Venezuela's Chavez Accused of Financing Terrorism

There is a recall against an established leftist regime right now that includes physical violence, lies, smears, class warfare, racial hatred, and, no, I’m not talking about California. While most of the media’s attention is focused on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 30-year-old peccadilloes and studiously ignoring Gray Davis’ ongoing history of female battering, the major news outlets appear totally blind to the turmoil in Venezuela caused by the repressive leftist government of President Hugo Chavez. Before Chavez came to power in 1998, oil-rich Venezuela was a wealthy nation and one of South America’s oldest democracies. This wealth attracted a large influx of poor immigrants from neighboring Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, and the Caribbean, which then became trapped in slums, their resentment growing against what they perceived as an unresponsive government and closed society. Chavez, who had been imprisoned for a failed coup in 1992 but was later released, became the poor’s champion during the 1998 elections while presenting a moderate platform promising to end government corruption. With just 35% of the vote, President Chavez wasted no time in revealing his true revolutionary leanings. He immediately embraced Cuba’s communist leader, Fidel Castro, as Venezuela’s chief ally, called Iraq’s Saddam Hussein his “brother”, aligned himself with Libya’s Moammar Qadaffi, and formed alliances with North Korea’s Kim Yong-Il and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Full Story