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South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Chávez has many tricks up his sleeve
Guillermo I. Martinez
Columnist

September 4, 2008

A magician does his tricks by distracting the audience from the spot
where he carries out his magic.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has not needed to distract the
audience away from Venezuela to impose harsher controls on the
nation. The world has been distracted by other events. Since we last
looked south at Caracas, Russia has invaded Georgia, and a hurricane
hit the Gulf of Mexico, near where Katrina caused chaos and
destruction three years ago. Democrats held their convention, and
Republicans are about to finish theirs.

In the meantime, Chávez moderated his rhetoric after a defeat at the
polls and lost an important face-off with Colombia's President Alvaro
Uribe when evidence showed that Venezuela was helping the leftist
guerrillas in the neighboring country.

And then Chávez changed again.

The new radical Chávez has:

Bought the Banco de Venezuela, the largest in the country, from a
Spanish company.

Passed a series of decrees. Among them he created a chavista militia
as a new branch of the armed forces; tightened state controls over
food production and distribution; made it easier for the government
to take over private companies.

Chávez also invalidated the right of close to 170 opposition leaders
to participate in the November elections. This will make it harder
for Chávez to be embarrassed at the polls again.

His latest change came in late August when he decided to nationalize
Venezuela's largest cement factory, owned by Cemex, a Mexican
company. When the Mexicans refused what he offered to pay for the
company, he took it over and said a price would be agreed upon in the
future.

Chávez has been buying billions in new weapons from Russia and again
has begun to rattle his saber, telling the United States that
Venezuela is ready to launch missiles against the American Fourth
Fleet to be deployed in the Caribbean if it dares to come too close
to Venezuela.

That is why the United States cannot afford to be so distracted that
it ignores Chávez. The Venezuela autocrat is doing all he can to
start a new cold war, one in which he would side with the Russians,
much as Cuba did for more than 30 years.

Guillermo I. Martínez is a journalist living in South Florida. He may
be reached at guimar123@....

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