Monday, March 01, 2004
Venezuela's crack-smoking president
Hugo Chavez, populist president of Venezuela and a leader who considers Fidel Castro to be one of his personal heros, paid a visite to Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, a leader whose theft of the last election and forced redistribution of land has lead to Zimbabwe's expulsion from the British Commonwealth and turned the breadbasket of Africa into a nation desperately short on food. While there, he praised Robert Mugabe as a "freedom fighter." I guess his definition of "freedom" doesn't include the existence of a free press (Mugabe has shut them all down), economic freedom (Zimbabwe's economy is rapidly deflating), or freedom from government harassment (opponents are regularly jailed, roughed up or killed by government forces or its allies).
Of course, Chavez is cut from the same cloth as Robert Mugabe. When he talks about "freedom," he's talking about his right to do whatever he wants to his fellow countrymen without fear of foreign influence. They drape themselves in national sovereignity while they abuse their own population.
The fact is, the rest of the world has a RIGHT to interfere in countries where leaders engage in policies that will make them dangerous in the future. We don't live in a world anymore where events in Zimbabwe are about as relevant as dust storms on Mars. If Zimbabwe's economy takes a dive off a cliff, the repercussions for the world are enormous. Poor and desperate nations do crazy things like build nuclear weapons, or invade their neighbors, or engage in smuggling operations (drugs, weapons, etc) in order to acquire the hard currency that their damaged economies can't earn on its own (an important source of revenue for North Korea's dictator was from drug running).
Quite simply, the world has the RIGHT to intervene when governments are doing things that make their countries dangerous. Chavez complains about pressure from the United States. Well, Venezuela is one of our biggest sources of foreign oil, and besides, the LAST thing we want is another desperately poor regime in a region (South America) that has more than enough of them.
Of course, it's worth pointing out that the best solution to ANY bad government is for the people themselves to change it. Unfortunately, that's less likely when governments are doing everything in their power to keep their own people poor. The big democratic success stories in the developing world are in nations that have strong, growing economies. The failures are in nations where people are too miserable to care about the games politicians play.
Hugo Chavez, populist president of Venezuela and a leader who considers Fidel Castro to be one of his personal heros, paid a visite to Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, a leader whose theft of the last election and forced redistribution of land has lead to Zimbabwe's expulsion from the British Commonwealth and turned the breadbasket of Africa into a nation desperately short on food. While there, he praised Robert Mugabe as a "freedom fighter." I guess his definition of "freedom" doesn't include the existence of a free press (Mugabe has shut them all down), economic freedom (Zimbabwe's economy is rapidly deflating), or freedom from government harassment (opponents are regularly jailed, roughed up or killed by government forces or its allies).
Of course, Chavez is cut from the same cloth as Robert Mugabe. When he talks about "freedom," he's talking about his right to do whatever he wants to his fellow countrymen without fear of foreign influence. They drape themselves in national sovereignity while they abuse their own population.
The fact is, the rest of the world has a RIGHT to interfere in countries where leaders engage in policies that will make them dangerous in the future. We don't live in a world anymore where events in Zimbabwe are about as relevant as dust storms on Mars. If Zimbabwe's economy takes a dive off a cliff, the repercussions for the world are enormous. Poor and desperate nations do crazy things like build nuclear weapons, or invade their neighbors, or engage in smuggling operations (drugs, weapons, etc) in order to acquire the hard currency that their damaged economies can't earn on its own (an important source of revenue for North Korea's dictator was from drug running).
Quite simply, the world has the RIGHT to intervene when governments are doing things that make their countries dangerous. Chavez complains about pressure from the United States. Well, Venezuela is one of our biggest sources of foreign oil, and besides, the LAST thing we want is another desperately poor regime in a region (South America) that has more than enough of them.
Of course, it's worth pointing out that the best solution to ANY bad government is for the people themselves to change it. Unfortunately, that's less likely when governments are doing everything in their power to keep their own people poor. The big democratic success stories in the developing world are in nations that have strong, growing economies. The failures are in nations where people are too miserable to care about the games politicians play.
