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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.

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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. Finally, one night in Octo­ gion's most attractive and modern cities. mostly a city of modest buildings. The ber, 2007, several hundred men, women, It had a splendid university, the Univer­ surrounding neighborhood is typical: a and children, led by a group of hard­ sidad Central de Venezuela, a first-rate hillside grid ofone- and two-story homes nosed e..x- convicts, invaded the Tower modern-art museum, an elegant country and businesses, petering out a few blocks and camped out there. A woman who club, a string of fine hotels, and exquisite away at the flanks of El Avila, a jungle­ was part ofthe invasion told me, "We en­ beaches. By the end of the seYenties, as covered mountain that forms a dramatic tered as ifi nto a cave, like pigs, all in there Venezuelan women became perennial green wall between Caracas and theCa­ together. We opened the gate, and from winners of the Miss Universe Pageant, ribbean Sea. that day on weve been living here." She most other Latin Americans had come to The Tower is named after David was frightened, but she felt that she had regard the country as a beautiful place for Brillembourg, a banker who made a for­ no choice. "Everyone was looking for a beautiful people. Even its most infamous tune during Venezuela's oil boom, in roof to have over their heads, because no outlaw, the Marxist terrorist Illich (Car- the seventies. In 1990, Brillembourg one had anywhere to live. And it was a

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solution." Many others wanted the same A short, stocky man with a boyish face, he ple of self- determination by the people thing. The leaders ofthe invasion began was thirty-eight but looked younger. but a violent invasion." He described selling the right of entry to newcome.rs, We sat on a low wall to talk, but, with Daza as a malandro--one ofthe opportu­ mosdy poor people from Caracas's slums, the speakers blaring, Daza was virtually nistic thugs who have come to typifY who wanted to leave the muddy hillsides inaudible. He didn't talk about the Tower, street life in Venezuela- in the guise of a for the city proper. its community, or his role there as an au­ pastor. "He is a leader of invasores who Today, the Tower is the emblem of a thority figure. Instead, echoing the lan­ sells entry to the building-the most sav­ trend of the Chavez era: the "invasion" of guage of government officials, he com­ age form of capitalism," he said. "He unoccupied buildings by large organized plained that the "private media" were clothes himselfin religiosity, but there is a groups of squatters, known as invasores. always looking for ways to distort the violent group behind him who allow him Hundreds ofbuildings have been invaded truth, to hurt "the cause of the people," to take his actions." since the phenomenon began, in 2003: and to "damage Chavez." In the course of apartment blocks, office towers, ware­ reporting on Chavez, I had spent a good havez won reelection in October, houses, shopping malls. !?Wasores now oc­ deal of time with him over the years, C and in the weeks afterward the city cupy some hundred and fifty-five Caracas and when I told Daza this he looked cau­ had an uncertain atmosphere. The Presi­ buildings. The Tower complex houses an tiously impressed. Mter a time, he dent, who is fifty-eight years old, had estimated three thousand people, filling warmed up considerably, pointing out his been receiving treatment for cancer since the shorter tower completely and the taller wife, a pretty young woman named Gina, June, 2011, but he declared himself one as :fur up as the twenty- eighth floor. as she walked past us with a toddler. healthy enough to serve another six-year Young men with motorbikes operate a mo­ Much of the Tower's community life term. He had waged a hard campaign totaxi service for residents on high floors, was out of sight, high above us, but some against his opponent, Henrique Capriles driving them from street level to the tenth of the lowest-level apartments were in the Radonski, an athletic forty-year-old law­ floor of the attached parking garage, from well of the atrium. There were clothes yer who represented the center right, and which they can ascend by rudimentary hanging out to dry on crude balconies, and he won by a respectable eleven-point mar­ concrete stairwells. For those who live some satellite dishes. You could also see gin. Since his victory speech, though, he above the tenth floor, it is along way up. signs of the prevailing political allegiance. had not appeared in public. On a recent trip to Caracas, I asked a In the recent election, Daza had done what In November, one ofCMveis officials taxi- driver to leave me in front of the he could to make the Tower of David a told me, "The President is recuperating Tower of David, and he gave me a base of support for Chavez, and a big red from the exhausting campaign." A couple shocked look. "You're not going in there, banner in his honor hung overhead. ofweeks later, Chavez went to Cuba for a are you?" he said. 