Book Review- Comandante:Inside Hugo Chavez's Venezuela

This is my review on Amazon of Rory Carroll's book about Hugo Chavez and his "Bolivarian Revolution":

This portrait of Venezuela & it's late leader shows the disastrous nature of Chavez's misrule but also illuminates, to an extent, why Chavez was popular with the country's poor.

The opposition at least until around 2007, comes across as hypocritical, self satisfied and generally uninterested in the slum dwellers and peasants. The account given of the 2002 coup d'etat is damning. Chavez did genuinely connect with the forgotten masses of Venezuela despite his venality and could make them proud of themselves.

However it's pretty clear that Chavez's rule has been characterised by a destruction of democratic norms- with opponents being routinely jailed, opposition media shut down and massive state surveillance. Although perhaps surprisingly he never went the whole way and abolished democracy entirely- despite his links to Cuba free elections weren't abolished and dissidents were not murdered.

This has been combined with a level of incompetence that has reduced Venezuela to beggary despite a prolonged oil boom.

Chavez's style of rule- as shown in Comandante- consisted of making grandiose announcements in public, swiftly losing interest in how things developed, allowing cronies to enrich themselves and then making a new announcement a few months later that undid whatever progress had been made towards meeting his previous one.

The highly centralised nature of his rule also ensured that his ministers were focused entirely on getting access to him rather than on their actual jobs and any subject which didn't interest him- like crime- spiralled out of control. Placing short term political goals ahead of long term development has destroyed industrial development in the country.

The Chavez portrayed in this book wasn't a monster, but his faults have caused great damage to a the fabric of the nation he professed to love.

Alas Poor Hugo.

The Guardian currently reminds me of the Daily Star after Jade Goody died- all because Hugo Chavez has passed off this mortal coil.

I would have preferred him to leave office alive because for all his faults he was not- unlike most of his international allies- a murderer. Although thousands are dead due to his incompetence- Venezuela's murder rate soared to scarcely believable levels under his misrule.

His supporters say that he helped the poor, but really any oil producing nation should be able to lift some of the poor out of poverty during a decade long oil boom.

His electoral success, while partly achieved by taking over much of the free press, illustrates the need for politicians to engage with the poor because even if he was an incompetent buffoon, a lot of people would rather vote for an idiot who seems to be on their side than someone more effective who doesn't care.

His legacy is that he embodied revolutionary socialism- fire and fury but no accomplishments to speak of.

Quote Of The Day

David Frum, as part of a speech delivered in Venezuela:

Since 1990, more people around the planet have emerged from poverty than at any time in the whole previous history of the human race. They did so not under red flags and with clenched fists, but by buying and selling in the international economy.

More Vibrant Cities.

Okay after the posting on New Orleans here is Foreign Policy's list of 5 murder capitals of the world:

Caracas

Population: 3.2 million

Murder rate: 130 per 100,000 residents (official)

What’s happening: The capital of Chávez country, Caracas has become far more dangerous in recent years than any South American city, even beating out the once notorious Bogotá. What’s worse, the city’s official homicide statistics likely fall short of the mark because they omit prison-related murders as well as deaths that the state never gets around to properly “categorizing.” The numbers also don’t count those who died while “resisting arrest,” suggesting that Caracas’s cops—already known for their brutality against student protesters—might be cooking the books. Many have pointed the finger at El Presidente, whose government has failed to tackle the country’s rising rates of violent crime. In fact, since Chávez took over in 1998, Venezuela’s official homicide rate has climbed 67 percent—mostly due to increased drug and gang violence. Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, who recently resigned as interior minister, claimed in July that homicide has dropped 27 percent since January—but experts say he’s just playing with numbers. As for Caracas, some speculate that its murder rate is closer to 160 per 100,000.

If the real murder rate is 160 per 100,000 then that means that over the course of a life time a resident of Caracas has around a 1 in 8 being murdered which is insanely high.

The rest of the Foreign Policy list consists of New Orleans, Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea), Moscow (which isn't as dangerous as the other listed cities) and Cape Town.

Chavez Loses.

I'm pleased to see that Hugo Chavez lost the referendum he held yesterday, and it is hilarious to watch pampered Western apologists for third world tyranny try to rationalise this rejection. However the tendency to argue that because Chavez lost and because he has publicly accepted the defeat that it means that maybe he isn't so bad after all is misguided. All it means is that his methods of rigging the vote weren't quite up to the task, there are plenty of historic examples of governments going in for vote rigging only to discover that they have underestimated how much they needed to cheat, the Sandinistas screwed this up too as vividly recounted by P.J. O'Rourke at the time in, I think, "Give War A Chance" (his account of the despondency of all the Sandinista cheerleaders like Jimmy Carter and Bianca Jagger back at the hotel is priceless). To illustrate my point about how Chavez's 'graciousness' confounds his critics I would recommend this news report about another president who lost a referendum on constitutional changes and immediately vowed to respect the result.

The Joy Of 21st Century Socialism.

Regardless of Wikipedia's many failings it is an invaluable resource when it comes to presenting uncontroversial information in a format that is user friendly and free. Wikipedia's list of countries by homicide rate is a case in point because governments (including our own) often like to release that information in a format that is incomplete and difficult to make use of for casual browsers. I'll come to the British murder rate next week, but have a look at the new world leader for homicide- Venezuela which has overtaken the likes of South Africa, Jamaica and its next door neighbour Colombia.

If you compare the figures for Colombia and Venezuela over the last decade you can see the difference competent and honest leadership makes, bear in mind that the Socialist demagogue Hugo Chavez took office in 1999 and the much demonised Alvaro Uribe in 2002. The murder rate for each county is per 100 000 people.

Year: Colombia Venezuela

1995 66.0 23
1996 67.8 25
1997 63.3 19
1998 56.6 22
1999 58.6 20
2000 62.7 37
2001 64.6 40
2002 65.8 49
2003 51.8 59
2004 44.6 45
2005 39.3 42

It shouldn't really be a surprise by now that when leaders come to power preaching revolution that you should start preparing the body bags.