http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/06/AR2011030603080.html?tid=wp_featuredstories
In Venezuela, Chavez tries to boost Gaddafi
By Juan Forero
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 6, 2011; 7:21 PM
Moammar Gaddafi is hunkered down, some once-loyal aides have abandoned him for
the rebel side and President Obama and other leaders are demanding he step
down.
But he still has a friend - the man who received the al-Gaddafi International
Prize for Human Rights, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
Though uncharacteristically quiet as Libya slid into anarchy, Chavez has in
recent days venerated Gaddafi for his revolutionary credentials and asserted
that the United States is about to invade the North African country to seize
its oil. He also convened a meeting Friday in the Venezuelan capital in which
his allies, including Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia, agreed to a vague peace
mission to end the violence in Libya.
"The countries of the Bolivarian alliance are demanding the United States and
the world powers respect the people of Libya," Chavez said to cheering,
red-shirted supporters. "No to imperialist intervention in Libya! No to a new
imperialist war that looks for oil over the blood of innocents!"
Chavez's close allies in the region have also had plenty to say about Gaddafi.
Soon after the rebellion ignited in Libya, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua
announced that he had told Gaddafi in a telephone conversation that "difficult
moments put loyalty to the test."
Cuba's Fidel Castro, busy writing columns and providing running commentary on
world affairs as his brother runs the island nation, has condemned the
"colossal campaign of lies" about Libya from the mainstream press. He also
explained, in one essay, that the violence in Libya had little in common with
the unrest in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere in the Middle East.
"Libya is first in the human development index in Africa," Castro wrote.
"Education and health care receive special state attention, and the cultural
level of its people is, without a doubt, the highest."
The camaraderie is perhaps not surprising. Nicaragua's Sandinista rebels
received training from Gaddafi. Castro, like Gaddafi, has become iconic to some
for resisting the United States.
Chavez, too, has forged ties to Libya since taking office in 1999. The two
countries share little in common culturally, but both are powers with the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"There's a common bond of anti-U.S. sentiment that brings together Gaddafi with
some figures in Latin America, including Chavez and Fidel Castro and Daniel
Ortega in Nicaragua," said Michael Shifter, president of the Washington-based
Inter-American Dialogue. "There is a sense of standing up to the superpower,
which is the United States, and that's created some sort of solidarity."
When it comes to Chavez and Gaddafi, two former army colonels who conspired
against the governments they served, the links go beyond rhetoric.
There's the Hugo Chavez Stadium, for instance, just outside what is now the
rebel stronghold of Benghazi, so named because of Gaddafi's fondness for
Chavez.
And then there was Simon Bolivar's sword - or rather, a replica of the sword
used by Venezuela's venerated independence hero. In 2009, five years after
Gaddafi honored Chavez with Libya's annual human rights prize, Chavez awarded
Gaddafi a replica of the sword. "What Simon Bolivar is for Venezuelans, Moammar
Gaddafi is for the Libyan people," Chavez said to Gaddafi, then making his
first visit to the region.
Last week, Chavez said it "was a great lie" that Gaddafi's forces had attacked
civilians, and he also stressed that Gaddafi would not be fleeing Libya anytime
soon.
"It's a lie that Gaddafi is going to come to Venezuela or go to Nicaragua," he
said to cheers from supporters. "Gaddafi is not going anywhere, I'm sure.
Gaddafi is among those men who die fighting."
Margarita Lopez Maya, a political analyst in Caracas, said that Chavez is
closely following the unrest in the Middle East because it could prove
instructive for him.
"He can see what happens to a leader after so many decades controlling and
concentrating power," said Lopez Maya. explaining that she believes Chavez
intends to remain in power indefinitely. "These kinds of problems that leaders
similar to him confront may serve as a lesson to him."
This Story
a.. Gaddafi forces repel Libyan opposition; loyalists escalate counterattack
on rebel-held cities
b.. Congressional leaders push Obama administration for more aggressive Libya
response
c.. In Venezuela, Chavez tries to boost Gaddafi
d.. Amid revolution, Arab cartoonists draw attention
e.. Rebels moving toward capital
f.. Amid fears of unrest, China imposes new restrictions on foreign
journalists
g.. Jordanian journalists call for press freedom
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