Chavez Update: A Man Only a Diplomat Could Love

Per my comments from earlier today on Chavez, Andres Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald, writing for PetroleumWorld.com, puts the consequences of Chavez's rule in perspective:

"If Chávez won, it was thanks to a combination of massive intimidation, unabashed use of state resources for propaganda, and the use of $1.6 billion from the country's oil income for cash subsidies to the poor. Chávez handed out $160 a month in cash to hundreds of thousands of people who for the first time received something concrete from their government."

And: "In addition, intimidation was visible everywhere. The Chávez government in recent months fired thousands of government workers who had signed a 3.4-million signature petition to hold Sunday's referendum. And it installed 12,000 fingerprinting machines in voting places for Sunday's vote, allegedly to keep people from voting twice, but at the same time spreading fears that people's vote would not be secret."

The intimidation and beatings continue: "On Thursday, while touring the downtown Caracas area of El Centro, I saw the whole place covered with pro-Chávez signs but not one single one from the opposition. 'Every time the opposition tries to put up a sign, the chavistas beat them violently,' the opposition mayor of Caracas, Alfredo Peña, told me. 'My own office has been attacked 26 times by armed chavistas on the government payroll.'''

Now that his rule has been sanctioned by Carter and the feckless OAS, Chavez and his supporters feel free to tighten their grip on the rest of society. It's good to remember just how extensive Chavez's power grab already is. Again Oppenheimer: "Chávez already controls Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal, the central bank, the armed forces and the PDVSA oil monopoly. Pro-Chávez legislators in Congress have already proposed bills to curtail press freedoms and to dismantle the Caracas police and other local police forces run by opposition mayors. In addition, Chávez has promised to strengthen his Bolivarian Circles, his Cuban-modeled neighborhood watch committees."

Oppenheimer thinks the 45% of the population who're vehemently opposed to Chavez, combined with international pressure, may be sufficient to prevent him from closing down the opposition press, which he acknowledges are the "last line of defense against his near-absolute powers." And he thinks that oil prices will fall sooner or later, signaling an end to Chavez's ability to keep the unearned cash flowing to the poor and bringing on their discontent. Given the violence and intimidation already rampant there, however, such predictions seem overly optimistic. Especially with the U.S. State Department firmly behind the Castro-wannabe.