The Chavez Revolution

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ilitary officers welcome their new role. "We've been underutilized. We have the capacity, the will and the organization to do a lot of things," says General Victor Cruz Weffer, who heads one of Chavez's "theaters of social operations."

The military outlook is already part of the school curriculum. The government has ordered that civilian courses be replaced by military-style education, with the accent on discipline, hierarchy and obedience. Funds that previous governments channeled into Roman Catholic schools and organizations have been diverted to Plan Bolivar 2000 since one of the country's Jesuit leaders, Padre Arturo Sosa, criticized Chavez. The President's wife Marisabel, a former radio announcer, runs a children's foundation that operates clinics, schools and orphanages.

Within the presidential Miraflores Palace, say diplomats, Chavez relies less on his civilian Cabinet than on a group of 20 like-minded army officers, whose friendship and loyalty to Chavez in some cases date back to his days in military academy. Chavez has placed 173 military officials in charge of virtually all the key government posts, including the national guard, judicial police, customs and the tax-collection agency. The military men also hold top jobs in the Telecommunications and Transport ministries. Three generals preside over the state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (known as PDVSA), the nation's biggest revenue earner, which had been in civilian hands since it was founded in 1974.

Chavez's close hold on power, like his undeniable charisma, is deeply connected to his feelings for the masses of poor people who are the main victims of Venezuela's spectacular financial mismanagement. For that reason, the President's Bolivar 2000 program is loudly applauded--and all the more so because it works. Says Xiomara Tortoza, who runs a community education center in the hilly Caracas slum: "Before, you could never see a government official. Now I've been able to meet personally with ministers. The bureaucrats are more cautious about corruption too." By channeling funds directly to public works, Chavez has so far avoided what corporate strategist Michael Rowan describes as "the amazing kleptocracy of the Venezuelan state." One aid agency calculated that a staggering 80% of funds given to any public project was swallowed up by "administration."

It seems that everyone knows someone whose life has been improved by El Comandante. On the President's frequent rounds through the slums or during his weekly call-in radio and television shows, Chavez's aides scribble down the names and addresses of supplicants. Eventually they are given a job, a small loan, a place in a school for a handicapped child or even, in one case, a wedding dress. "They've generated a new social conscience in the people," says Erika Farias, a community leader in central Caracas' San Juan parish, where soldiers showed residents how to form citizen commissions for trash collection.

At a state foster home in a west Caracas slum, Mercedes Vargas agrees. The home, previously a dump where a hose was used to wash children and faucets consisted of pipes sticking out of walls, now sparkles with bright paint, new furniture and a pristine bathroom, courtesy of Project Bolivar. Says Vargas, the home's director: "We never would have got this done otherwise." Olavarria, a former Chavez supporter and one of the few dissenting voices in the Constitutional Assembly, concedes that the leader "genuinely feels the poverty of the people," but hastens to add, "he's also a demagogue who will lead his people to great tragedy."

Chavez's political philosophy, such as it is, can be traced in part to his family background. His great-grandfather was a revolutionary who fought the 1920s dictatorship of Juan Vincente Gomez, and Chavez imbibed his family's insurrectional legends before he joined the army.

Anything he had learned was reinforced during his years at the Military Academy of Venezuela, which Chavez attended from 1974 to 1979 before receiving his lieutenant's commission. There, says a Western diplomat in Caracas, the emphasis was not on civilian democracy but on "Bolivarian messianism." This concept was a blend of romantic idealism and 19th century values of feudalism, militarism and a strong central government, all invoking the founder of the nation, Simon Bolivar. He tried to unite all of Latin America into a single federation before he died, frustrated and in poverty, in 1830. Carlos Blanco, editor of the weekly political magazine Primicia, which is often critical of the President, sums up Chavez by saying he "talks about change, but he's really dragging Venezuela back 200 years."

Chavez's passion for Bolivar is long established. He recently remarked that for Venezuelans, "God is the supreme commander, followed by Bolivar and then me." On July 24, the day before the constitutional elections and Bolivar's birthday, Chavez had the Liberator's sword removed from the central-bank vault, and he and other generals solemnly carried it to the Caracas house where Bolivar was born. When the extent of his electoral victory was clear, Chavez proclaimed that the Assembly was free to create its new constitution and recommended that the first change establish a new name for the country: "the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela."

By whatever name, Venezuela is in serious economic trouble. The economy, in recession since last year, will shrink as much as 5% this year. Inflation is expected to ease from 30% to 20% annually, simply because many Venezuelans can't afford to buy anything. The unofficial unemployment rate is reckoned by economists at over 20%. Chavez is counting on a rush of foreign investors, lured by rising oil prices, to revive his economy. But analyst Rowan says, "No multinationals are going to come in until they rewrite the rules."

While other Latin American nations are zooming along information superhighways and trying to lure high-tech industries, Chavez talks of running railroads alongside the Orinoco River, through the mostly unpopulated southerly plains region. With typical single-mindedness, Chavez has set himself the task of "leading his people through the desert." His grip on leadership is strengthening by the day. The question is, How large is the desert?