One thing you can say about international relations between Uribe's Colombia and Chavez's Venezuela: they're always interesting.
You know your relations have deteriorated when Raul Castro is asking "How is it possible that we're fighting at a summit intended to unite Latin American and Caribbean countries?," and he has a point. If Latin America is going to create a united organization separate from the U.S. and Canada, this is not a good way to start it.
I think the single best way to turn people away from your revolution is to no longer be able to provide them electricity and water.
Seriously, Hugo Chavez needs to take care of this problem if he wants to stay in power for very long. If 40% of the country already opposes him, you don't think that consistent power outages would knock another 10-20% away and leave him with minority support?
Of course, he could always go full Mugabe and use thugs to stay in power despite destroying the country's infrastructure.
More than a month after their coup, the Honduran military finally went on television Tuesday to explain itself.
There's a lot to comment on in this story. First, there's the absolutely risible defense that the military offered, claiming the coup that overthrew Zelaya was done to protect not just Honduras, but to save the United States itself! Seriously:The five generals at the head of the Honduran armed forces made a rare appearance on national television to explain their role in the ouster in late June of President Manuel Zelaya, and to respond to charges that they acted in defense of the country’s elite.
In language that often veered into confessional, they repeated that they did not act to take sides in the political fight that had polarized the country, but out of obedience to the law. And they said they were confident that history would judge them as patriots for their actions.
The more they spoke, however, the more they showed how concerned they were that their image had been damaged by their actions, and the clearer it became that they continued to play a leading role in Honduran politics, nearly three decades since the end of military rule.
As if taking a page from a cold war playbook, Gen. Miguel Ángel Garcia Padget said the military had disrupted Mr. Chávez’s plans to spread socialism across the region. “Central America was not the objective of this communism disguised as democracy,” he said. “This socialism, communism, Chávismo, we could call it, was headed to the heart of the United States.” [my emphasis]
Caracas-on-Potomac, DC—Moving to consolidate his recent annexation of the government of the United States, former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez announced today that the country would be renamed the “United States of Chávez” and that select groups of Chávezian citizens would be invited to participate in “training programs” designed to make them happier and more productive members of the new society.
The Fifth Summit of the Americas begins today in Trinidad and Tobago, and heading into it, Obama had an editorial that several newspapers ran yesterday (though not that bastion of liberal bias, the New York Times, which instead opted today for an ok-if-general analysis of how Obama's popularity may mark a radical shift compared to Bush's last meeting in 2005 in what can only be called a nadir in his diplomacy with Latin America). In his editorial, Obama outlines the general issues he feels are facing the countries in the hemisphere: U.S.-Cuba relations (which almost all Latin American leaders, left or right, want to see improve, feeling it would be the most concrete evidence that U.S. policy in the region as a whole was shifting); security issues; energy; and, of course, the economy. While it's just talk in an editorial, I do like Obama's comment that "we don't need a debate about whether to blame right-wing paramilitaries or left-wing insurgents - we need practical cooperation to expand our common security." Of course, who is defining "common security" and how they're defining it will be a major issue (especially from Colombia's and Mexico's representatives), but the simple fact that he's acknowledging that there is violence from paramilitaries is much better than anything his predecessor did, particularly in dealing with Colombia; and mentioning "left-wing insurgents" helps alleviate sectors from the right, too.
Despite its seemingly casual inclusion in the editorial, I think energy, and not the economy, may very well end up being the key issue for Obama at the Americas. After 8 years of Bush, we have a new outlook on the importance of energy efficiency and the environment. I suspect that Obama will want to act quickly on this, and given how much Latin America has criticized the U.S.'s environmental policy under Bush, this could be the most fertile area in which they could come to agreements about limiting emissions, using alternate fuels and renewable energy sources, and outline specific plans for the present and future.
Obama's call for collective action is interesting, as well - it seems rather mundane, but as Boz points out, Chavez may throw a wrench into the works. While I don't fully agree with every detail of Boz's analysis of Chavez, I think he's right in his suggestion that this weekend has the potential to say a lot about Chavez's power in the region. As I argued awhile back, Lula and Brazil are definitely the ascendant power in South America, and Obama is the most popular U.S. president in Latin America in some time (I don't have stats dating back, but I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers were the highest since at least Kennedy). Watching how this dynamic between the U.S., Brazil, Venezuela, and other countries plays out this weekend will be interesting to watch, as will the rest of the Summit, and I'll have more as the event takes place and wraps up.
