Fears of Cuban 'infiltration' in Venezuela (Castro's communism)

When Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez announced the launching of an urban gardens programme, he said it would produce jobs and reduce the country's dependence on imported food.

It has. But Mr Chavez may not have bargained that the rows of lettuce, cucumber and mint now thriving amidst the traffic and high-rises of downtown Caracas would also produce a harvest of controversy.

The controversy has arisen because many of the advisers assisting with the gardening programme are Cubans. And Mr Chavez's opponents, who accuse him of desiring to convert Venezuela into a communist dictatorship similar to that led by his friend, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, suspect that the Cubans are here to do more than teach farming.

Chavez critics charge that the Cubans' true goal is to teach communism, spy or even provide paramilitary training to pro-Chavez guerrilla organisations.

"[The Cubans in Venezuela] are persons prepared to indoctrinate," said retired Vice Admiral Rafael Huici, founder of an organisation of retired military officers.

The gardening advisers are only one of several groups of Cubans here. There are also Cuban doctors living and working in Caracas's poorest neighbourhoods, and other Cubans assisting with a nationwide adult literacy programme. Altogether, more than 1,000 Cubans are said to be here working with government-organised programmes.

Opposition parliamentarian Hector Larreal, president of the National Assembly's health subcommittee, says the Cuban doctors are not qualified to practice in Venezuela, and that they prescribe inappropriate medicines and spread communism.

"The worst part about it is that they come with an ideological message to orient the communities towards a failed political system," he said.

The anti-Chavez media has headlined a stream of alleged cases of malpractice by the Cuban doctors. But Mr Chavez's critics, who tried to oust him in 2002 with an aborted military coup and later a crippling petroleum strike, have not backed up their most sensational accusations with evidence.

After nearly five years under his "Bolivarian revolution for the poor", Venezuela has remained firmly capitalistic. But the president has not hidden his admiration for communist Cuba, whose leader is Mr Chavez's closest international ally.

Mr Chavez once famously described Cuba, an impoverished nation where free speech is sharply restricted and independent media banned, as "the sea of happiness".

And the Venezuelan president did not join many other world leaders in criticising the recent jailings of dozens of Cuban democracy activists.

But he denies having any intention of communising his nation. Rather, he says he wants to benefit from Cuba's internationally-recognised achievements in fields such as literacy and health.

On the half-hectare farm plot in central Caracas, squeezed in between a pair of busy avenues and the Hilton Hotel, communist infiltration is not evident.

Members of the 11-person co-operative tending the land say they are not being indoctrinated. And, in fact, the garden sells its produce very capitalistically from a kiosk facing a neighbouring plaza.

In the farm plot's five months' existence, the co-operative's members have harvested some four tonnes of produce from what was previously a piece of barren, weedy land.

The co-operative's members, who are paid by a share of the garden's sales, are previously-unemployed residents of a nearby poor neighbourhood.

"I never imagined that I'd work in this," said Francisco Riqueno, 24, a shoemaker by trade. "I like the physical labour."

The Cuban doctors, too, have produced good reviews in the poor neighbourhoods where they are stationed.

"In my 40 years, there's never been work like (the Cubans) are doing," said Paula Bastidas, a member of the Health Commission of San Augustin neighbourhood.

Ms Bastidas said that before the Cubans' arrival, residents had to travel long distances to public hospitals, which often make poor patients wait hours before being seen.

Ironically, part of the Cubans' value to Mr Chavez may actually be democratic. On 19 August, Mr Chavez reached the halfway point of his term under the new constitution, making a recall referendum on his rule constitutionally possible.

With the opposition pushing for a vote and the president's popularity falling to about 30% in the polls, the Cuban-inspired initiatives appear to be solidifying support for him among his base of poor Venezuelans.

Across town, Dr Suisberto Fernandez is working in the poor Macayapa neighbourhood, a collection of tin-roofed concrete homes clinging high on a hillside, where he said respiratory troubles, skin infections and adolescent pregnancy are common.

