Chavez foreign policy: the not so secret goal

I have often written that there is no such a thing as a Venezuelan foreign policy, there is only and strictly a Chavez foreign policy. All that is done is decided by Chavez and his associates to serve their interests. There is no consultation whatsoever with the different sectors of the country. But it remained to define whether a rather silly anti US rhetoric there was a real foreign policy. We now know.

The recent tour of Chavez sheds much light on his foreign policy schemes and goals. The tour included the force feeding of Castro to Mercosur, the visit to Belarus which holds last communist dictator in Europe, a visit to Putin of the neo tsarist regime with weak Duma included, and to theocratic and fanatic Iran after a stop over in Qatar to pretend to at least a semi civilized encounter. All topped off with a Viet Nam state visit.

It is time to review the situation. First a little methodology on how Chavez manages his foreign policy, then a look at this particular tour of deficient and undemocratic countries and then the unavoidable conclusion as to what Chavez is seeking.

There is a method in madness

How does Chavez runs his diplomacy show? A general consensus was more or less the norm in Venezuela before Chavez killed it completely as early as 1999.

A recent example shows us how things operate. Chavez has decided to get into the Mercosur. Any joining of a trade association requires complex studies and ample consultations with the different economical sectors that could either benefit or get armed by the new association. These take at the very least a couple of years before any pre-agreement is even negotiated. Nothing was done by the current administration. Adhesion to Mercosur was discussed on the fast, strictly between bureaucrats. The private sector of Venezuela, the agricultural sector, the trade unions, the financial sector, no one was seriously consulted. The word of Chavez was enough to launch Venezuela into the Mercosur association, come what may come, meaning among other things the likely death of the already weak Venezuelan industry.

Other examples abound such as leaving the Andean Community, or the Mexico Colombia triple economic association. All done just because Chavez said so. Sometimes one is left to wonder if such transcending measures which compromise for decades the future and well being of the country started as no more than a Chavez fancy carried by the emotions of one of his interminable fiery speeches.

But that would be too simplistic an explanation even though the media effect of such measures is certainly part of chavismo decisions. We must realize now that the pursuit of a confrontation with the US is indeed a goal of Chavez and that to reach this he is preparing a support network. The confrontation with the US will come during Chavez next presidential term, of this there is less and less doubt.

Chavez’s splendid summer vacation

After this summer little road trip Chavez intentions are becoming quite clear. Let’s thus start with a description of his trip and a few comments on the countries he visited and some of the things he did. It is indeed not an idle exercise to examine the political situation of the countries that Chavez visited.

The Mercosur stop in at the Cordoba summit was meant to be a rather routine event making official the entry of Venezuela (without voting rights yet, an important point). Well, Chavez had Castro come along to sign a few “agreements”. The symbolic achievement of Chavez here is that he confronted Mercosur’s clause for democracy. This is extremely grave as these countries who lived through some of the worse dictatorships in LatAm history had developed democracy saving clauses. By forcing the visit of Castro, the longest and worst dictatorship in LatAm history, Chavez has forced the Mercosur to weaken its resolve on democracy. Not only that but Chavez and Castro exerted undue and even rude pressure on the Mercosur by hosting a parallel counter summit which for them was a love feast more important than anything the Mercosur summit dealt with. There will be consequences to pay for that.

Then Chavez was off to Belarus. This country is called the last dictatorship of Europe, and has a leftover communist government. It has tried some elections to validate its tenure but they were so fraudulent that now Belarus government cannot travel to Europe as visas are denied. Belarus is now the only European pariah country.

Off to Russia where Chavez signed a 3 billion USD arms deal. This rather shocking figure for a country of pacifist vocation and in dire social needs can only be explained as a real desire for Chavez to confront at gun point the US or one of its allies. Not to mention that Putin is far from being a democrat. The inheritor of Yeltsine, he has consolidated a very autocratic power which is legitimated by elections that were rather contested even though his victory was certain. At the level of the Duma and other democratic initiatives, Putin has centralized enough authority or power that he does not worry much about them. And on the Human Rights front, from Chechnya up, there is no positive notes to be found in Russia which has definitely retrograded on that matter since the Yeltsine years. And now there is talk of a constitutional amendment to grant Putin a third term. Putin is definitely on the way to establish himself as the new autocrator of all Russias.

But Putin’s Russia has also centralized economic power. Everyday more and more of the main Russian industries are controlled by Putin supporters, many of them issued from the old managing cadres of communist Russia. Sometimes “private” industries are seized by jailing the owner.

From there Chavez flew to Qatar. Not much to say there. He received an Al Jazeera commemorative plate and one wonders if this is a curse or a blessing. At any rate, Qatar with or without Al Jazeera is certainly not a model of democracy, a kingdom certainly more bearable than Saudi Arabia, but with a ruling family equally as entrenched.

But the next leg of the trip was the crowning moment. In Iran Ahmadinejad welcomed Chavez as a soul mate. The long effort to cultivate the Iran relation is paying off for Chavez, in particular when Iran is trying to find allies to validate its support of the Hezbollah and using this to erase any strength that the reform movement in Iran might still exist. Long gone are timid openings of the failed Khatami presidential terms. Iran is more than ever in the hands of the religious extremist elite who has managed to fight back a reform challenge through heavy handed methods, á la Chavez. Compulsive complete full chador wearing is back and probably gay hanged teenagers too.