Awhile back, Yann and I discussed the nature of political parties whose identities were rooted in a particular historical figure. I originally pondered the roles of figures like Augusto Sandino, Farabundo Martí, and Juan Peron might have had in current party politics in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Argentina, respectively. Yann had some really great thoughts, particularly in regards to efforts to re-interpret past national figures into current worldviews of national and global politics in Latin America. These figures can remain controversial, as with Sandino ("Whether or not Sandino was an anti-imperialist hero, or a criminal lunatic is still very much a debate in Nicaragua"), but Yann argued strongly that my exclusion of Bolivar was perhaps misplaced, as Chavez has attempted to re-interpret Bolivar as one of the original "anti-imperialists." While I think (and I believe Yann agreed) that Bolivar differed from a Marti or Sandino in that Bolivar is still a part of the nationally-accepted myth of Venezuela when compared to Sandino or Marti, I agree that, in light of Chavez's efforts to re-interpret Bolivar, we can lump him in with the other two.
However, I want to actually address the issue of Peronism. Yann suggested that Peronism was the outlier from these groups/parties, as he founded the party that became central to national political contestation, rather than serving as a model for future parties, a la the Sandinistas' uyse of Sandino and the FMLN's use of Marti. Yann went on to suggest that we could therefore consider Peron closer to Chavez or Castro in that their parties were "formed around charismatic individuals."
I agree in that sense, but I think we shouldn't necessarily overstate that differentiation, either. In terms of party creation, I completely agree. However, I think there are important similarities between Peronism and the Sandinistas as they currently exist. Peron has been dead for nearly 40 years now, and his two administrations (1946-1955 and for 9 months, from 1973 to his death in 1974) had radically different legacies. Peron certainly was never a left-wing leader, but historically he was probably one of the most "populist" leaders of Latin America. In spite of his efforts at top-down control, the workers' movement developed strongly under Peron, and in many ways used and developed further Peron's fight for causes that often are (probably rightfully) considered "left," including labor rights, more equal wealth distribution, greater control and profit from laborers' efforts, etc. With Peron out of the country for 18 years, this leftward shift among many in the Peronist party happened without having Peron be able to directly counter them or divulge his true beliefs on these issues. At the same time, more conservative sectors that were drawn to his top-down (and even borderline authoritarian) control of the movement and social change, as well as his more fascistic sympathies, seemed justified in their beliefs of what Peronism was when he returned in 1973, far more right-wing in his campaign, brief administration, and attitudes than many portions of his own party. In short, Peron was able to represent, in his words, deeds, and ideas, many different things to different groups, and none of those groups was completely "wrong" or "right." (And this isn't even to consider those who hated and stood against Peron from start to finish).
All this is to say that I think Peronism and Peron doesn't represent a complete break from the divisive role Sandino and Marti had in their own countries. Yes, Peron formed his namesake party, and Sandino and Marti did not. However, the image of Peron was a divisive one almost from the start, not just among his party and other parties in Argentina, but within the party itself, and his absence for 18 years only exacerbated these divisions. You still see this today - the Peronists are still deeply divided and torn over the role they should take, a division made even deeper by the military's "Dirty War" of 1976-1983 and the presidency of Carlos Menem, a Peronist who drove Argentina to economic collapse with his extreme neoliberalism while opening old wounds by pardoning convicted war criminals from the dictatorship.
