Quote from reid5525:
The problem is Chavez will not stop at oil and telecom. He will go much farther than that, he is a megalomaniac. He is aready taking on more power to legislate by decree, bypassing the national assembly. then look for him to beat down the opposition parties. He'll send his goons to break up opposition rallies, rough up opposition candidates, and kill one or two if needs be. Private media will be threatened or closed down if they criticize his government. Smart Venezuelans are already fleeing to Miami. Those with big cash to move out of Venezuela will soon find that they are restricted in the amount of U.S.$ and euro they can buy to take out of the country.
New investment will dry up down there, unemployment will go up, and the people will begin to doubt him. Chavez will become more repressive, paronoid, and steal public funds to stash overseas in the event that he has to flee into exile one day. He is safe for now. The oil money is buying him love amongst the poor.
Well yes, Venezuelans are already fleeing, not only to Miami but to the few countries in Latin America whose governments have not being bought by Chavez's oil.
In CR the Chavez backed candidate loss in a very tied race, by less than one vote per voting table...
Other countries such as Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua where not that lucky. Now they all have chavist presidents and they are all taking measures to ensure they remain in power, such measures include rewritting constitutions and eliminating any political competitors.
In Nicaragua for example one of the favorite candidates, left winged Herty Lewitts died of a heart attack in a very convenient time, since he was taking many votes away from Daniel Ortega, and even though many Nicaraguans believe that his death was not a natural one, there has been no investigation, and it is very unlikely now that Ortega controls all three branches of the government again. The Ortega regime in the 80's was known for political assassinations and the attempted genocide against the Miskito Indians in the Caribbean Coast.
Chavez's most powerful weapon for turning elections around the continent to his favor is his oil. He gives lots of oil to his supported candidates in order for them to buy votes. This was specially effective last year when the prices of oil rose to all time highs.
It is only natural that once the continent's Superpower [The US] turns it back to the region other political powers will emerge to take it's place and it is very likely that those powers will take their political fuel from those that feel betrayed by the US impossed political, financial and economical systems, and their poor results.
As history tends to repeat itself, we should expect the US to start paying attention to the region once again when it's too late to do anything... starting a series of wars and creating instability in the socialist governments that flowered while they where looking elsewhere, in an effort to cause the collapse of such governments through generalize chaos, in order to bring puppets that are friendlier to their cause.
