[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vezWould that any "Western" leader lay claim to packing so much into a short life[/url

A link to Wikipedia, which can be edited by anyone.



Standby for a lecture on the difference between 'fact' and 'opinion'.

Aww has our closet fascist had his ass whopped again? But your of course correct, I obviously didn't make too good a job on the first edit. Give me a couple of minutes and I'll update it with: "One of Chavez's enduring thoughts was that Video Ref is a 2@"

No one could deny that Chavez helped lift many of his countrymen out of abject poverty by nationalising industries that were bleeding resources away from Venezuela.

He will polarise opinion of him but I doubt anyone could deny that the majority of Venezuelans are better off now than before he came to power

Superficially perhaps, but Michael Moynihan offers up a for a more objective appraisal of El Comandante's Legacy.....

[i
Chávez presided over a political epoch flush with money and lorded over a society riven by fear, deep political divisions, and ultraviolence. Consider the latest crime statistics from Observatorio Venezolano de la Violencia, which reckons that 2012 saw an astonishing 21,692 murders in the country—in a population of 29 million. Last year, I accompanied a Venezuelan journalist on his morning rounds at Caracas’s only morgue to count the previous night’s murders. As the number of dead ballooned, the Chávez regime simply stopped releasing murder statistics to the media.

All of this could have been predicted, and wasn’t particularly surprising from a president who believed that one must take the side of any enemy of the “empire.” That Zimbabwe’s dictator Robert Mugabe was a “freedom fighter,” or that Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko presided over “a model of a social state.” Saddam Hussein was a “brother,” Bashar al-Assad had the “same political vision” as the Bolivarian revolutionaries in Venezuela. He saw in the madness of Col. Gaddafi an often overlooked “brilliance” (“I ask God to protect the life of our brother Muammar Gaddafi”). The brutal terrorist Carlos the Jackal, who praised the 9/11 attacks from his French jail cell, was “a good friend.” He praised and supported FARC, the terrorist organization operating in neighboring Colombia. The list is endless.

His was a poisonous influence on the region, one rah-rahed by radical fools who desired to see a thumb jammed in America’s eye, while not caring a lick for its effect on ordinary Venezuelans. In his terrific new book (fortuitously timed to publish this week) Comandante: Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, The Guardian’s Rory Carroll summed up the legacy of Chávez’s Venezuela as “a land of power cuts, broken escalators, shortages, queues, insecurity, bureaucracy, unreturned calls, unfilled holes, uncollected garbage.” One could add to that list grinding poverty, massive corruption, censorship, and intimidation.[/i

I certainly am not about to be adding to any hagiography of Chavez, but that "grinding poverty" – really?

"The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) found that from 2002 to 2010, poverty in Venezuela was reduced by 20.8 percent, dropping from 48.6 percent to 27.8 percent, while extreme poverty decreased from 22.2 percent to 10.7 percent.

"Chavez also made impressive inroads in terms of closing the gap between Venezuela’s rich and poor. According to the ECLAC report, Venezuela has Latin America’s lowest Gini coefficient at 0.394. The closer the Gini coefficient is to zero, the closer a country is to total socio-economic equality."

[url=http://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/03/hugo-chavez-is-dead/From this report[/url – which is far from hagiographic.

It is an entirely negative appraisal and, as it excludes (for example) the enormous moving of citizens out of poverty, cannot be considered to be in any way "objective" at all.

I suggest that, on the basis of what is quoted above, it doesn't merely exclude the issue of poverty, but claims that "grinding poverty" is a result of Chavez's years in power.

Which, on the basis of (for instance) what I have posted, is a downright lie.

Quite so.
His social programmes for healthcare and education will also be ignored ... or condemned as communist.

Absolutely.

[url=http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-politicians/hugo-chavez-net-worth/Bolivarianism in action.[/url

He might be a power-hungry oil billionaire with a questionable human rights record, but he's [iOUR [/ipower-hungry oil billionaire with a questionable human rights record.

Isn't that why these guys get into this - power and ultimately access to huge amounts of money? Sadaam, Mugabe, Qaddafi, Putin not to mention the huge list in Africa containing the likes of Hassan Al-Bashir, Biya, Obiang etc

But that wealth can trickle down to the poor - would Chavez have been able to make such a big impact on poverty reduction if he had not been of such high net worth.

I know it might be populist to hate people for their wealth but if you drive the wealthy overseas they simply take their wealth with them.

The point is how much of the wealth is stolen from the very people who vote them in?

He was a decent lad with poor taste in friends. Just that instead of his being ones that hang around bus shelters drinking cider, his were maniacal despots.

Good job our elected leaders would never dream of cosying up to maniacal despots, sell arms to them, take holidays in their beach-side residences, side with them over the ECHR etc etc and so on

I don't think anyone is trying to glorify any of the idiots we have running our major parties

Granted, but still worth mentioning.

Given that huge numbers of those who voted for Chavez were lifted out of poverty and gained free healthcare and education for the first time, I wouldn’t say he stole from them, would you?

On the human rights front, I’d put him more in the George W Bush category than the Saddam or Mugabe category.

Compared with say, Pinochet, he should be beatified.

[url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=173521347He wasted money on things for the poor – when he could have spent it on skyscrapers.[/url

Does all this money chasing make anyone really happy. A quote from the King of Bhutan when asked why his country lagged so far behind the developed world was 'gross domestic happiness is more important than gross domestic product'

How much of the wealth he gained during his time in office was down to his business skills or his position and his access to contracts and the ability to award those contracts? Whilst much progress was made under leadership this level of corruption should not be overlooked in the race to pat him on the back. The same will happen when Mandela dies the bloodshed he directed will be overlooked.

You do understand what Mandela and the varied anti-apatheid forces were fighting against, don't you? The violence and "bloodshed" visited on black South Africans? A regime that met non-violent protest with fatal violence; that murdered children for daring to want a decent education and had suspects 'fall' out of high windows in police buildings?

You do realise that, don't you?

My guess would be that a lot of the dosh was acquired through dodgy commissions or similar etc.
If that's the case, it needs to be weighed-up with [uall[/u that he did, not just the bad stuff.

What is entirely predictable is villification emanating from the US rightwing, which prefers to deal with the likes of Pinochet or Saddam and utterly abhors any kind of wealth redistribution on social grounds.


I rather doubt that.
Again, there will be plenty of rightwingers, mainly in the US, who will ignore the good and the half-century of non-violence during which the oppressive apartheid regimes continued regardless.

All sides were guilty of killings and other acts of violence, I suppose it depends on what side you take or outcome you wish to prevail as to whether its justified or not. Burning tyre's around peoples necks (thousands on their own people) were just as horrific as anything the white oppressive government did. A lot of innocents were killed by both side and knowing someone who was born & raised there, but now lives in the UK, the level of black on black violence is apparently not getting any better. Also, even after all these years of black majority rule, the average poor black South African doesn't appear to be any better off than before.

Most politicians are in it for what they can get, it just varies in the level of corruption depending what part of the world you live in.

I do realise that but it doesn't get away from the facts the ANC were a terrorist group that - under Mandela's leadership - murdered people. All in the struggle - but the idea he was a non-violent Gandhi type is a myth that should also be pointed out when the obituaries are written.

The question now, is SA a better place under the current regime - are the atrocities less than when say John Vorster was in charge?