'That's where all the evil Daza protested the stories about the medical checkup, and soon after that he in the city comes from!" The Tower has Tower as a center ofcrime and about him returned to Caracas and announced that earned notoriety as the city's center of as a criminal. He and his people took over his doctors had detected new cancer crime, nurtured by press accounts of the something that was "dead" and "gave it cells. Sitting alongside his Vice-President, place as a haven for thugs, murderers, and life," he said: "Vve rescued it with the vi­ Nicolas Madura, he said, "If anything kidnappers. For many caraque1ios, the sion of living here in harmony." This was should happen to me ... choose Nicolas Tower is a byword for everything that is a minoriry opinion. Guillermo Barrios, Madura." wrong with their society: a community of the architecture dean, told me, "The Chavez once told me that Castro had invaders living in their midst, controlled Tower of David wasn't a beautiful exam- publicly cautioned him to improve his by armed gangsters with the tacit acquies­ cence of the Chave-.-; government. The boss ofthe Tower is an ex-crimi­ nal turned evangelical pastor named Al­ exander (El Nino) Daza. An ardent Chavez supporter, he agreed to meet me only after an intermediary assured him that I was politically sound. ~'hen I ar­ rived at the Tower's main entrance, women in a security booth with an electronic-con­ trolled gate made me show an I.D. and sign a register, and they allowed me through only because I was Daza's guest. Daza was waiting for me in the atrium, an open-air concrete space between the two main buildings. Deafening music blasted from a pair of large speakers outside the doorway to Daza's "church;' a ground-level room where he preached on Sundays; he had reportedly been born again in prison. "Clues, Watson? H ow can I find clues when all I see is germs?"

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security, saying, 'Without this man this posters left over from the recent cam­ crisp white guayabera over black jeans revolution will be over immediately." In paign. There was graffiti and counter­ and running shoes. His office was dom­ Chavez's view, this placed too much im­ graffiti, and messes ofthrown paintwhere inated by a huge oil painting of Simon portance on him. But, to the e.xtent that one party had tried to sabotage the efforts Bolivar and overlooked a lovely plaza his revolution advanced, it was carried ofthe other. named after Bolivar, decorated with a forward by his personality; he made Polarization has defined Chavez's large bronze Bolivar statue. things happen when he was physically era, and little in public life is not bitterly He had not absorbed the extent ofCa ­ present, but his administration was oth­ fought over. This extended to the Tower racas's deterioration until he became erwise chaotic, haphazard. ofDavid: everyone I met had an opinion mayor, he said. "On my first day on the Chavez had solidified his ideological about it. One journalist friend, Boris job, I looked out of the window here and education in prison. He was jailed in 1992, Munoz, told me that the building was run saw a drunk urinating on the statue of for leading a &iled military coup against by "empowered lumpen," who controlled Bolivar. I thought to myself, Ifthis is what President Carlos Andres Perez. "While the residents with the same violent system it's like here, what's the rest of the city there, he appealed to Jorge Giordani-a that ruled life inside Venezuela's prisons. like?" Rodrigue"L: said he had gone to see Marxist professor ofeconomics and social Guillermo Barrios blamed the takeovers Chavez to discuss the situation. 