Dr Fernandez said he and the other Cubans are well aware that they are in Venezuela thanks only to Mr Chavez, and that if he falls, the Cubans will surely go, too.

"We came here to help these barrios," Dr Fernandez said. "If we get kicked out, then [the barrio] will remain like it was before - marginalised. Because no Venezuelan doctor ever comes here."

Crises in Venezuela***The influx of so many poor with great aspirations of acquiring wealth resulted in the creation of massive slums that consumed the hillsides like a cancer. Mix into these conditions the long reign of two major political parties worm-eaten with corruption and seemingly unsympathetic with the poor, and the almost inevitable resentment created when huge economic discrepancies exist, and the poor face tremendous obstacles preventing them from advancing into the "opportunity-based" middle class. Venezuela was a social powder keg waiting for a spark.

Then along came Mr. Chavez, a former army colonel and leader of an unsuccessful 1992 coup that converted him into an imprisoned criminal and heroic "champion of the poor." A foolish President Rafael Caldera granted Mr. Chavez a presidential pardon, and Mr. Chavez ran for president on a moderate platform promising sweeping reforms and a healthy house-cleaning of government corruption. This won him wide support from the poor and disarmed the fears of the more wealthy, who hoped Mr. Chavez would deliver on his promises. Mr. Chavez won the presidency with the support of just 35 percent of the electorate.

Soon afterward, the trouble began. Mr. Chavez established friendships with the most radical leaders in the world, beginning with Cuba's Fidel Castro, but also including Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, Iraq's Saddam Hussein (whom he called "My brother"), North Korea's Kim Yong-Il and the Palestinian Yasser Arafat, among others. Mr. Chavez celebrated the September 11 attacks in the United States, and reportedly gave money to the Taliban and al Qaeda. He has supported terrorist Carlos the Jackal, and established close ties with Colombia's narco-terrorists (ELA and the FARC), permitting them to operate, train and rest in Venezuelan territory.

Recently, Venezuela's permissiveness — if not outright support — for terror groups inspired U.S. Army Gen. Richard Boyer to compare Venezuela with Syria. The next day, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said "the government of the United States and the people of Venezuela have a differing view of democracy than does President Chavez." Taken together, these comments are a clear shot across the bow of Mr. Chavez. Mr. Chavez's anti-democratic behavior and support of terror groups is earning him an associate membership in the "axis of evil." ***

Is not Carlos the Jackal's brother running the Oil Ministry?

Yes he is.

Cuban Educators Spark Political Storm in Venezuela

Chávez's school plans ignite furor in Venezuela ***A new constitution written by Chávez supporters requires all schools to teach ``Bolivarian principles'' ---- a code phrase for Chávez's brand of leftist populism ---- and the pro-Chávez majority in the legislative National Assembly is preparing a bill laying out the exact curriculum. Last month, the president issued Decree 1011, creating a corps of ``itinerant inspectors'' empowered to close schools and fire teachers that don't follow government-set procedures and standards.

``Political commissars,'' Agudo called them. Jaime Manzo, head of the national teachers' union, called it ``a sword hanging over the head of any teacher who refuses to sing Chávez's praises in the classroom.'' Parents' groups and the teachers' union have appealed to the Supreme Court to block the decree and submitted to the assembly an alternate education reform plan that guarantees a ``pluralist education'' and bans ``partisan politics'' from the classroom.

New history texts for fourth- and sixth-graders published in 1999 praised Chávez's coup attempt and branded as ``corrupt oligarchies'' the two parties that ruled Venezuela since the late 1950s, Democratic Action and COPEI. Chávez has also greatly expanded a system of paramilitary classes in public high schools that had long been on the books but were seldom held, portraying them as ``the founding stones of the new Venezuelan man.''

``He is promoting militarism, infecting texts with viruses that foster class hatreds ... and speak against globalization and privatization,'' Raffalli said in an interview. Chávez recently signed a deal with Cuba under which Havana will train Venezuelan teachers and provide educational materials, and Education Minister Hector Navarro last year approved a nationwide essay competition on the life of Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary Ernesto ``Ché'' Guevara.***

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