Chavez' voyage to Stalinism has taken him into the Castro brothers orbit

Vancouver Sun (Jonathan Manthorpe): Watching Hugo Chavez inflate himself into a caricature of a petty despot would be a hugely entertaining spectacle were it not such a threat to the well-being of Venezuela's 28 million people.

Chavez' latest display is, unfortunately, not an empty display of the strutting braggadocio that has signposted his road to dictatorship since he came to power in 1999. His government has taken over nine private banks since the beginning of June.

The latest bank to fall victim to what Chavez insists is a socialist revolution was Banco Federal, the country's eighth largest, which was taken over on Monday. Banco Federal has the misfortune to be run by Nelson Mezerhane, who is also a minority shareholder in Globovision, Venezuela's only remaining television station critical of Chavez.

Last week, Venezuelan authorities rushed to issue arrest warrants for Globovision's owner, Guillermo Zuloaga and his son after Chavez, in one of his weekly four-hour television rants, said he couldn't understand why the two are still free.

In May, charges were filed against Zuloaga for illegally keeping 24 vehicles at his home -- it's alleged he was hoarding the vehicles in anticipation of a market shortage. And in March, Zuloaga was arrested and then released on charges of spreading false news and making remarks that offended Chavez.

Police have yet to find Zuloaga or his son.

Chavez has engaged in a mounting war against private enterprise in Venezuela -- which he calls, with a charmingly archaic touch, "the bourgeoisie" -- since he was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup orchestrated by business leaders and approved by the United States. Since then Chavez has progressively cut ties with Washington, though OPEC-member Venezuela's oil sales to the US remain the only serious part of a collapsing economy.

Chavez has espoused what he calls Bolivarianism, a straightforward brand of authoritarian Marxist socialism named for the 19th-century liberator of northwest South America from Spanish colonial rule, Simon Bolivar.

Chavez' voyage to Stalinism has inevitably taken him into the orbit of the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul, in Cuba.

Chavez and the Castros have established a mutual support relationship: he keeps Cuba's asphyxiated economy breathing with subsidized oil, and the Castros initiate him in the finer points of running a long-term despotism by sending advisers to ensure the loyalty of Venezuela's military and to teach it about control of the population.

So far Chavez' insistence that it is "the bourgeoisie" that is to blame for all Venezuela's problems still seems to resonate with the voters. He remains popular despite inflation running at over 30%, the economy having shrunk by nearly six per cent in the first quarter of this year, and severe shortages of staples, especially food. Chavez' response has been a frenzy of "forced acquisitions." Recent targets for nationalization include companies that make food containers and several food distribution companies, which Chavez accuses of hoarding food supplies to take advantage of rising prices. This initiative lost some of its potency when it was discovered that 20,000 tonnes of imported food owned by the state-run food agency was rotting in containers at a port.

In the past few years, Chavez has also nationalized a raft of businesses involved in everything from telecommunications to cement manufacturing. But Chavez pushed the limits of acceptability earlier this month when he went after billionaire businessman Lorenzo Mendoza, whom he accuses of trying to destabilize his government.

Chavez threatened to nationalize Mendoza's Empresas Polar, Venezuela's largest food and drinks company and the country's biggest private employer. But Empresas produces the country's most popular beer, Polar. Many Venezuelans are unsure they want their favourite beer nationalized, given the government's management record.

Chavez' intensified outburst of asserting his political and economic control has a clear purpose.

National Assembly elections are scheduled for September and, despite his best efforts, Chavez has not yet achieved unassailable political control. Anything like free and fair elections should see the opposition parties win 40% of assembly seats.

But Chavez has already ended constitutional limits on his terms in office -- he says he needs another 10 years to entrench the socialist revolution. And the Cubans are helping him organize the 300,000-strong militia under his personal command, a useful counterweight to the 82,000-man army.