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About Hugo Chavez
Hugo Chavez was born in 1954 in the small town of Sabaneta in western Venezuela. His introduction to the notions of class hatred and social injustice originated with a communist teacher in high school. Upon graduation from the Venezuelan Military Academy in 1975, he went on to pursue an advanced degree in political science at Simon Bolívar University but eventually dropped out. While in the military Chavez nurtured his relationship with left wing radicals and became involved with the Venezuelan Revolutionary Party headed by the communist Douglas Bravo. Chavez even formed a secret organization within the military known as the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement-200, which eventually became the military arm of Chavez’s revolutionary group. In 1992, in his first attempt to seize power, Chavez led a bloody coup against the democratically elected government of Carlos Andres Perez. After spending two years in prison, he and many of his co-conspirators were pardoned, while others were just simply released. Chavez, aided by Castro and other leftist radicals, reorganized his movement into a political party. In 1998, with the help of these allies, and facing a disorganized opposition, Chavez was elected president of Venezuela on the false promises of improving the lives average Venezuelans. Using intimidation, fear, bribery, lies, corruption, and the nurturing of class hatred Chavez has consolidated power and established near absolute control over Venezuela. 
This control was illustrated in the case of the 2004 referendum in which the democratic opposition attempted to use the very constitution established by Chavez to ensure his own power, in order to remove him from office through democratic means. Initially he and his appointed allies in the bureaucracy attempted a legalistic maneuver by claiming that the initial gathering of millions of signatures was invalid because a referendum process could only be began at the midpoint of his term and therefore the signatures could not be gathered on petition prior to that point. Additionally they claimed that there was only one allowable attempt at such a recall effort per term and as such, they had already had their attempt. However, after bowing to international pressure the Chavez government allowed a second attempt to gather signature but only within an extremely shortened timeframe. The opposition once again, successfully gathered millions of signatures from throughout the country demanding Chavez step down. Despite accomplishing this while overcoming threats, violence, and intimidation, they found their efforts were in vain. Once the day of the referendum occurred in became apparent that the result were pre-determined through a manipulation of the process and likely the voting machines. This travesty was only furthered by the granting of a seal of legitimacy by the Carter Center and the OAS. This had the effect of fracturing the democratic opposition to Chavez while providing him an almost unimaginable asset in the form of an “enemies list” harvested from the millions of names on the two petitions to remove him from office. This has also complicated American and our allies’ efforts to address the threat of the Chavez régime. Chavez is seeking to strengthen the network of radicals, including terrorist organizations, who assisted his rise to power. This outreach now extends to all nations and groups who share his hatred of the United States including Middle Eastern terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah and the terrorist sponsoring states of Cuba and Iran. Chavez together with Castro has pursued a policy that is based on the subtle manipulation of the democratic systems throughout the region. This involves a mix of carrot (friendly terms in business contracts, investment programs, discounted oil, or outright bribes) and stick (mix of support for radicals and aid to terrorist organizations). In addition to his numerous relations with nations that are openly hostile towards the United States and its interests he has also developed ties with a number of nations who publicly claim to be friendly but privately seek to undermine America. Chavez has also engaged political, media, and business figures as a means of developing political allies and constraining any potential counter-effort on the part of the United States. In effect, Chavez in ten years has taken one of America’s surest friends in the region and turned it into a haven for terrorist, a source of instability, and a threat to the United States and its allies.
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