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Open hatred against anything spiritual
By Jürgen Liminski
As the conversation moves to the topic of politics, the bishop takes his cellular phone out of his pocket, turns it off and removes the battery. Now he can be sure that he can’t be overheard. Since the meetings between Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez and the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro over the past few years, he says he can sense the government in Caracas toughening its stance vis-à-vis the church. During the past year, the government has singled out the bishops for attacks and has been trying to incite the people against the shepherds. In public speeches, Chávez reviles the church for being corrupt and the bishops for being “pigs”, according to the cleric, and is trying to set up his own national church. He has not managed to do so yet because the people have no faith in such initiatives. But in individual cases, he has managed to “buy” some priests. Overall, there’s a climate of intimidation. Some bishops can’t travel on their own anymore, and certainly not at night.
Little is known about all this in Rome, and nothing in Europe. Here, two main aspects are known of Venezuela: It has a lot of oil and good rum. And that is enough for most politicians involved in foreign affairs. …
The new, old president Hugo Chávez has a masterplan. He emulates his idol, Fidel Castro, and wants to turn the country into a communist dictatorship extending across the entire region, i.e. including Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, in the name of liberation – in Latin America, this is always carried out in the name of the historical hero of independence, Simón Bolívar. The plan is to extend his vision across the entire subcontinent via the new leftist governments in Brazil and Argentina. That may seem presumptuous. But Chávez has money, lots of money. In the past year alone, Venezuela exported oil worth 24 billion dollars to North America; daily production is equivalent to three million barrels – almost as much as Saudi Arabia’s. The state-owned oil company Citgo disposes over 14,000 petrol stations in the United States and is the second-biggest supplier there. This also explains in part Washington’s patience with the ruler in Venezuela, who buys his people and is giving an international rebirth to socialism.
Revolution according to the “proven” Cuban pattern
The pattern for the “Bolivarian Revolution” is also well-known. Chávez knows it from his brother, who gave him extra lessons in Marxism and is now the ambassador in Cuba. First, you ensure the population’s basic needs are met – food, health, education – then you restrict the liberties and finally you export the revolution from the basis of a solid dictatorship. This is how it’s happening: Chávez is buying his people with interest-free credits for cars, furniture, consumer goods…
Cuban experts, above all medical personnel, distribute medicines in first-aid stations and are now also beginning to indoctrinate people engaged in education; more than a thousand Venezuelan teachers have already completed courses in Cuba. The next step could be strangling or confiscating the catholic schools. TV and radio are mostly synchronized with the regime. The only opposition comes from parts of the press and the catholic church. Its credibility is a thorn in the eye of the regime. Leading bishops are electronically bugged and shadowed. Anonymous threats and open insults are no longer a rarity either. Officials stoke open hatred against anything spiritual. Up to now, only the Adenauer Foundation and the international aid organization “Kirche in Not” (Church in Need) have reacted to the Cubanisation and stealthily increasing dictatorship in Venezuela. The foreign policy establishment in Brussels, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and London, on the other hand, is sleeping the sleep of the just. It is like at the times of the “Speckpater” (Bacon Priest): There’s a church in need and “Church in Need” sees it and goes there.
vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200503030428
By Jürgen Liminski
As the conversation moves to the topic of politics, the bishop takes his cellular phone out of his pocket, turns it off and removes the battery. Now he can be sure that he can’t be overheard. Since the meetings between Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez and the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro over the past few years, he says he can sense the government in Caracas toughening its stance vis-à-vis the church. During the past year, the government has singled out the bishops for attacks and has been trying to incite the people against the shepherds. In public speeches, Chávez reviles the church for being corrupt and the bishops for being “pigs”, according to the cleric, and is trying to set up his own national church. He has not managed to do so yet because the people have no faith in such initiatives. But in individual cases, he has managed to “buy” some priests. Overall, there’s a climate of intimidation. Some bishops can’t travel on their own anymore, and certainly not at night.
Little is known about all this in Rome, and nothing in Europe. Here, two main aspects are known of Venezuela: It has a lot of oil and good rum. And that is enough for most politicians involved in foreign affairs. …
The new, old president Hugo Chávez has a masterplan. He emulates his idol, Fidel Castro, and wants to turn the country into a communist dictatorship extending across the entire region, i.e. including Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, in the name of liberation – in Latin America, this is always carried out in the name of the historical hero of independence, Simón Bolívar. The plan is to extend his vision across the entire subcontinent via the new leftist governments in Brazil and Argentina. That may seem presumptuous. But Chávez has money, lots of money. In the past year alone, Venezuela exported oil worth 24 billion dollars to North America; daily production is equivalent to three million barrels – almost as much as Saudi Arabia’s. The state-owned oil company Citgo disposes over 14,000 petrol stations in the United States and is the second-biggest supplier there. This also explains in part Washington’s patience with the ruler in Venezuela, who buys his people and is giving an international rebirth to socialism.
Revolution according to the “proven” Cuban pattern
The pattern for the “Bolivarian Revolution” is also well-known. Chávez knows it from his brother, who gave him extra lessons in Marxism and is now the ambassador in Cuba. First, you ensure the population’s basic needs are met – food, health, education – then you restrict the liberties and finally you export the revolution from the basis of a solid dictatorship. This is how it’s happening: Chávez is buying his people with interest-free credits for cars, furniture, consumer goods…
Cuban experts, above all medical personnel, distribute medicines in first-aid stations and are now also beginning to indoctrinate people engaged in education; more than a thousand Venezuelan teachers have already completed courses in Cuba. The next step could be strangling or confiscating the catholic schools. TV and radio are mostly synchronized with the regime. The only opposition comes from parts of the press and the catholic church. Its credibility is a thorn in the eye of the regime. Leading bishops are electronically bugged and shadowed. Anonymous threats and open insults are no longer a rarity either. Officials stoke open hatred against anything spiritual. Up to now, only the Adenauer Foundation and the international aid organization “Kirche in Not” (Church in Need) have reacted to the Cubanisation and stealthily increasing dictatorship in Venezuela. The foreign policy establishment in Brussels, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and London, on the other hand, is sleeping the sleep of the just. It is like at the times of the “Speckpater” (Bacon Priest): There’s a church in need and “Church in Need” sees it and goes there.
vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200503030428