As one final note here, I agree with Yann that Chavez has the potential to be similar to Peron down the line. I would also add Lula to this mix. The PT is completely Lula - he was one of its founders, he has been its main leader and spokesperson since its formation in the early 1980s as Brazil's dictatorship opened, and he has been its only presidential candidate in Brazil's 5 post-dictatorship elections (the failed elections of 1989, 1994, 1998, as well as the victory of 2002 and re-election in 2006). Come 2010, Lula's term is up, and the PT is facing the first post-Lula election of its existence. As Yann cautioned, it is too soon to say for sure if Lula (or Chavez, or Castro) will end up having the same effect as Peron on their parties. The PT in 2010 will be aided in no small part that Lula is still alive, and can make clear which direction he thinks the party should go. Still, he faces a difficult challenge, as divisions among middle-class intellectuals and ideologues vs. workers and politicians seeking more practical demands have emerged. Indeed, Lula's own administration has jaded many of his more intellectually leftist supporters, who felt he abandoned the true "revolutionary" cause when he actually had to navigate real political channels (in this regard, I have little sympathy for such ideologues, I openly admit). I'm certainly not saying the PT will end up going down the same road as Peron's Partido Justicialista, and I would be amazed to see Lula end up doing a massive rightward shift, both for ideological and historically contextual reasons. Still, I think that, as with Chavez and Castro, it will be very interesting to see how the PT functions in a post-Lula road, and Peronism will more likely than not serve as a fascinating and important point of comparison and contrast.
Rob links to Glenn Greenwald's great post on the New York Times' disgraceful editorial supporting the coup of Hugo Chavez back in 2002. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Times failed as miserably as any news agency, "legitimate" or not, could, totally pushing the Bush line on the coup even while contradicting itself repeatedly within its own editorial:
The Times -- in the very first line -- mimicked the claim of the Bush administration that Chavez "resigned," even though, several paragraphs later, they expressly acknowledged that Chavez "was compelled to resign by military commanders" (the definition of a "coup"). Further mimicking the administration, the Times perversely celebrated the coup as safeguarding "Venezuelan democracy" ("Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator"), even though the coup deposed someone whom the Times Editorial itself said "was elected president in 1998" and -- again using the Times' own language -- "handed power to" an unelected, pro-American "respected business leader, Pedro Carmona," who quickly proceeded to dissolve the democratically elected National Assembly, the Supreme Court and other key institutions.I was in Costa Rica at the time, and the media there did as great a job as the U.S. media didn't. It was immediately clear that the U.S. was supporting the overthrow of Chavez and was in a large part behind the coup, as it had been in Chile in 1973, and as it had been prepared for in Brazil in 1964, in addition to dozens of other cases throughout the world in the 20th century. The Costa Rican media, which was neither pro- nor anti-Chavez, was rightfully condemning of the U.S. for overthrowing a leader who (at the time) had been popularly elected only four years before. Venezuela occupied the front pages and lead stories in the newspapers and television news for the next four days (a rarity in Costa Rica), and the media (again correctly) lauded the return of Venezuela's popularly elected leader. It covered things fairly and pointed out issues such as the U.S.'s hypocrisy in claiming to want "democracy" in Afghanistan (then just getting rid of the Taliban in government) while undermining democracy in Venezuela. In short, the Costa Rican media was a way better guage of the happenings in Venezuela in April of 2002 than the Times, which was little more than a Pravda-style mouthpiece for the Bush administration's efforts to legitimize the coup (and, by implication, its involvement in it).
Worse still, the Times Editorial mindlessly spouted the administration's claim that "Washington never publicly demonized Mr. Chávez" and "his removal was a purely Venezuelan affair." Yet less than a week later, the Times itself was compelled to report that the Bush administration "acknowledged today that a senior administration official [Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich] was in contact with Mr. Chávez's successor on the very day he took over"' -- a disclosure which, as the Times put it with great understatement, "raised questions as to whether Reich or other officials were stage-managing the takeover by Mr. Carmona."[all bolds from the original post]
Mr. Trend raises an important question in Part 1 of this post related to understanding political parties in a number of Latin American countries.
1) The use of contested national symbols (i.e. Farabundo Martí and Sandino)2)The use of accepted national symbols (i.e. José Martí and Bolívar)3)Parties formed around charismatic individuals (i.e. Perón, Chávez, Castro)
Events in Bolivia this week have gotten virtually no attention in the U.S. (due in no small part because people don't care, as well as the fact that the media has had the presidential campaigns, the non-Chilean 9/11 anniversary, and now Hurricane Ike to discuss). However, in the last few days, things have escalated to a point that Bolivia's internal crisis between Morales and the highlands vs. the four lowlands regions are threatening to blow up into a transnational diplomatic crisis.
