Chavez the Film

The diplomatic battle between the Bush administration and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been heating up this past week. The US revoked the visas of three Venezuelan military officers that it has accused of being involved with drug trafficking. Then Chavez announced that he was severing his government’s cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and accused the agency of spying against the Venezuelan government.

Now the US is talking “sanctions” and Chavez, the world’s fifth largest oil exporter is making noises that there are other markets for his country’s oil besides the US.

I think it is worth making two points here. First, Chavez has more than a little reason to be suspect of the US, after its role in the attempted coup against him in 2002. At worst, the US followed in its long history of such coups against governments it doesn’t like (Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, to name a few) and had a major hand a major hand in orchestrating it. At best, the US gave sanctuary to its chief leaders. If dissidents in the US staged a coup against George Bush with Chavez’s help, I suspect that the current White House would not look too kindly on that.

Second, the DEA presence in places like Bolivia and Venezuela is like having a foreign police force on the scene. Once again, let's look at this from the other side. How would people in the US react to this announcement?

Venezuela Sending Special Police to Investigate US Drug Use

The Venezuelan government announced today that it is sending a special force of 100 officers to investigate illegal drug use in ten major US cities. The special Venezuelan forces will train US police and oversee anti-drug operations. “The market for illegal drugs is not in Latin America,” said President Hugo Chavez, “it is in the US and Europe. We realize that our friends in the US have made an effort but, quite obviously, they have failed. For this reason we have decided to take charge of anti-drug policing in your country.”

Hmmm, I am guessing that this would not be well-received.

There is no question that Hugo Chavez is and will continue to be a major flashpoint in Latin American politics. To his supporters he is the champion in the fight against US-backed market fundamentalism that channels wealth to the wealthy and oppresses the poor. To his detractors, including the Bush administration, he a pillar in Latin America’s own axis of evil (with Fidel Castro and Evo Morales thrown in for good measure).

Getting to the truth is not easy. It requires peeling away a mountain of propaganda. I want to alert our Blog readers to an excellent film that does just that. The Revolution Will Not be Televised is a masterful Irish-made documentary that was in Venezuela during the April 2002 coup and is most masterful, in part because the filmmakers had an inside view in the palace both when Chavez occupied it and when the leaders of the short-lived coup took over. The film includes some interesting interviews with Chavez that you won’t find anywhere else, shows the role of the Venezuelan corporate media in the anti-Chavez movement, and shows the dramatic story of how Caracas’ poor and Chavez allies in the military thwarted the plot.

If you get a chance to see the film, I encourage you to do so. Here’s the Web site for information.