'We de­ planning at the Universidad Central- to on the government's neglect of the city, cided we were going to fix the city, begin­ give him classes. "1be plan was for Chave"L: and on Chavez himself. "The political ning with the center out. We had to start to write a thesis on how to tum his Boll­ discourse that has justified the invasions, somewhere." varian movement into a government," the outright thievery, has come out of Rodriguez blamed Caracas's prob­ Giordani told me in 2001, when he was Chavez's speeches," he said. In 2011, lems on past rulers. Ever since the Span­ serving as Chavez's planning minister. He Chavez gave a speech urging Caracas's ish built Caracas, its growth had been laughed. "He never finished the thesis, homeless to take over abandoned ware­ unplanned-except during the dictator­ though. Whenever I ask him about it, he houses, called galpones. "I invite the peo­ ship of Perez Jimenez. "He had a plan, just tells me, 'That's what we are doing ple;' he'd said. "Look for your owngalp6n but then he was overthrown," Rodriguez now, putting theory into practice."' and tell me where it is. Everyone should said. He described the buildup to the Giordani showed me plans for one of go find a galp6n. Let's go get us a galp6n! present emergency as "a slow- moving their revolutionary projects. "VI/e want to There are a thousand, two thousand earthquake." The poor had once lived in get rid of the shantytowns, to repopu­ abandoned galpones in Caracas. Let's go the gullies or on the mountainsides, and late the countryside;' he said. So he and for them! Chavez will expropriate them then they had moved into the city out of Chavez had sent the Army into the unde­ and put them at the service ofthe people." need. The wealthy private sector had veloped center of the country, to begin The takeovers of all kinds ofbuildings stopped investing in the city, and the building "self-sustaining agro-industrial had skyrocketed. After a disastrous flood flooding of2010 had brought the situa­ communities," or SARAOs, which they be­ in December, 2010, left an additional tion to a crisis. lieved would grow into small cities. Itwas hundred thousand people homeless, most Countrywide, the housing shortage a utopian idea, he acknowledged. "But in ofthem dislodged from poor hillside bar­ was three million, and the goal for the year social planning one moves between utopia rios, Chavez had commandeered hotels, a was two hundred and seventy thousand and reality." In the end, the SARAOs were country club, and even a shopping mall to new units, he said. Barrios had told me shelved, and the shantytowns grew in­ house them. For months, several thou­ that, for most ofChave-is tenure, the gov­ stead. It was typical of Chavez's ad-hoc sand ofthe damnijicados, as the homeless ernment built only twenty-five thousand governance. Once, on the set of "Al6 are known, lived in city parks and in a tent units a year on average, addressing a Presidente," his free-form television show, city outside the Presidential palace of smaller percentage of the housing need I watched him launch a major program of Miraflores. Some were housed inside the than any Administration since 1959. But expropriating huge ranches and handing palace. The situation was clearly urgent, Rodriguez assured me that he was well on them over to peasants. He made the an­ and, in keeping with his quasi- military the way to his goal, saying, "'vVe're build­ nouncement with great bonhomie, and style, Chavez declared a new "mission": ing everywhere we can." They still had a followed it by giving play- by-play on a La Gran Misi6n Vivienda, or the Great long way to go, he conceded. "I barely rest, volleyball game. Housing Mission. and am on my feet all day!" He laughed, In Caracas, a L1.rge part ofthe burden and pointed to his running shoes. "\ ]{ "Jhen I arrived in Caracas in No­ for Misi6n Vivienda fell onJorge Rodri­ Rodriguez waved at the plaza and V V vember, I had been away for nearly guez. A former Vice-President under asked ifi noticed a difference from my last four years, and the city looked grimier Chavez, Rodriguez has been the mayor visit. It was empty, I realized. There were and more beat up than ever. As always, of Libertador, the central part of the none of the sidewalk venders that had though, it was full ofbillboards and ban­ city, since 2008. I went to see him one clogged the historic district's pedestrian ners on which the government congratu­ morning at his office in a beautiful colo­ streets. "VIle got rid of fifty-seven thou­ lated itself for various achievements. nial building, with balconies and an in­ sand ofthem," Rodriguez said. They had Giant photographs depicted Chavez terior courtyard filled with trees. A slim, been removed to a new covered market at affectionately hugging old women and friendly man with a shaved head, Rodri­ the edge of the dovmtown. With the children. Everywhere--on walls, electric guez was dressed in the informal man­ President's backing, Rodriguez had also poles, and highway bridges- there were ner of many of Chavez's ministers: a decreed that invasions ofbuildings would

