"Containing" Chávez

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

"'Containing' Chávez" (Hugo Chávez Frias's answer is that "[w]e must
reclaim socialism," a new type of socialism that grows organically
out of "popular organisations already constructed as part of the
struggle to create 'participatory democracy.'"  His declaration came
at the same time as the land reform in Venezuela, which had
concentrated on distributing public land to the landless, began to
take on the landed estates.  Washington wasted no time announcing "a
policy to 'contain' Hugo Chávez," reported on the front page of the
Financial Times.  Look beneath Washington's feverish rhetoric of the
"war on terror" -- "Chávez backs subversives and buys Russian weapons
for them!" -- and observe what's happening in Venezuela, Latin
America, and the world carefully. You can see that what Washington
really objects to is not only Venezuela's domestic policy of
empowering the poor socially and economically -- the program that
cannot but eventually impinge upon class interests of the rich -- but
also its international policy of breaking Venezuela's traditional
dependence on the military, political, and economic ties with the
United States by building new relations with Russia, Iran, and China
among others and by playing a leadership role in integrating Latin
America and moving it to the left.) -- FULL TEXT:
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/03/containing-chvez.html>
--
Yoshie

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