Tin Pot Dictators

Whoops, the popularity of socialist-devoted Hugo Chavez appears to be fast evaporating. Oh, not so fast, it's been happening for quite a while. It is, however, accelerating rapidly. He's no longer able to buy himself into the good graces of those whom he promises and doesn't deliver, like the indigent populations of Venezuela. He's less able now, to sprinkle the largess of the country's oil profits to other, less resource-wealthy neighbours.

The facade of a rebel leader ranting against the unfair bullying of Western powers against the politically and economically weaker segments of the global community is beginning to unravel. The great, kind, avuncular benefactor of the poor and the downtrodden, he who cares so deeply about the well-being of the poor even in wealthy America, he who rails against the tyrannical rule of capitalist colonialist-minded predators, reveals another face.

One so hungry for power that his estranged wife led a campaign to deny him the right to re-write the country's constitution to enable him to rule for a lifetime. One whose personally-aggrandizing agenda became too much for even his trusted defence minister to support, inspiring him to campaign against his leader. Who responded by abducting his former minister of defence.

Now facing critical electoral losses in important areas of the country, he emulates the dictators whom he boasted he replaced with a governance of the people by the people for the people; he being the successful triumvirate at the helm. He disqualifies and threatens with prison those opposition candidates who have become popular with the electorate.

He speaks darkly of sending troops into those regions ungrateful enough not to recognize their own well being, by opposing his rule and opting to dislodge him from power through the power of the ballot. He has constricted the news media, revoking the licenses of those who irritate him by their opposition to him; initiated others that become his propaganda tool.

He encourages support among those whose loyalties can still be bought by bribing them with alcohol and ready cash. The poor in Venezuela, trusting him initially, enthusiastically greeting him as their liberator, investing him with the ability and the will to spread more of the country's oil wealth among them to allow them a better lifestyle, now know him for what he represents.

His loyal followers, the Chavistas, remain loyal, for it is through his generous auspices that they have become wealthy beyond their aspirations, so wed to the purchase and ownership of gas-guzzling Hummers that they've their own assembly plant in the country. Oil money has enabled the new wealthy to own Rolex's, imbibe costly liquor, establish country clubs.

This is a man who has endeared himself to the world's worst tyrants. He expressed compassion for the dreadfully misunderstood, West-beleaguered Robert Mugabe, overlooking the plight of a country facing starvation and endemic disease in support of a bestial megalomaniac. Like rotating to like. His unflinching admiration for the Iranian Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard-led Parliament has cemented other friendships.

Mr. Chavez, a staunch defender of human rights, is prepared to defend his "revolution" by any means, force if required. That very same revolution that brought no relief to the country's poor, those who cannot amass the funding to own cars, where fuel sells for $.6 a gallon, but staples like milk, rice beans and corn flour are becoming increasingly expensive for straitened budgets.

Still, with his faltering financial status, and ever lower prices per barrel of oil, he manages to support Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba with ready cash, his brothers-at-arms in the social revolution to end all revolutions. And is set to celebrate his elite political connections with a joint naval exercise with Russia, very soon.

Happily aware that this will further infuriate his enemies, while ingratiating himself where it really counts.