Cowboy in Caracas, by Charlie Hardy: on War & Peace

Charlie Hardy: 1989: ran rescue mission as pastor in Venezuelan revolution

As I listened to the continuing fire from automatic weapons, I knew there as no place to hide. I knelt to pray; there was a knock at my door. A woman was shouting, "Charlie, my sister is dying. Please take her to the hospital."

I dressed like a priest, something I seldom did. In many ways the garb was appropriate. I was participating in the most profound liturgical celebration of my life, a Mass of the common people.

The woman's sister was diabetic and had gone into shock. For more than half an hour we drove through the barrios until we reached the Magallanes Public Hospital. Eventually, we all lay down on a cold hallway floor and tried to sleep until 6 a.m. when the curfew would be over and we could leave the hospital.

Condoleezza Rice: Chavez elected democratically but governed undemocratically

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice floated the tortured formulation that while Chavez was elected democratically, he was not governing democratically. Venezuelan supporters of the revolution in turn remember the prescient 1819 comment on their national hero and liberator, Simon Bolivar, the "the US seems to be destined by fate to plague Latin America with misery in the name of freedom." The only updating necessary if that feigned concern of democracy currently provides the rhetorical cover for imperial interventions. What the Chavez government has done is to redirect the oil wealth into support for social programs in health and education that benefit the majority of the country instead of being used for the development of further private wealth.

George W. Bush: OpEd: Fought Venezuela's Chavez to protect oil wealth

Oil reform threatened the country's traditional oligarchy. With the tacit approval, and perhaps more, of the Bush Administration in the United States, it began plotting a coup d'etat. Chavez was arrested,; the US State Department applauded the coup. But when the poor heard, they were furious.

The OAS and the Carter Center then negotiated an agreement between both sides, in which there would be a referendum on the presidency in August 2004. Chavez mobilized his substantial support among the poor and the others and won the referendum by a healthy margin of 57% to 43%