Hugo Chavez: Re-writing history

In October 1899, Castro marched on Caracas with a large army and deposed the caudillo, or military strongman, Ignacio Andrade, in what came to be known as the Liberation Revolution. Castro inherited a coffee-growing nation in serious international debt and when, in 1902, he refused to pay Venezuela’s debtors, the British and German navies blockaded the Venezuelan coastline.

“Venezuelans, the insolent foreigner has profaned the sacred earth of our country,” Castro declared, rousing patriotic fervor in his fellow countrymen.

After intervention by then-U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, the Europeans backed off, but Castro ultimately was forced to re-pay Venezuela’s debts. European aggression and Venezuelan defiance prompted Roosevelt to modify his policies toward Latin America, launching the era of U.S. intervention in the region.

Castro was seen by the United States as troublesome, and he was later forced from power in a coup led by his best friend and vice president, Juan Vicente Gomez — with support from the United States.

“I'm not trying to make him into a heroic figure, but he is someone who deserves to be re-evaluated because he always appears as a despot, a criminal, an assassin, a drunk and a rapist — and the other aspects of Venezuelan history don't figure at all,” said Manuel Carrero, director of investigations at the Romulo Gallegos Center for Latin American Studies (CELARG). “That was done to hide the fact that Castro had stood up to imperialism.”

“From [Castro’s] time until now not a single Venezuelan president has said to North American presidents what they deserve when it needs to be said,” Carrero said. “Cipriano Castro said what he did to Roosevelt because he deserved it. Today, Chavez does the same.”

Castro took power at the end of a bloody civil war that saw Venezuela fragmented into a number of fiefdoms ruled by military strongmen. He succeeded in centralizing power under his rule, said Elias Pino Iturrieta, director of the Institute of Historical Investigations at the Catholic University of Venezuela and author of "Castro: Presidential Epistles, 1899-1908."

“The culmination of fragmentation occurs when Castro begins to dominate singlehandedly the country's map by taking advantage of the weakness of his enemies,” he said. “But he did not have new ideas for that domination.

“Cipriano Castro created a bridge between the fragmentation and anarchy of the previous century and the total dictatorship that would exist from 1908," Pino Iturrieta said.

But Pino Iturrieta said the revision of Castro’s presidency has a political agenda: The Chavez government is looking for historical antecedents to Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution.

Chavez "doesn't only want to re-write the history of Cipriano Castro but of all of Venezuelan history,” he said. “The government has no coherent doctrine to explain what it has proclaimed as '21st century socialism,' and because of that it tries to change the past. It tries to find in the past some roots in history in which it can base Chavez's project.”  

Read more about Hugo Chavez:

The "E" word: Venezuela and the return of expropriation

Hugo Chavez scores victory to extend term

Venezuela's media is caught in a vicious circle

Global Blogs:

• Latest

More Dispatches:

• Latest

Sponsored Links

Prom Dresses
Brokers Online Health Insurance
Casino News
drug addiction treatment
P90X
Credit Card