Viva Chavez!

• Author: FALCOFF, MARK

Venezuela's president leads a revolution based on personality.

After forty years of politics as usual, Venezuela has suddenly become an object of curiosity to the world's press. The reason is President Hugo Chavez, a 46-year-old former lieutenant colonel who first came to the attention of Venezuelans in 1992, when he and a group of other junior officers attempted to overthrow the government of President Carlos Andres Perez. Amnestied by Perez's successor, Chavez began a political career of his own, and in 1998, running as the candidate of the so-called Fifth Republic Revolutionary Movement (MVR), he was elected by a decisive majority. Two and a half years later, he is still an enigma--to Venezuelans, to the United States, and to everyone else. Given his country's central role in the oil producers' cartel and, even more, given the current dependence of the United States on Venezuelan oil, he merits a closer look.

"Hugo Chavez is Venezuela--he is the typical Venezuelan." The comment was made to me more than once when I visited the country in February. Most Venezuelans, I was reminded, do not have homes in Miami or New York, do not speak fluent English or have degrees from American universities, do not feel particularly comfortable in the boardrooms and stock exchanges of the North Atlantic countries, and do not understand much about economics. Chavez is one of them. The son of a rural schoolteacher, he grew up in the Venezuelan backlands and was able to enter the military academy thanks to his talent as a baseball player. He combines a rather rudimentary education with a jumble of undigested political and economic notions culled from a variety of sources--Marxism, Latin American-style nationalism, indigenous irredentism, environmentalism, and antiglobalism. Oddly enough, although many of his closest political associates are veterans of Venezuela's small but influential Marxist or semi-Marxist Left, the ideologue generally thought to have the greatest influence over him, Norberto Ceresole, is an Argentine fascist living in Spain.

To hear Chavez tell it, he and his country represent the vanguard of a new world order challenging the prevailing "neoliberal" Washington consensus. He has singled out Venezuela's membership in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as a means of advancing his international agenda. In pursuit of his goal, he has made scores of trips to Third World venues since taking office; he is also a frequent visitor to Cuba, whose dictator, Fidel Castro, he regards as a mentor and role model. At the same time, however, Venezuela's role in the world economy remains resolutely conventional--it pays its debts on time to U.S. and European banks, welcomes foreign investment, and so far has not tampered with property rights in Venezuela itself. Moreover, although some newspaper publishers...