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no longer be tolerated- but that there would be no arbitrary expulsioo.s, either. 'There are still one or two attempts a week to take over a building, but we stop them." It appeared that the government did not officially approve of the Tower of David invasion, but it had made no at­ tempt to close it down. Was there a tacit understanding to leave things as they were? Rodriguez looked uncomfortable, and said, "The situation at the Tower of David is one that we have to correct, and will have to be dealt with by the govern­ ment in due course." Around the city, there were signs that Chavez had begun to tackle the problems of insufficient public housing and trans­ portation. Rodriguez took me to a site, along Avenida Libertador, where anum­ ber of apartment buildings were being thrown up, including several impromptu­ looking five-story constructions of brick and steel on stilts. Next to these, roadside slums were being bulldozed, and their res­ idents rehoused. By the sides of several highways were pylons for a new elevated commuter train, bought from China, part of an ambitious plan to ease the city's traffic and take pressure off its over­ whelmed sumvay system. A cable car had been installed, at vast expense, to ferry passengers up to San Augustin, one ofthe city's oldest hillside slums. The cars de­ parted from a gleaming station and moved silently in the air, propelled by huge Austrian- made pulleys. Each car was painted in Bolivarian red- Chave-.is adopted color-and given a name: Sobe­ rania, Sacrificio, M oral Socialista. Below, garbage spilled down muddy hillsides be­ tween warrens of shacks and dirt alley­ ways. I was told not to get out at the top, Children retuming homefrom school to the Tower ifDavid, the world's tallest slum. so as not to risk getting mugged. ing around, and Daza barked commands few broken- down city buses-and ex­ ne morning, Daza met me in a now and then, but otherwise looked on plained that it was an important source of Oweed-covered vacant lot behind tolerantly. He told me that they were at­ revenue: the garage was rented out to bus the smaller tower. He was overseeing a risk youths, recommended by their par­ drivers. Later in the day, it would be full. work crew of four teen- agers and an ents. On the work crew, they could be su­ Near the entrance, where a couple ofyoung older man, who were mixing cement in pervised, and, given a stipend of about a men lounged on dirty sofas, Daza planned a wheelbarrow and spreading it over an hundred dollars a month, they could earn to have a security door and a guard's hut expanse of broken concrete, mud, grass, a bit of money for their families. He \vas built. To one side of the building, where a ..., and rubble. He wore jeans, slip-on suede supervising them himself, he explained, row ofmango trees gave shade, he pointed ~ shoes, and a checkered shirt. The air because his last crew boss had turned out out an unused space where he wanted to ± stunk of raw sewage. Daza explained to be irresponsible. "All he did was ride build a day-care center for the children of E~ that he wanted to make a little park, so around on his motorbike, creating disor­ working mothers. Near the front gate, he iO that families with children could have a der," he said. hoped to open a cafe, "where Bolivarian ~ secure place to come and play, with pi­ Daza had ambitious plans for the food can be sold at socialist prices." ~ nata parties for birthdays. Tower. H e showed me the ground- level As we went along, Daza explained how 1'1 The teen-agers on the crew were fool- garage--a huge space, empty except for a the building worked. He had a rhythmic,

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emphatic way ofspeaking, like a preacher. "There's no prison regime imposed here," he said. '"Nhat there is here is order. And IDYLL there are no cells here, but homes. No­ body is forced to collaborate here. No one Cicadas bury themselves in small mouths here is a tenant but an inhabitant." Each of the tree's hollow, lie against the bark tongues like amulets, inhabitant had to pay a monthly fee of a hundred and fifty bolivares (about eight though it is I who pray I might shake off this skin and be raised dollars at the black-market exchange rate) from the ground again. I have nothing to help cover basic maintenance costs, such as the salaries ofthe cleanup brigade to confess. I don't yet know that I possess and the work crew. People who couldn't a body built for love. When the wind grazes afford to build their dwellings were given financial assistance. The residents were all its way toward something colder, registered, and