Vzla: Sliding towards civil war

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Venezuela once prospered from its state oil industry. But over the past 25 years, it has evaded market reforms and suffered steady economic decline. In 1998, voters elected Chavez, a former coup-plotter and cashiered Lieutenant Colonel, because he promised — like Aristide in Haiti — to end corruption and lift up the poor.

Instead, Chavez had the constitution rewritten to insure his stay in power and bribed corrupt military officers to insure loyalty. Venezuela now rivals Haiti in poverty and underemployment. While the country's former middle class does not want to revisit past failures, few want to see Venezuela turned into a Haitian slum or a Cuban-style workers' paradise. But that seems to be the president's intent.

Like Fidel Castro, Chavez has made the armed forces the lead agency in Venezuela's government, isolating civilians as well as municipal and departmental (state) officials. While local police live in barrios and may be unwilling to harm their neighbors, the army and national guard are protected by barracks and isolation from civilian contact.

Cuban intelligence and security specialists now reportedly march alongside soldiers, wearing Venezuelan uniforms and tattling on dissenters. They have also helped train so-called "Bolivarian Circles" partisan gangs that spy in neighborhoods, intimidate opponents and enforce political loyalty.

Outside Caracas, his military units allow Colombian FARC guerrillas to camp out and resupply in Venezuelan territory. And he reportedly provides Bolivia's leftist coca union leader Evo Morales with money and advice. Morales was partly responsible for the ouster of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in October 2003.
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Failing to challenge Chavez could hasten a conflict between troops and civilians fed up with his tricks and ruses. Or it could embolden him to cut oil exports to the United States and its Caribbean allies as well as destabilize other countries in the region.