In summary, despite Morales winning the referendum on his administration in early August, the situation has only worsened between his administration and the four eastern lowlands regions that have wanted virtual economic and political secession. As Erik accurately surmised, the situation has come to a standstill, with neither side gaining the upper hand as violence only escalates. Confrontations between rural workers (often of indigenous backgrounds) and the opposition (often of "whiter" and wealthier backgrounds) have escalated, with 8 deaths (seven of them campesinos who were surrounded and attacked) and 34 injuries yesterday alone. Morales also expelled the U.S. ambassador from Bolivia on Wednesday, claiming that the ambassador is supporting the four regions in an effort to undermine Morales's leadership. While the U.S. State Department called such claims "baseless," there is absolutely no more reason to trust the U.S. than there is Morales, particularly given our history of having the highest levels of the executive branch undermining leaders we didn't like in the past (Guatemala in 1954, Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973 [hat-tip to Randy], Argentina in 1976, Nicaragua in the 1980s, or Venezuela in 2002).
However, unlike previous times of conflict in Bolivia, this time, the threat of hemispheric involvement is greater. Already, as a sign of "solidarity," Hugo Chavez has expelled the U.S. ambassador from Venezuela. While this is the story that's getting the most press in the U.S., though, in many ways it's the least important for the rest of the South American continent. In addition to the violence, opponents of Morales blew up one of the major pipelines between Bolivia and Brazil. The attack on the pipeline had an immediate effect on Brazil, as Brazil gets 25% of its daily fuel from Bolivia through this pipeline.
Although the service was restored relatively quickly, Brazil and Bolivia's other neighbors are finding it more difficult not to get involved. Marco Aurelio Garcia, Brazil's special assessor for International Affairs for the President, said yesterday that Brazil "will not tolerate any rupture of institutional order in Bolivia," saying that Morales's overthrow would cause enormous problems for the entire continent. And Lula spoke with Argentine president Kristina Fernandez Kirchner, Chile's Michele Bachelet, Morales, and Chavez yesterday, in an effort to (as the article puts it) "mobilize the countries of the region - especially the Group of Friends of Bolivia, formed by Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina - so that they can serve as an intermediary channel between the government and the opposition in Bolivia."
These actions and statements are far from empty international bluster (even Chavez is probably not making empty threats when he promised to aide an armed resistance movement if the democratically-elected Morales were to be overthrown) that will not be backed up by action. It has been a very long time since the governments of so many South American countries were in such quick contact to try to aide another country (and the last time they were in contact, it was to root out and kill subversives in Operation Condor). The fact that Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela are all clearly concerned and not afraid to enter into the equation to make sure Bolivia's institutions remain in tact reveals just how severe the situation has gotten. Certainly, I hope things will get better, but like Erik back in August, I just don't see how they can right now, given how much of a stalemate it's become between Bolivia and the lowlands regions.
Last week, Erwin C. at the Latin Americanist asked whether an Obama presidency would be bad for Chavez. It's actually an important question: Chavez did get elected in 1998, but really came to global prominence after Bush's administration supported (perhaps materially) the failed coup attempt against Chavez in 2002; since then, few can contest the fact that Chavez's role has grown thanks to his rhetorical and ideological role in challenging Bush and the American empire every chance he gets. But Chavez has made it clear that, while he does not like Bush, he does not dislike the U.S., either, a fact reinforced by the fact that, from 1998 to 2002, Chavez's anti-U.S.-administration (and this is a very important distinction from "anti-U.S." as an attack on American citizens - Chavez's rhetoric almost always takes on politicians in the U.S. and their policies, and not the people or our particular system of democracy) stance was much more toned down.
I've wondered privately (and not too thoroughly) if Chavez would readjust his rhetoric were Obama to win. On the one hand, it's not hard to see how things would almost have to improve, given simply that Obama never openly supported the coup attempt of 2002 against Chavez; on the other hand, Chavez's rhetoric has emphasized anti-imperialism as much as it has targeted Bush, and what Chavez perceives as the U.S.'s structural imperialism won't simply disappear just because Obama may be president. Complicating the matters are to what degree (if any) Chavez's reputation among some sectors of the world are based at least in part on his image as a leading voice of the anti-imperialism movement. If Chavez were to thaw relations with Obama, would his position among some sectors of the left and the "developing world" be threatened at least somewhat, given that that image is based so strongly on his attacks on the Bush administration?
