The Foreign Service Journal, June 2011

F OCUS ON L AT IN A MER ICA H UGO C HÁVEZ : N O F RIEND OF THE U NITED S TATES 32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 1 1 or nearly 170 years, relations be- tween the governments of Venezuela and the United States were founded on mutual trust and shared inter- ests. Today, however, the relationship is one of distrust and conflicting interests and ideologies. This was dramatically exposed for all to see in March, when Venezuela and two of its closest allies not only op- posed United Nations intervention in Libya but ex- pressed support for Moammar Gaddafi. Until then, few analysts had realized that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez not only admired Gaddafi but that many, if not most, of his policies and programs bore a remarkable re- semblance to those in Gaddafi’s “Green Book.” The clash is straightforward. The United States con- tinues to promote democracy in Latin America while seeking to contain — and eventually eradicate — trade in narcotics and terrorism. Venezuela’s government is authoritarian, and several of its senior officials are are al- leged to be involved, one way or another, in narcotics. Both countries are currently represented by their re- spective deputy chiefs of mission. Last year, Venezuela revoked its agreement to receive Larry Palmer as U.S. ambassador following his unusually frank (and unusually accurate) analysis of the situation in Venezuela in testi- mony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In response, Washington revoked the visa of Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Álvarez, in Decem- ber 2010. In retrospect, there probably was little the United States could do to prevent Venezuela’s tragic slide from a liberal democracy with a reasonably open economy to an autocracy on the classic Latin American caudillo model. This slide had its start in the 1980s and inspired an unsuccessful 1992 coup attempt by a group of dissi- dent leftist military officers — headed by Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez Frías. At the time, neither U.S. policymakers nor members of the Venezuelan business, political and intellectual elites took a proper measure of Col. Chávez. A few ob- servers, to their credit, did see him for what he was: ruthlessly ambitious and dictatorial. But the prevailing view on both sides of the Caribbean was that he was mostly bluffing about his extremism and that, if elected to the presidency in December 1998, he would turn out T HE O BAMA ADMINISTRATION ’ S CAUTIOUS , LOW - KEY APPROACH IS THE WAY TO DEAL WITH THE REAL THREAT H UGO C HÁVEZ POSES TO U.S. INTERESTS . B Y R OBERT B OTTOME F Robert Bottome is the editor of the VenEconomy weekly newsletter andmonthly magazine (www.veneconomy.com). He is also an Inter-American Dialogue associate and con- tributor. He has worked as a stockbroker, investment banker and financial analyst for more than 50 years.