Editorial
Stay clear of Venezuela

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Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, demands that the Bush administration keep its hands out of Venezuelan affairs. It is a reasonable request, and our national interest is better served by granting it.

Let's not create another Salvador Allende, who became a martyr of the communists and socialists when he was deposed as president of Chile in 1973. Allende had been elected with 36 percent of the vote in a three-way race. On that thin mandate, South America's first elected Marxist proceeded to seize Chile's copper mines, proclaim his solidarity with Fidel Castro, and thoroughly scare the middle class. By his third year in office, inflation hit 500 percent and women were marching down the streets beating empty cooking pots, protesting the price of food.

On Sept. 11, 1973, Allende was deposed by the military and found dead. It soon came out that the U.S. government had tried to remove Allende by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to opposition parties and the opposition press.

Allende had been deposed by Chileans. But ever since then, it has been maintained with ferocious belief that Allende was deposed by the United States — a contention that could never be disproved, because we had poked the American finger into Chilean affairs.

Now comes Chávez. In 1998, he won by election as a class-war populist. He has taken control of the state oil company, appointing an army general to head it. He has devalued the currency by more than half. These and other moves to centralize power have united the entire private sector — the chambers of commerce, the private news media and the labor unions — against him.

The United States has interests in Venezuela, but none that now justify interference in that country's internal politics. By meddling, even with the checkbook only, we make it look as if we are directing things. If we create that appearance, every disaster in Venezuela will have our name on it. It is better to leave Venezuela alone, so that however Chávez fares it will be clearly the doing of the people in his own country.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company