Well, in a follow-up post at the Latin Americanist, Chavez apparently indicated that an Obama administration may not change his attitude towards the U.S. government much. Of course Chavez's claim that "The two candidates for the U.S. presidency attack us equally, they attack us defending the interests of the empire," is ridiculous. Regardless of claims of "empire," the fact that Obama has been willing to dialogue with Chavez while McCain wants to continue the Bush position would seem to be strong enough an indicator of how erroneous it is to claim Obama and McCain treat Venezuela "equally." While it's true that Obama has sharpened his rhetoric on Chavez a bit in the past few weeks, I see little reason at this point to believe it's anything more than a political ploy to appeal to the broader electorate. Even if it isn't, the differences between Obama and McCain are so substantive in foreign policy alone that there's no way that Chavez's claim that Obama and McCain are equal has any real substance. It may be different shades of gray from Chavez's ideological point of view, but I think anybody with the slightest notion of the subtleties of American politics can understand how major the differences between Obama and McCain are.
As to whether or not an Obama administration more open to dialogue would be a threat to Chavez's role as an anti-imperial leader who rails against Bush, I'm not sure. Given how much the U.S. and Venezuela still need each other for oil, as well as Chavez's slipping (though far from extinct) influence in the hemisphere, I really can't see how warming the relationship with the U.S. with an Obama administration would necessarily hurt; I think most global leaders are practical enough in their plans for their countries (Bush being an exception) that they won't think less of Chavez simply because he spent the last 6 years railing against the Bush empire but might open to an Obama administration. And if McCain were to win the election, all of the above would be rendered moot, as we'd be exposed to at least another 4 years of the same idiocy from Washington that we've put up with for the last 6 years (in terms of Venezuela). But I think ultimately that neither Obama nor Chavez would really be willing, at least at the beginning, to totally exclude any possibility of opening up or thawing of relations between Venezuela and the U.S. without some diplomatic pretext setting the two men at odds. Regardless of the outcome, the relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela will be very interesting to watch in the first year or so of the administration if Obama wins the presidency, and it will definitely be worth paying attention to the rhetoric of Obama and Chavez up to the November elections.
The NYT ran a great article yesterday about Brazil's ascendancy as (not "a," but) the regional leader for South America. There really is no question that Brazil has successfully assumed that role, and done so quietly yet firmly. As Kenneth Maxwell, a highly respected Brazilianist, puts it in the article, “While Chávez grabs the headlines, the debate over whether Brazil is becoming a regional power is moot [...] Brazil has actually made it to that level, but in a very nonbombastic way.”
This point cannot be stressed strongly enough. The U.S. media and public pay virtually no attention to Latin America, and I would venture (in a sheer guess based on no statistical analysis whatsoever) that 75%-95% of our attention focuses on Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela. The current administration has amplified this Venezuela-centric gaze, too, with its efforts to overthrow Chavez in 2002 and then its constant black-and-white propaganda battle that tried to succeed where covert involvement failed.
Yet for all the fear and rumbling and grumbling that comes from politicians and the media over Chavez, Lula has been the real force, all while being a non-threat to the U.S. The article outlines all this so clearly, but just to summarize, Lula's development of Brazil's own BNDES (which is itself becoming a very strong foreign lending institution within Brazil), as well as of alternate regional banking and financial institutions, have made more progress quietly than Chavez's Bank of the South, which is only a dream right now and has no sign of any real progress in the foreseeable future (if ever); Lula's infrastructural investments to genuinely help neighbors like Bolivia and Venezuela are only strengthening the goodwill between Latin American countries to a degree unseen since right-wing military dictatorships joined forces to combat "subversives" in each other's country (but with democratically elected governments this time); and the discovery of the Tupi oil field last year stands to really threaten Venezuela's Latin American monopoly in oil production in the world. Brazil's economy is not only one of the strongest in the region, but in the hemisphere, growing and improving while the U.S. economy is in a downfall (the real reached the level of 1.59 to the dollar, the lowest it's been since natural inflation kicked in in the mid-1990s when the previous president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, artificially set the exchange rate at 1 real to 1 dollar). In short, Brazil has done an amazing job in simultaneously improving its domestic standing economically and infrastructurally while also becoming the major regional force in South America.
