Venezuelan Valedictory

Academics like to connect their academic freedom to democracy’s survival but decade after decade they become enamored of dictators, from Josef Stalin to Fidel Castro. In some scholarly circles, the latest boy toy is Venezuelan strong man Hugo Chavez.

“Certain sectors of the academic world” in the United States are very enthusiastic about Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan geologist Gustavo Coronel said at a Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by the Center for Security Policy (CSP) that was held on April 22, 2010. Coronel served in Venezuala’s parliament.

Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid has written about the trips that Bill Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois and former member of the Weather Underground has made to Venezuela. A 2007 confab in Caracas drew more star professors, according to The Militant, a newspaper published by the Socialist Workers.

These sages included former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill and August Nimtz, a University of Minnesota political science professor. Meanwhile, “Young Venezuelans are being trained in Hezbelloh camps in Southern Lebanon,” Dr. Luis Fleischman, an adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University, said at the CSP meeting.

Dr. Fleischman also serves as a senior advisor to the Menges Hemispheric Security Project at CSP. “Chavez came to power 11 years ago promising to get rid of corruption,” Coronel noted. “Corruption is now worse than ever.”

Consequently, Chavez’s popularity has taken a nosedive from 70 % a few years ago to 40 % now, Coronel reflected. Venezuala also has one of the highest inflation rates in the Western Hemisphere, Dr. Norman Bailey added. Bailey, who served as an advisor to President Reagan, is the president of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.

That is no mean feat given the double digit inflation rates many nations in the region take for granted. Additionally, Coronel notes, Venezuela has one of the highest crime rates in the area.

There is also a tribe on the border between Venezuela and Columbia that is now Shia. The connection to Iran was one that that speakers at the panel dwelled on at some length. Venezuela has sold 20 billion barrels of oil to Iran, Jon Perdue, director of Latin America programs at the Fund for American Studies, claimed.

Iran has mixed refineries in Venezuela, Bailey claimed. “You can’t buy passage on the commercial flights between Caracas and Teheran,” Bailey noted wryly. “They’re always booked.”

“People on them don’t go through customs, passports or anything bureaucratic.”

Perdue noted that Hugo Chavez has opened a Venezuelan Information Office (VIO) in Washington, D. C. As it turns out, the VIO had a presence at the CSP event.

One cameraman/reporter for the Venezuelan Telesur TV network took issue with claims of the CSP panelists that Venezuela’s government was linked to the narco-terrorist FARC in Columbia. This despite the claims of Chavez himself to the contrary and the Columbia government investigation a few years back that uncovered a hard drive detailing said links.

“The Venezuelan press has a hard time accepting the evidence presented here,” CSP president Frank Gaffney dryly observed. Gaffney served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration.

Nancy Menges, who heads the Menges Center, pointed out at the Capitol Hill meeting that not only Iran but also China and Russia are heavily invested in Latin America. “China’s investment in Latin America is up 400 % particularly in 2007 and 2008,” Fleischman said.

“China’s now got a claim on Venezuelan oil production for the rest of time,” Bailey asserted. Coronel elaborated.
“Venezuela is mortgaging oil from the Orinoco River to China for $20 billion,” Coronel claimed, a move he labels “unconstitutional.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.