Friday October 18, 2002
Isabel Hilton meets crisis-hit Hugo Chavez, Latin America's most loved - and hated - leader
Isabel Hilton
The Guardian
It is the mark of a man confident in his position that Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, was visiting Oxford yesterday rather than at home in Caracas, dealing with the latest threat to his presidency.
In April he was briefly deposed by a 48-hour coup. Last week demonstrations for and against him marched through the capital.
On Monday the increasingly virulent opposition has called a general strike to try to bring him down.
But Hugo Chavez is chatting with visitors and displaying the combination of personal charm and anti-elite politics that has made him one of the most loved - and hated - politicians in Latin America.
"I wanted to be an engineer," he tells a visitor. "But we were poor and the only way I could study in the capital was to join the army. So I joined the army."
He saw no reason to postpone his visit, a swing through France, Italy, Britain and Norway to raise his profile and support in Europe. After four years in power, the man from the backwoods who served a two-year jail term for his own failed coup appears relaxed.
"They gave an ultimatum that expired yesterday: to resign or they would call the strike," he says.
"But they seem increasingly desperate. They have no alter native political project, they don't understand democracy, and most of the workers say they won't join the strike."
He now sees the opposition as a small group which has the support of the media and the limited elite whose interests he is determined to threaten, but not of many others.
In April the Bush administration welcomed the coup, bizarrely, as a "return to democracy", until its leaders dissolved congress, declared a state of emergency, began to lock up elected politicians and said that Venezuela would not respect Opec quotas.
Loyalists in the army, supported by massive public protests, restored him to power. It was an embarrassing moment for Washington and relations between the two countries have been calmer since.
This improvement is unlikely to be deep but although the White House may not like Mr Chavez the politics of oil, a key factor in the April coup, has changed.
One of Mr Chavez's achievements as president of Venezuela, America's third-biggest oil supplier, has been to revive the almost moribund Opec, stabilise the supply and triple the price of oil.
But if the US gains control of Iraq's oil, Opec's strategy of limiting supply will be in tatters. If the oil price falls as the US wishes, Mr Chavez will be hard-pressed to make good his promises to the Venezuelan poor.
Even that prospect, though, does not appear to worry him. "In the short term, Venezuela would be the beneficiary of an attack on Iraq," he says. "Which is not to say that we support it. We support peace and the efforts of the United Nations to avoid another war."
To his enemies Mr Chavez's friendship with Fidel Castro is evidence that he is a dangerous populist trying to introduce communism by stealth. But the worn little book he picks up is blue, not red: the new constitution he introduced in 1999.
The first page carries a picture of his hero, the 19th-century liberator Simon Bolivar.
Mr Chavez's movement, his followers say, is about Bolivar's dream of a united, strong Latin America, not the dictatorship of the proletariat.
There has been no mass nationalisation and the long-delayed land reform has been mild. The constitution is respected, an adviser points out, to the point that even April's insurgents are at liberty while the courts prepare their cases.
Populist in his rhetoric and style, Mr Chavez so far has displayed a respect for procedure. Leftwingers attack him for promising more than he delivers.
By some measures, poverty has deepened under his rule. Unemployment is up and the number in extreme poverty has risen by 15% to more than 60% of the population.
"There are figures and figures," he says. "Let me give you some UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] figures from three months ago.
"We have reduced the incidence of low birth weight from 9% in 1998 to 6%. Do you know what that means? There's a drama behind every figure. How many children will live now who might have died before? Infant mortality is down from 21% to 17%. Why? Because we have a vaccination programme. Because we have built 3,000 schools that serve meals to the children so they can concentrate and learn."
His own popularity, however, has fallen from more than 80% to 35%. He shrugs. It's another set of figures he distrusts.
"Who saved my life in April?" he asks. "The poor. Why? Because I bewitched them? No. Because of all the things I have told you."
He continues: "In 1994, when I came out of jail, the elite media began a campaign of disinformation. They had to demolish Chavez ... I was exiled in my own country. So I got a truck and I went about, to Indian villages, into the slums.
"I saw an 'expert' on television talking about presidential candidates ... I was nowhere. The expert said Chavez was a myth. Nobody remembers him. I knew it was a lie. I was in the people's hearts and that is where I have stayed."
His new constitution gives him the chance of a second term, which would take him to 2013: a prospect he relishes.
If, as seems likely, the centre-left Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva captures the Brazilian presidency next month, Mr Chavez will no longer be the only voice calling for an alternative to neo-liberal economics in Latin America. If that happens, he says, it will be a step forward.
His advisers put it more starkly. "It will take the pressure off," one says. "We might make it."
Born July 28 1954 in Sabaneta, Barinas state, to teacher parents
Educated Venezuelan Military Academy, degree in engineering ,1975
Family Married twice, currently to Maria Isabel Rodriguez. Has three daughters and one son
Career Founded Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario in 1982
1990 Lieutenant-Colonel in the Venezuelan paratroops
1992 Led failed military coup against Carlos Perez, jailed
1998 Founded Movimiento Revolucionario V Republica
1999 Elected president of Venezuela
Highlights of presidency In 1999 renamed Venezuela the "Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela" in honour of Simon Bolivar; in 2000 became the first head of state to visit Saddam Hussein since the Gulf war; in April 2002 was restored to power within 48 hours of a coup
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