every floor had its own rep­ you, too, will be changed. One life abrades resentative delegate to attend to problems. Ifproblems couldn't be solved at the floor another, rough cloth, expostulation. level, they were taken to aTower council When I open my mouth, I am like an insect undressing itsel£ meeting, which Daza led twice a week. A common problem, he said, a little sourly, - Richie Hofmann was residents' not paying their monthly quota, and it was hard to dissuade tenants from flinging their trash into the court­ buddy of Daza's from prison. Laya painted green, with plastic chairs stacked yard. Transgressors, he said, "are given a worked as a cook in the Presidential up and a preacher's lectern. Gold cutout warning to appeal to their conscience." kitchen at Miraflores Palace, but in the paper letters on the wall spelled out Casa The.re was a disciplinary board, and serial old days he had been part of a gang of de Dios (House of God) and Puerta del offenders could be kicked out of the roleros- thieves who specialize in ex­ Cielo (Heaven's Gate). Daza arranged building, but there were always those who pensive watches. He reeled offhis favor­ t\vo chairs and invited me to sit down. took liberties. ites: Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars He came from Catia, he said, one of Daza's version ofthe Tower's la'.¥-en­ Piguet. Usually, he and his men waited Caracas's most notorious slums. His fam­ forcement system starkly contrasted with outside the Teresa Carreno theatre for ilywas very poor. He was the youngest of stories I had heard ofprison -style execu­ concertgoers to leave. But one day he several boys; his brothers were much tions, ofpeople being mutilated and their went to rob the owner ofa health club-­ older. He had stayed out of trouble until body parts thrown off the upper floors. "near here, just a few blocks away," he he was eight, when some older boys stole This was the usual punishment for said, pointing past the Tower. He had his bike and gave him a humiliating beat­ thieves and squealers in Venezuela's pris­ got the watch, but, as he left, the man ing. He described them as malandros­ ons, and the custom has crept into Cara­ pulled out a gun and started firing at thugs-who had terrorized his neighbor­ cas's gangster-run barrios. VVhen I asked him. He'd had "no choice" but to fire hood. "' remember watching them as they about these stories, Daza made the non­ back, he said, and he'd shot the owner chased my older brothers," Daza said. committal pursed-lip movement com­ several times, killing h im. Laya was 'They had guns, and my brothers would mon to Venezuelans. "\Nhat we want is wounded, too, and the police cornered run when they chased them, and they shot to be left to live here," he said. 'We live h im just a few blocks away. He was at them." well here. VVe don't hear gunfights all the given eleven years. "I didn't care if they killed my broth­ time here. Here there're no thugs with Laya's apartment was a single room, ers," he went on. "I resented the way they pistols in their hands. VVhat there is here crammed with the essentials of life­ came home and behaved in front of my is work. VVhat there is here is good peo­ like a sailor's cabin or a prison cell, per­ mother. They mistreated her, they ple, hardworking people." VVhen I asked haps. There was a big bed and a flat­ smoked drugs and spoke badly in fi·ont of Daza how he had become the Tower's screen TV, an armoire, a chair, and a her. I used to tell them they were cow­ jeft, or leader, he pursed his lips again, clothesline strung across one corner ards, because all they did was bring their and finally said, "In the beginning, every­ with laundry on it. Laya said he was enemies to the bru.Tio and then run away one wanted to be the boss. But God got content. He was lucky to have a job, and when they came." rid of those he wanted to get rid of and was grateful to Daza for finding him a Daza formed his own gang of kids. left those he wanted to leave." place in the Tower. Every day, he 'We got ahold of some guns, and then, walked by the health club on the way to when I was fifteen, as our first thing, we any of the Tower's residents had work, and he thought about how waited for the leader of those same ma­ M led complicated lives, touched by different his life was. /andros and walked up and"- he made a the country's confluence of poverty and Daza told his own story in similarly re­ shooting motion- "we finished him." crime. In a converted storeroom near demptive terms. One day, he showed me After that, he became the boss of the Daza's church lived Gregorio Laya, a his church, a large former storeroom, whole barrio.

