VENEZUELA ANALYSIS
Venezuelanalysis.com conducted the following interview with Gregory Wilpert. Wilpert is a sociologist, freelance journalist, co-founder of Venezuelanalysis.com, and author of the book, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power.
Chavez often states that what each country does internally is their business, and that it’s important that other world leaders not comment on such things, in order to respect the sovereignty of that country. He made such comments regarding the recent popular rebellion in Egypt. Why then do you think he has taken sides, even if in a limited way, in this issue?
I think Chavez has taken sides because he bases his foreign policy to a large extent on personal relationships. Once he establishes a personal rapport with a foreign leader he trusts that leader implicitly and negative news reports about that leader leave him completely unimpressed because he knows only too well from personal experience how biased international media can be.
Some critics of Chavez like to argue that he is fond of people like Gaddafi because they are autocrats just like him. That is a silly argument, though, if you consider that Chavez is also close friends with people such as Lula da Silva of Brazil, who has an impeccable democratic reputation. Rather, Chavez simply makes friends across the “democrat” – “autocrat” spectrum, regardless of their governing styles.
Do you think Chavez’s own experiences of a U.S backed coup, and complete distortions about Venezuela by the international private media have played a role in his reaction to what is going on in Libya, or is it more a part of his general foreign policy?
Both. There is a general foreign policy component in that Chavez is very interested in strengthening South-South relations and in order to do that he has to do to establish ties with unsavory characters such as Gaddafi. Also, with Chavez being a history buff, he sees Gaddafi’s 1969 revolution in Libya as an anti-imperialist liberation struggle and values Gaddafi for that (which is why he honored him with a replica of Simon Bolivar’s sword). Meanwhile, Chavez seems to be unaware that Gaddafi and Libya have changed significantly since then and so he continues to view Gaddafi through this historical lens.
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