In recent months there have been numerous stories about the state of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s health and each time he has dismissed these stories as having been completely blown out of proportion. The same is true about the health of the Venezuelan nation and its economy. Four months ago Chavez flew to Cuba for cancer treatment and he is heading back there next week for what the government describes as a routine ‘check-up’. Whether or not Chavez’s health is as strong as he claims is open to debate, however, there is no question that Venezuela’s economy has been terminally ill for years.
Chavez’s cancer treatment has taken place in top of the range Venezuelan hospitals as well as in Venezuela’s communist ally Cuba. Needless to say, the option to fly over to Cuba for medical treatment is not available to most Venezuelans but neither is the option to facilitate Venezuela’s top hospitals; showing itself to be a shining beacon of Socialism, Venezuela has a two tier health system. Venezuela’s private hospitals have been compared to those in the United States and are generally seen as amongst the best in the world. The majority of Venezuelan’s, however, have to make do with the public health system which is far below the standards of the private system; these hospitals are often dirty, have machinery which doesn’t work, are over-crowded and are under-staffed; 2,000 doctors left the country in the period from 2006 to 2008. Whilst there has been a general decline in what was once seen as one of Latin America’s greatest health care systems since the 1980s, Chavez’s Socialist government has had enough time to deliver a better service for the people they claim to serve. Chavez’s government seems to have strayed far from their Communist ideals in allowing people to pay for healthcare and in treating the rich differently to the rest although at least they’ve stuck to Communism’s most important doctrine by allowing the proletariat to all suffer together.
It is not only in the health sector that the Chavez and his cronies have brought to its knees. Staying true to Communist principles Chavez’s thugs have, in an attempt to show how much better collectives are than private enterprises, successfully confiscated land from thousands of successful capitalists and landowners and re-distributed them as cooperatives or amongst the poor. The sheer illegality of the confiscations and the lives which have been destroyed aside, this may seem like a good idea which could benefit the lives of many of Venezuela’s people; however, this is not true. As land has been redistributed, it has been taken away from those with knowledge of how to produce the goods which Venezuela exports and of how to produce food to those who have none and thus there has been a mass decline in production and a country which should be able to feed itself twice over is having to import two-thirds of its food! Due to this the economy of a country which has some of the richest supplies of natural resources in the world is in free fall and inflation is at 30%! The great Simon Bolivar once called the Llaneros (beef herders of Venezuela and Colombia) his toughest fighters, and it is certainly true that they have helped to make beef a Venezuelan staple and are thus well placed to comment on the state of Venezuela’s food economy. Despite being poorly paid by the land owners they work for these ranchers are fearful of Chavez’s land grabs and believe that if the land their cattle graze on is taken away and divided up amongst peasants then both the quality and quantity of Venezuelan beef will fall and thus food shortages will worsen. Despite this I’m sure Venezuelans will take solace from the fact that they have produced food in a Socialist manner rather than by working for experienced, capitalist landowners as the economy crumbles and they starve.
Venezuela under Chavez has been transformed by Socialism; before Chavez’s assent to power it was a poor and dangerous country, these days it may be more so! Despite all of Chavez’s redistributions of land and power, 25% of the country’s population remain below the poverty line with many of those people living in Barrios (slums) which are controlled by gangs and the police fear to set foot in. Central government statistics seem to claim that poverty and crime are falling, however, the police openly disagree with these statistics. Last year Caracas was the murder capital of the world with over 17,000 homicides. Despite these shocking statistics, Venezuelans can at least cling on to free speech; Venezuelans are free to say whatever they want to whomever with the clear understanding that if they say the wrong thing or anger the wrong official their business will be confiscated from them and handed to the state, they themselves will be reduced to poverty and made equal to the rest of the population creating a perfectly equal society where everybody is stuck in poverty!
Whether Chavez genuinely believes that his policies will lead to better Venezuela or whether he is simply a thug who wants to maintain power at the expense of his people his policies are clearly failures. Chavez can play the strong man as much as he likes and pretend, just like his health, that all is well, however, the truth is that Venezuela is ailing and is in need of a great doctor!
No comments:
Post a Comment