do not take into account increased access to health care or education.
Over the entire decade, the percentage of households in poverty has been reduced by 39 percent, and extreme poverty by more than half.
Inequality, as measured by the Gini index, has also fallen substantially. The index has fallen to 41 in 2008, from 48.1 in 2003 and 47 in 1999. This represents a large reduction in inequality.
Real (inflation-adjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from 1998-2006.
Lopez is among 400 Venezuelans barred by the Venezuelan government from running in the November 2008 elections due to being under investigation for alleged corruption.
I think i'm going to side with noam chomsky on this debate.
Being under investigation for corruption that has yet to be proven should hardly prevent anyone, much less people who are opponents of Chavez, from running. Politicians who have been condemned or formally sentenced should, obviously, be punished but preemptive and questionable politically-motivated investigations don't exactly seem fair, to say the least, until you believe in guilty until proven innocence. How...wonderfully regressive.
Then again, I guess the fact you cite Chomsky as some sort of authority on this is laughable enough.
Chavez dominates all legislative and judiciary powers, he can pin point a "corruption" case and his minions will enable it.
So freaking disgusting...
http://cubix1.microjuris.com/cgi-bin/om_isapi.dll//80?clientID=163575&infobase=f_normares.nfo&jump=38.455-20&softpage=FSP_MJ_IISP
Enough said.
That was funny when Eric Idle said it in the Monty Python sketch.