DAMNING REASONS HE’S WRONG ABOUT SOCIALIST UTOPIA
What is happening in Venezuela?
MORE and more of Venezuela’s mostly starving 30million inhabitants are joining protests and calling for the overthrow of the socialist government that terrorises and impoverishes them with impunity while shamelessly siphoning off the country’s wealth.
Venezuela is now spiralling toward all-out civil war.
The economy is flat-lining, with inflation predicted to rise to 2,000 per cent next year. The currency, the Bolivar, has lost 94 per cent of its value against the dollar in the past year, making the largest denomination note worth just 2p.
A carrier bag of banknotes is worth less than the rolls of toilet paper Venezuelans must queue for hours to buy – and then be fingerprinted to stop them from making multiple purchases.
Water and electricity supplies as well as medicines are regularly rationed, and child mortality rates are soaring. Venezuela also has one of the highest crime rates in the world. Trust in the police is so low that more than 90 per cent of crimes go unreported.
The army and regime-backed civilian militias have been given free rein to kill peaceful protesters. This week, innocent demonstrators were crushed under armoured tanks and the death toll exceeds three figures.
Who is Nicolas Maduro?
Maduro has been president since 2013, rounding up opposition leaders, rigging elections and changing the constitution to create a dictatorship. His regime has become so consumed by its lust for wealth and power that senior officials have been accused of openly colluding with drug cartels.
Benefiting from industrial-scale corruption, the socialist ruling class live in a parallel universe from the rest of the population. They hide behind walled residential compounds with private security.
Rather than tackling the huge problems facing his nation, Maduro has resorted to brute force, media censorship and the imprisonment of his critics.
He regularly appears on statecontrolled television insisting the streets are safe, that democracy is flourishing, and that workers are leading enviably enriched and happy lives.
Yet Maduro has ordered the arrest of opposition leaders in night raids reminiscent of Stalin’s reign of terror. He has brought the once independent judicial system under his control and has seized the assets of private companies (most recently a General Motors car factory).
Was it always this bad?
No. Not long ago, this oil-rich country was thriving. The man principally to blame for its collapse into anarchy is Hugo Chavez who ushered in his ‘revolutionary’ government in 1999 and died in 2013.
He promised nationalisation of all major industries, an end to foreign influence over the country’s affairs, subsidised basic foodstuffs, cash handouts for the poor and free education and healthcare.
In the short term, thanks to the country’s vast oil reserves, Chavez was able to fulfil many of these pledges. At the time, oil prices were at historic highs and so he could spend £500billion on his extravagant social programmes.
He was undeniably popular among the impoverished masses – as would Mickey Mouse have been, had he been throwing all that money around.
In retrospect, however, his policies were criminally reckless and short- sighted. After a few years, oil prices plummeted and the government found itself bankrupt.
Why is Jeremy Corbyn so keen on Venezuela?
The Labour leader has long regarded the country as a socialist utopia and once said it was ‘providing inspiration across a whole continent’. After the death four years ago of his hero Chavez, he said ‘El Commandante’ had shown ‘there is a different, and better way of doing things. It’s called socialism.’ More recently, at the same time as he took control of the Labour Party, he was glowing in his praise of Chavez’s successor Maduro.
Corbyn hailed his ‘achievements’ in jobs, housing, health and education, calling them a ‘cause for celebration’.
Why will he not condemn the regime?
Yesterday Mr Corbyn condemned the violence in Venzuela. But, seemingly blind to the all-too-predictable failings of Marxist states which, history tells us, inevitably descend into authoritarian rule, the Labour leader has still resolutely refused to criticise the regime. This is proof that we will always have a deluded wing of the far Left, whom Lenin called ‘useful idiots’.
More importantly, the big fear is that if ever elected prime minister, Mr Corbyn would try to introduce a similar socialist experiment in Britain. But don’t expect him to retract his previous comments in favour of this awful regime. His sinister spin doctor, Seamus Milne, was filmed warmly meeting Maduro when he took power and then conducting a sycophantic interview with him.
Not to be outdone, Ken Livingstone, that other shameless cheerleader of brutal Marxist regimes has joined the debate. With breathtaking naivete, ‘Red Ken’ said Britain should be more like Venezuela, and that reports of ‘chaos’ in the country were false and simply US propaganda. John R Bradley is based in
Latin America