The next stop is also for a country that is far from any political overture. Viet Nam is following timidly in the footsteps of China in that the heavy party control is trying to release some of the economy brakes. But make no mistakes, there is no opposition in Viet Nam: all has fled long ago as “boat people”, or has been “reeducated” in special camps. It is a sign of how muzzled the country is that it is even allowing itself to renew relations with the USA.

And let’s not forget North Korea that Chavez wanted to visit but cancelled at the last minute. Still, even without the North Korea junket it is quite clear where Chavez heart lies: with all the guys that fear a free an open election. The only ones missing to complete Chavez collection of rogues pictures are the generals from Burma, the Syrian Assad neo-monarchy, and few post soviet central Asian statelets. But their turn will come.

Chavez foreign policy

The innocent observer will think that Chavez is just consolidating an anti US axis in a post Iraq mess world. That simplistic view is not wrong but very incomplete: Chavez is in fact consolidating an anti democratic axis.

Let’s start with an obvious point: the professed pacifism and “people” sensitiveness of Chavez, supposedly supporting his leftist credo, and which endears him so much to the neo-left crowds of the post Seattle riots. This stepping stone to garner support overseas is a fake. Look at the current situation, the Venezuelan government screaming at the Israeli violence in the Middle East. All fake. What is Chavez doing to control the violence death tool of Venezuela that is now comparable to the death toll of the Middle East who at least as the excuse of a war? What is the Chavez government doing when its own military commits abuses? Cover ups! Look a the case this week of the Apure massacre where peasant were massacred and survivors had to escape to Colombia to denounce that the Venezuelan army had killed their relatives and friends, this while the government tried to put all the blame on a single soldier. We must separate Chavez words, so popular now with an idealist left, desperate for an anti Bush and anti US hero, with the real actions and objectives of Chavez at home.

It is important to observe that Chavez has a very Manichean view of things, that he is a throwback to the failed political leftist theories of the 60ies, that he is unable to learn or understand that the world has changed, that the future of an overcrowded world is consensus and not confrontation. He does arbor a desire to ruin the US “empire”. If that is due in large part to US errors from a very deficient foreign policy, it is also greatly due to his own shortcomings as an economical manger of a country where any success he can claim is only due to skyrocketing oil prices.

Like all failed leaders who love power too much to accept considering self criticism or, God forbid, abandon power for a better manager, in fact Chavez is looking at ways to consolidate his power in the vain hope that someday he will prove all of his detractors wrong. This is simple psychology 101 college course material.

It is thus understandable that having failed early in his term to be accepted as a normal leader of the world (he has yet to meet a US president and he is not received anymore in some countries), Chavez came back to his original plans (see the extensive Alberto Garrido books on the international Bolivarian project), to create an anti US front, the old dream of Chavez mentor, Fidel Castro. The errors of the US, the quick sands of Iraq, the high oil prices have provided Chavez with his golden opportunity.

But Chavez suffers from a bigger problem than the US. His legitimacy is everyday more and more contested. With a sea of oil under his feet he is safe from serious international pressure no matter how much he rigs elections. But he is not quite safe at home as long as a free press and opposition, no matter how miserable this one is, will exist. Chavez has been seeking “allies” among rather dubious regimes so as to limit any future claim against him based on his degrading record as an autocrat. As the Latin locution: Asinus asinum fricat. There is no accident in his choice of allies. Look at the countries that Chavez visited this week: in none of them there is a possibility in the near future that the opposition will access power peacefully. Not even 5 years from now. But look further: all of these countries are ruled by a small elite, to qualify it someway, which control all political and economical power. And that elite is shrinking, not increasing, except perhaps in Qatar. These are small, corrupt and determined elites who could end up in jail if they lost power.

And look further: the only “democratic” stopover he did, at the Mercosur summit, was to hold an undemocratic post counter-summit with Castro. The goal there is to either push Brazil and Argentina to the left, to an anti US posture, and to threaten them by going directly to their masses to stir trouble if they do not support Chavez’s goals. The message is clear, the Venezuela entry in Mercosur is designed to politicize South America, to break, if necessary, South America in two: on one side Colombia, Peru and Chile and on the other Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina. Smaller countries will have to line up in one of the blocks.

And this brings us to the ultimate goal of Chavez. He is getting ready to install next year Venezuela as a permanent socialist regime that will not allow any opposition to reach office ever. Just look at the consistent message of Chavez emissaries: material rights are more important than civil rights. The code word always used as an excuse by any tyrant wanting to justify his power: they deliver. From Hitler to Castro, they all "delivered".

Chavez is already getting enough allies around the world that will not only accept his moves, but support the system he wants to install. By supporting Iran in a way that no country has dared before, by validating Belarus regime, by forcing Cuba back in international circles now that Europe is every day closer to ban it for good, Chavez is not creating an anti US axis, he is creating an anti democratic axis. The regimes of the future will be regimes where a single leader (Putin, Chavez, Lukashenko) or a single elite (Ayatollahs, one party states) is ruling for ever on the excuse of protecting its “people” from exterior influence: the US in Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia; Europe in Russia, Belarus or Africa; the West in Iran or other Muslim states; Democracy in some Asian or ex Soviet countries. All will unite against the values that define the West: Freedom, Liberty, Free Press, Individual Rights, Religious Rights, Scientific Rationalism... That is the real civilization clash that Chavez wants. And not because he believes in anything: he does not, he just wants to stay in office for ever and if he must create conflict somewhere in the world and have blood run in the streets, he could not care less.

The democratic world has been served notice.