Posted By Ryan Mauro
On July 18, 2011 @ 12:50 am In Daily Mailer, FrontPage
Despite weeks of deception and affectation of good health, Venezuelan
strongman Hugo Chavez is in Cuba for chemotherapy, heightening
speculation about whether he'll still run for re-election in 2012 and
how the regime will survive after him. His declining health adds another
burden to his campaign for a third term, as a majority of Venezuelans
already oppose his re-election due to a horrible economy, a soaring
murder rate, and relentless power grabs.
Rumors about Chavez's health began when he disappeared for weeks in
Cuba, absent from the limelight he craves. His government originally
claimed he had a pelvic abscess, but reports that he had prostate cancer
quickly spread. Chavez has since admitted that a baseball-sized tumor
was removed on June 20, without offering any details. He says he is now
cancer-free, but is going back to Cuba for chemotherapy to prevent the
return of the cancer.
Chavez's decision to go to Cuba reflects his closeness with the Castro
brothers. Brazilian President Rousseff offered to have him treated in
his country or to send two top doctors to Venezuela. He refused, instead
deciding to get authorization from the National Assembly to go to Cuba.
This was probably done because leaks of information are less likely
under a dictatorship. The Castro regime is more than happy to offer such
support to its closest ally, as two-thirds of its oil is subsidized from
Venezuela. If this aid were to be lost, Cuba's economy "would not
necessarily crash, but it would endure a devastating blow that it can
hardly afford right now," explains Michael Shifter, president of
Inter-American Dialogue.
Questions about the 56-year old leader's health may hinder his
re-election campaign. Already, 64 percent of the people oppose giving
him a third term. Basic goods are in short supply, and there is an
exodus of doctors out of the country because of skyrocketing health care
costs. The murder rate has gone up 400% since Chavez took power. There
were over 16,000 murders in Venezuela in 2009. To put that in
perspective, there were 4,644 violent civilian deaths in Iraq that year.
Venezuela also had the world's highest inflation rate last year. Foreign
direct investment has plummeted from a gain of $349 million in 2008 to
an outflow of $3.1 billion because of nationalizations.
Oil production has fallen from 3.5 million barrels per day when Chavez
was elected to 2.5 million barrels per day now. Corruption and
incompetent management in the oil industry has led to worker strikes.
Blackouts are a common occurrence. Ironically, in February, the power
went out on Chavez while he was giving a speech condemning the U.S. This
year, the Arab Spring inspired a hunger strike to demand the release of
political prisoners that grabbed the attention of the entire country.
With a record like this, it is not hard to see why Chavez only has an
approval rating of 36 percent, according to one poll.
However, the opposition faces an uphill fight in defeating Chavez at the
ballot box. His government now controls 72 television stations, 400
radio stations and 18 newspapers. An arrest warrant has been issued for
the CEO of the last independent television station. During the last
National Assembly elections, which stripped Chavez's party of its
supermajority, the regime tipped the scales in its favor through
redistricting, lowering the number of seats from proportional
representation, and ending the rule that gave the minority party in a
district a minimal number of seats. A law banning the spreading of
"false information" was just used to convict a former governor who
criticized Chavez's government for sponsoring drug trafficking. The
links between drug trafficking and Chavez's government are thoroughly
documented.
The U.S. should hope that Chavez's illness will make him unable to run
for re-election, even though President Obama's top Latin American
advisor said the administration "does not see Venezuela as a challenge
to the U.S. national security. There is no Cold War nor Hot War. Those
things belong to the past."
However, the Iranians are finalizing plans to build a medium-range
missile site on Venezuela's Paraguana Peninsula that will have silos 20
meters deep. Venezuelan officials have been linked to Hezbollah, and a
Spanish journalist has discovered that members of Hezbollah, Hamas, FARC
and the ETA are being trained at six camps near the capital. The Iranian
Revolutionary Guards' Al-Quds Force, which is used to support terrorism,
has a network in Venezuela. In November 2009, the Israelis stopped a
ship coming from Venezuela that was carrying 500 tons of weapons,
including rockets to Hezbollah. The Iranian nuclear program is also
branching out to Venezuela.
Last year, the Colombian government began publicizing formerly secret
information implicating Venezuela in supporting the FARC and ELN
terrorist groups. Video was shown of a top FARC leader comfortably
living in Venezuela. Satellite photos mapped out 39 camps used to train
the two groups in Venezuela. Chavez was accused of harboring 1,500
members of FARC.
A conversation has begun in Venezuela about whether the Chavez's regime
can survive him, should he be unable to run for re-election. The answer
to that question will determine whether change is possible in Venezuela
or if the Latin American country will remain an enemy of the U.S. for
the foreseeable future.
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