Jay Lillie

Terror and Tyranny – Chavez and Castro

A match made in Hell

Raul Castro learned how to stop political insurrection from his time with the East German STASI in the 1960’s. It has worked well for the Castros ever since. No Cuban is safe complaining to friend or family in a society of informers. Now Hugo Chavez has brought this most insidious form of tyranny to the people of Venezuela. I wonder how much oil it cost Hugo to get the template from Raul. If there’s a good side to any form of tyranny it may be that Chavez found this new tightening of the noose necessary to his survival.

The total smothering of dissent that occurred in East Germany under the STASI and in Havana under Raul Castro does not happen over night. It takes time to permeate the entire society; before the people grasp that even their family is no safe haven for the slightest voice of criticism, before they learn the hard way that it’s dangerous to conspire because you never know who’s listening.

Chavez’ next step will be to vilify in public, and perhaps even publically execute, persons accused under his new law of conspiring against his regime. He gets double the effect if he can involve the United States as a co-conspirator. His agents have already begun to write this story. It won’t be long before they find the right candidate. Then fear will begin filter to through every aspect of Venezuelan society, and some people, being people, will find advantage in pointing the finger at others as they do in Cuba today and did every day in East Germany under the STASI.

This all started no doubt when Chavez lost his vote last year to be crowned king. But it was inevitable. Sooner or later he would come to this extreme. There’s no other way he could stay in power now that he’s wrecked the rule of law and democracy that Venezuela once had in place.

The window’s closing fast for the people of Venezuela, and the rest of the world is watching and waiting to see who’s going to be the first example Chavez parades before the cameras.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.