Weakened Chavez becoming more dangerous

posted at 2:40 pm on November 27, 2007 by Bryan
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Hugo Chavez is threatening domestic opponents with confiscation of their property if they continue to fight his effort to be voted into office for life.
The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, today threatened to strip the country’s industrialists of their assets if they continued to oppose his indefinite presidency.


Chávez faces a vote at the weekend on his proposals to change 69 articles of the constitution, including scrapping the limit on the number of terms a president can serve.


Venezuela’s largest business chamber, Fedecámaras, to which thousands of large and small businesses belong, has called the planned reforms an “illegal act”, and called on voters to oppose their passage “by every possible legal means”.
Arrests and indefinite incarceration can’t be far behind. But the threat that Chavez poses isn’t limited to the area within Venezuela’s borders. He’s also a threat to his neighbors.


An IBD editorial sums up the growing danger that Hugo Chavez poses to Colombia. The backdrop is negotiations between Colombia and the FARC, which Chavez had been mediating until Colombian President Alberto Uribe learned that Chavez was working with the terrorists. Uribe fired Chavez.
In theory, a mediator should persuade two sides to each give up something to achieve a common end. The only one who gave up anything, however, was Uribe, who watched Chavez cavort with terrorists before TV cameras, giving them a legitimacy in Caracas they never had known.


Even worse, Chavez proved to be acting as an agent of the terrorists. Uribe’s sudden cutoff of the mediation effort at a hastily organized press conference last Wednesday suggested disturbing new information.


On Sunday, Chavez confirmed it: “I think Colombia deserves another president, it deserves a better president,” he said.


That followed a discussion in a U.S. prison between extradited FARC terrorist Ricardo Palmera, aka “Simon Trinidad,” and another mediator and Chavez ally appointed by Uribe, Senator Piedad Cordoba. They discussed “a transitional government” with the terrorist as a bargaining chip for the hostage swap.


On Monday, Chavez repeated what he had in mind to make sure Uribe understood. “Reconciliation is impossible,” he said. “We have to wait for a new government in Colombia we can talk with. I hope it arrives sooner rather than later.”


No wonder Uribe lashed out, saying Chavez was less interested in mediating than in overthrowing Colombia’s government. That may have sounded far-fetched, but it’s what the guerrillas have been fighting for since 1964, and Chavez’s admiration for them is no secret. Uribe, who has come down on the guerrillas harder than any other Colombian leader, is the president they want gone.


“You seek continental domination” Uribe said, and “a Marxist FARC government” to replace Colombia’s elected one. He also pointed out that it was prime time for Chavez to be trying this, with the Venezuelan’s public support at home flagging just one week before a constitutional referendum to grant him absolute power.
I’ve half expected Chavez to go expansionist on Colombia for a couple of years now. FARC makes for a natural Chavez ally. The Venezuelan polls show him losing support for being made dictator for life by vote. Colombia is a US ally, but not one that we’re likely to go all out for if Chavez attacks by proxy via the FARC and the paramilitary groups that he has been creating across Venezuela.


I guess what I’m getting at is, if you’re wondering where the next land war in South America is likely to be, keep an eye on the Venezuela-Colombia border.