1/29/13 The New Yorker Digital Edition : Jan 28, 2013 LETTER. FROM CAI\ACA5 SLUMLORD What has Hugo Chavez wrought in Venezuela? BY JON LEE ANDERSON n December 11th, Hugo Chavez never seen him display such respect for OFrias, Vene--melis flamboyantly rad­ another leader. ical President, underwent his fourth cancer That evening, a crowd filled Havana's surgery, and ever since he has languished national stadium for a friendly baseball in a tightly guarded Havana hospital. Only game between veterans ofthe tvvo nations' close family members and deputies--and, teams. The mood was festive. Chavez presumably, the Castro brothers--are al­ pitched and batted for Venezuda, playing lowed to see him. There has been no video all nine innings. Castro, wearing a base­ ofhim smiling from a hospital bed, no re­ ball jacket over fatigues, served as Cuba's cording of him cheering on his loyalists. coach, and gave his guest a lesson in Chaveis officials concede only that he is tactics: as the game went on, he sneaked experiencing "severe respiratory diffi­ young ringers onto the fidd, disguised culties," despite rumors that he is in an with fake beards, which they later tore off, induced coma and on a respirator. Ar­ eliciting cheers and laughter from the gentina's President, Cristina Kirchner, vis­ crowd. At the end ofthe game, Cuba was ited Havana last week, bringing a Bible for ahead, five to four, but Chavez declared, Chavez, and though she did not say "Both Cuba and V ene--mela have won. whether she had seen him, she tweeted af­ This deepened our friendship." terward, "Hastn siempre"- "Until forever." Before long, Cuba was receiving ship­ Chaveis partisans insist that he is recover­ ments of low-priced Venezuelan oil, in ing, and that he even signed a document­ exchange for the services ofCuban teach­ a proofoflife than¥as duly exhibited to the ers, doctors, and sports instructors, who press. But Kirchner's message sounded like worked for a huge poverty- alleviation a final goodbye. scheme launched by Chavez. Since 2001, It is fitting that Chavez has come to tens of thousands of Cuban doctors have rest in Cuba, which has long been a sec­ provided treatment to Venezuela's poor, ond home for him. In November, 1999, and people with eye problems have re­ Fidd Castro invited him to speak in an ceived care in Cuba, in a program that august lecture hall at the University of Chavez called, with typical grandiosity, Havana. Chavez, a former paratrooper, Misi6n Milagro. had become Venezuda's President only As an unwritten part of the deal, nine months earlier, but he had a rapt au­ Chavez also acquired an ideology. From dience, including Castro, his younger the beginning, he was a fervent disciple of brother Raul, and other senior members Simon Bolivar, Venezuela's liberator and of Cuba's politburo. Chavez, brimming its ultimate national hero; soon after with expressions of good will toward Chavez took office, he renamed the coun­ Cuba, praised Castro and called him try the Bolivarian Republic ofVenezuela . "brother." It was impossible to miss the Bolivar was a complicated role model: H e implications of his visit. Ever since the was a charismatic freedom fighter, whose end ofSoviet subsidies, eight years earlier, bloody campaigns liberated much of Cuba had been struggling, and Vene--mela South America from colonial Spain. But, was rich with oil; Chavez was travelling even though he admired the American with a delegation from the national oil Revolution, he was much more of an au­ company. Even then an expansive talker, tocrat than a democrat. For Cha.ve--L, Cas­ Chavez spoke for ninety minutes, and tro was the Bolivar ofmodem times- the Castro smiled attentively throughout. A keeper of the anti -imperialist struggle. In man next to me whispered that he had 2005, Chavez announced that, after a Polarization has difined Cha-vez's era, and little in public life is not bitterlyfought over. 40 THE NEW YOII.KEI\. JANUAI\Y 28.. 2013 archives.newyorker.com/?i=2013-01-28# 1/12 1/29/13 The New Yorker Digital Edition : Jan 28, 2013 PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE PYKE archives.newyorker.com/?i=2013-01-28# 2/12 1/29/13 The New Yorker Digital Edition : Jan 28, 2013 long period ofstudy and reflection, he had los the Jackal) Ramirez Sanchez, was a launched the construction of the com­ decided that socialism was the best way dandy, with a taste for silk cravats and plex, which he hoped would become forward for the region. I n just a few years, Johnnie Walker. In 1983, at what may Venezuela's answer to Wall Street. But he with his oil billions and Castro's guiding have been the height of Caracas's allure, died in 1993, while it vvas still under con­ hand, Chavez revived the language and the first line of its new subway network struction, and shortly after his death a the spirit of leftist revolution in Latin opened, as did the Teresa Carreno, a