However, for all the good that there is in the article, the Times correspondents once again can't help but reveal their total ignorance when it comes to the functioning of political parties within the Brazilian political spectrum. Not to put too fine a point on it, but when they write that "Mr. da Silva’s unexpected embrace of the market-friendly ideas begun by his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has emphasized how heterogeneous political thinking has become in Latin America, even on the left," they show a complete and total failure to even remotely begin to understand Brazilian politics. While Lula's policies in many ways can be considered "market-friendly," there's about as much similarity between Lula's approach to the economy and Cardoso's as there was between Hoover and FDR. Cardoso was extremely dependent on neo-liberal policies of privatization and dependency upon the US, Europe, the IMF, and the World Bank; Lula's fiscal and development programs have been dominated by state-sponsored investment and growth (like offering federal grants for college students to gain professional experience upon graduation), not privatizing everything at the first sign of trouble, investing heavily in infrastructural developments, and completing trade deals with new partners like Africa, China, and other parts of South America. One might think that the simple fact that Lula's party, the PT, and Cardoso's party, the PSDB, are two of the most antagonistic parties in all of Brazilian politics would suggest to the correspondents that Lula hasn't "followed" in Cardoso's footsteps very strongly, but the Times correspondents don't seem to grasp that (in the same way that they, with their too-American perspective on politics, have in other articles called Cardoso's PSDB "center-left" when it's firmly "center-right" to "right" in any broader political spectrum).
Additionally, the comment on "how heterogeneous political thinking has become in Latin America, even on the left" is as damning a statement on their ignorance as any sentence could be. Political thinking within the left in Latin America hasn't "become" heterogeneous; it's always been heterogeneous. Even when "Communism" was the main vein of political thinking, the debates and struggles over what vision of "Communism" (which many times wasn't even Commmunism) not only between but within individual countries was extremely heterogeneous. The fact that leftist (and rightist) political thinking in Latin America is heterogenous shouldn't really be a revelation to anybody who bothers to spend more than a half hour learning about South American politics. Yet these two men let their political ignorance besmirk what is an otherwise very well done piece.
Which is really a shame. The content of the article is really great in outlining what is an extremely important phase in Brazil's history that can and probably will have very long-term effects on the country's place regionally and even globally. It's just too bad that the Times' correspondents had to briefly inject their political ignorance and reveal how little they understand South American political thinking and political systems even while getting the main points of Brazil's growth right.
I am interested in this story of Daniel Ortega's Citizen Power Councils. The Nicaraguan opposition claims that he is creating a dictatorship through the CPCs, which are funded by Venezuela. There is really no accountability for the money and it's pretty clear that Ortega is building the Sandinista movement through this funding.
I'm less interested in the fear mongering over Ortega. On one level, I'm pretty uncomfortable with Ortega generally and the potential for corruption and for skirting the apparatus for government is obvious. It's clear that Nicaragua is still deeply affected by the Cold War civil wars. Both sides seem to operate through this framework.
What's more interesting to me though is the fact that Ortega is using this money to help the poor. And his opponents have never had any plan to help the poor and still apparently don't. Much of this money is going for microloans and food supplies. It is legitimate that the conservative opposition doesn't like Ortega's methods. Less acceptable is their clear indifference to helping the people. For all the criticisms leveled at Ortega and Hugo Chavez, I think the opposition must come up with a real plan to help the poor. If they don't like the CPCs, how are they going to pave roads? How are they going to provide food? How are they going to give and administer microloans? The conservatives had 15 years after the fall of the Sandinistas to fix some of their issues with poverty and they did virtually nothing. They didn't even really try to. So I have a hard time taking their opposition seriously, even if they aren't all wrong.
I haven't written much on Venezuela's voting down Chavez's 60+ constitutional reforms (in part due to bureaucratic and research-based issues I've been having, but) primarily because of the difficulty in finding anything that isn't either painfully pro- or anti-Chavez (with the theories sometimes entering the painfully absurd and untrue). However, Stephanie Blankenburg has a great article up that very reasonably and intelligently goes through some of the possible reasons as to why the reforms failed here. It is well worth checking out, including some surprising (but very intelligent and well-argued) conclusions about the role of different classes in Venezuelan society, as well as the actual cultural and daily effects April's closing of RCTV may have had. I highly worth checking it out.
