This week, the best editorial opinion in any newspaper on the Hugo Chávez election defeat was in The State News. I simultaneously want to praise my fellow college students and chastise our mainstream media “big brothers” for focusing attention on far more parochial issues of the day.
Let’s face it, big elections in both Venezuela and Russia were pre-empted by the Hillary Clinton hostage “crisis.” I understand the temptation to cover such stories. In the long term, however, Chávez and Putin mean more to our lives than a one-day New Hampshire standoff.
While I’m glad The State News criticized Chávez, it is important to take a deeper look at the historical context from which he arises. Venezuela was once viewed as the “exceptional democracy” in Latin America. It was a trusted political ally of the United States. Its reputation largely hinged on its ability to deliver three unrelated things: oil, baseball players and Ms. Universe winners. How could such American-friendly traditions be replaced by a rhetorically infantile socialist? Moreover, why wasn’t the issue of bigger concern when Chávez came to power originally in 1998?
The truth is that Venezuela had been experiencing a long-term intensification of class polarization, a deepening mistrust of politicians and a strong wave of social unrest. It began to resemble its more traditionally unstable neighbors. This set the stage for the original Chávez military coup attempt in November 1992 and his eventual electoral success six years later.
The entire time Venezuela’s democracy was eroding before our eyes, and a military leader was about to be installed as president, we did not take aggressive diplomatic action. Through both the Clinton and Bush administrations, America lost one of its key natural resource-producing allies. The rest of the Western world sat idly as Chávez dismantled the independent media, indoctrinated the school systems and removed all political space for opposition.
This is nothing new for Latin America. Juan Per
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