banking crisis w iped out a third of the America. He would remake Venezuela world-class theatre complex. country's financial institutions. The con­ into what he called, in his speech at the That city is barely perceptible today. struction, sixty per cent complete, came University ofHavana, "a sea ofhappiness After decades ofneglect, poverty, corrup­ to a halt, and never resumed. and of real social justice and peace." His tion, and social upheaval, Caracas has de­ Seen from a distance, the Tower gives pronounced goal was to elevate the poor. teriorated beyond all measure. It has one no indication that there is anything wrong In Caracas, the country's capital, the re­ ofthe highest homicide rates in the world; with it. Closer up, however, the irregular­ sults ofhis fitful campaign are plain to see. last year, in a city ofthree million, an esti­ ities in its fa'rade are clearly evident. In mated thirty-six hundred people were places, glass panels are missing and the he Spanish colonists who founded murdered, or about one every two hours. gaps have been boarded up; elsewhere sat­ T Caracas in the sixteenth century sit­ The murder rate in Venezuela has tripled ellite dishes poke out like toadstools. On uated it carefully: in the mountains, rather since Chavez took office. Indeed, violent the sides, there are no glass panels at all. than on the nearby Caribbean coast, to crime, or the threat of it, is probably Ca­ The whole complex is an unfinished con­ protect it from English pirates and ma­ racas's defining feature, as inescapable as crete hulk- one in which people are liv­ rauding Indians. These days, the coast, the weather, which is generally glorious, ing. Roughly built brick houses, similar to ten miles avvay from the city, is accessible and the traffic, which is awful, with cars the ones that cover the hillsides around by a precipitous h ighway, which was clogging the streets for hours every day. Caracas like scabs, have filled vacant blasted through the mountains on the or­ Venders wade through the gridlock, spaces between many of the floors. Only ders of the late military dictator Marcos hawking toys, insecticides, and bootleg the upper floors are open to the air, like PerezJimenez, who dominated the coun­ DVDs, while drug addicts wash wind­ platforms for a great wedding cake. Guil­ try during the nineteen-fifties. A ruthless shields or juggle for change. Spray­ lermo Barrios, the dean ofarchitecture at and widely hated figure, Perez; Jimenez painted graffiti covers fa'rades; trash is the Universidad Central, told me, "Every was overthrown after just six years as piled up on roadsides. The Guaire River, regime has its architectural imprimatur, President, but he left behind an impres­ which runs through the heart of the city, its icon, and I have no doubt that the ar­ sive legacy of public works: government is a gray torrent of foul-smelling water. chitectural icon of this regime is the buildings, public housing projects, tun­ Along its banks live hundreds ofhomeless Tower of David. It embodies the urban nels, bridges, parks, and high>vays. For indigents, mostly drug addicts and the policy ofthis regime, which can be defined decades after, while much ofLatin Amer­ mentally ill. The wealthier districts ofCa ­ by confiscation, expropriation, govern­ ica chafed under dictatorships, Venezuela racas are fortified enclaves, protected by mental incapacity, and the use of vio­ was a dynamic and mostly stable democ­ securityvvalls topped 'vith electrified wire. lence." The Tower, built as a marker of racy. As one of the world's most oil-rich At gated entrances, armed guards stand Venezuela's eminence, has become the nations, it had a growing middle class, watch behind one-way glass. world's tallest slum. 'vith an impressively high standard ofliv­ Caracas is a failed city, and the Tower ing. It was also a steadfast U.S. ally; the of David is perhaps the ultimate symbol Ythe time Chavez assumed power, in Rockefellers owned oil fields there, as well of that failure. The Tower, a ziggurat of B1999, the city center was neglected as vast ranches, where their family mem­ mirrored glass topped by a great vertical and run-down, and the Tower had fallen bers rode horses with Venezuelan friends. shaft, rises forty-five stories above the city. into the custody of a federal deposit­ The prospect ofa good life in Venezu­ As the main feature of the Confinanzas insurance agency. VVhen the government ela attracted hundreds of thousands of skyscraper complex, which includes an­ attempted to sell it at public auction, in immigrants from the rest ofLatin Amer­ other tower, eighteen stories high, and a 2001, no one bid; a plan to make the ica and from Europe, and they helped high- rise parking garage, it is visible building the mayor's headquarters was give Caracas a reputation as one ofthere­ from everywhere in Caracas, which is still abandoned.