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Daza. had done two stints in prison, proached the hotel, passing gated apart­ previous relationships, and they could one for five years and another for two. ment buildings and exclusive restaurants, visit him there safely. During his second incarceration, for an he and Gina gazed out of the window in On a couple ofoccasions, I managed to illegal-gun charge, a policeman-preacher amazement. "People here are really rich, climb up into the Tower for a look around. came to the prison and converted him. He aren't they?" he said. In front of my hotel, At the tenth floor, members of the build­ emerged "con el Evangelid' and had been he stopped the car in the middle of the ing's security squad invariably appeared to trying to lead a better life ever since. street and stared, transfixed, as cars demand that I identify myself and tell honked and swerved around us. them where I was going. \¥hen I men­ T:'orDaza, as for many other residents of In many parts of the city, though, it is tioned Daza's name, the guards let me go .I' Caracas, the prospect ofa better life is not the rich but the malandroswho are as­ on, but they reappeared every few minutes material as well as spiritual. Chavez's Ad­ cendant. Caracas is among the world's to keep an eye on me. The residents ofthe ministration has had mercurial effects on easiest places to be kidnapped. Thousands Tower were watchful, and said little as the nation's economy. 'While his anti-cap­ ofkidnappings occur every year. In No­ they walked by. On the stairways, many italist rhetoric has induced some compa­ vember, 2011, the Chilean consul was had loads to carry, and moved like moun­ nies to leave, others have learned to work taken by gunmen, beaten, and shot before tainee.rs, with the set expressions ofpeople with the government and have done quite being released. That same month, the undergoing an endurance test. well. Regulations are astonishingly pro­ Washington Nationals catcher Wilson The hallways were angled to admit fuse--the mere act ofpaying for dinner in Ramos was kidnapped from his parents' light from the wall- to-wall windows at a restaurant requires showing I.D.- but, home in Venezuela and held for t\vo days each end of the building, but they were perversely, this has encouraged a surge in before being rescued. In April, a Costa still dim. On the unfinished floors, people black- market entrepreneurship. Many Rican diplomat was abducted. The next had built small homes out ofpainted cin­ doctors and engineers have fled the coun­ day, the police descended on the Tower der block and plaster. Many kept their try; other professionals have flourished. ofDavid to search for him, but found only doors open, for better air flow as much as The one constant is the flow ofoil money, a few guns. for sociability, and I could see them busy which brings some people great wealth, At a dinner parry in Caracas, I lis­ with everyday life: cooking, cleaning, car­ and also supports a burgeoning public sec­ tened as two couples traded stories about rying pails of water, taking showers. tor. The poorest Venezuelans are margin­ calls they had received from criminals Music played here and there. Daza had ally better off these days. And yet, despite claiming to have abducted their children. rigged up a generator-powered water Chaveis calls to socialist solidarity, his In both cases, the voices ofchildren who pump, and each floor had a tank, but the people want security and nice things as sounded like theirs came over the phone, water supply ran unpredictably through much as they want an equitable society. crying and begging for help. The calls pipes and rubber hoses. One evening, Daza. insisted on driving were false, made by fraudsters, but the The Tower has several bodegas, a hair me back to my hotel. He and Gina and I episodes, along with increasingly bloody salon, and a couple of ad-hoc day-care waited outside the Tower as a gleaming news reports, left them worried about centers. On the ninth floor, I visited a green Ford Explorer pulled up, and a the future. One of the more talked­ small bodega, where Zaida Gomez, a driver climbed out and handed him the about crimes while I was in Caracas in­ white-haired, garrulous woman in her six­ keys. I got in back, and we set off. As we volved the murder of a taxi-driver, who ties, lived with her mother, who was drove, Daza said, "God blessed me with was beaten, slashed in the face, and shot ninety-four. She showed me the cubicle the car last December." It seemed that a several times. His killers then ran over next to the shop, where she had settled man had owed him money, and when he his body in his own car,just her mother, a tiny birdlike was unable to pay him back he had given for fun, before escaping. woman who slept on a bed him the car instead. It was a 2005 model, right next to one of the Daza explained, and it was fine, but now aza never seemed to plate-glass ,.vindows. Gomez he wanted the 2008-ideally, a white one. Dleave the ground floor kept a fan going all the time, By coincidence, we passed a white 2005 of the Tower, and didn't because the window made Explorer in traffic. Daza. murmured his seem to want me to, either. the room baking hot. appreciation, admiring the shiny chrome \.Vhenever I suggested go­ Gome--L was one of the grille in his side-view mirror. Later, we ing up, he became evasive, early pioneers of the Tower, went by a Ford dealership, where a 2012 and he made excuses when and she told me that, at the Explorer sat in an illuminated showroom. I asked to sit in on a session with the floor beginning, things had been terrible there. "Who knows how much that costs­ delegates. Ifhe demanded an entry fee of The Tower had been ruled by malandros, maybe a half million bolivares!" he each new resident, as had been reported, she said, shaking her head; there had been exclaimed. he wouldn't admit to it. But it seemed beatings, shootings, killings. But now she On the expressvvay, Daza asked where likely that he was making a living for was able to leave the door of her shop the hotel was and seemed uncertain when himselffrom the building, possibly from open, something she had never been able I told him the district, Palos Grandes. the bus garage. Somehow, he was able to to do in Petare, the slum where she had Had he been there? Yes, of course, he afford a few luxuries; he lived above his lived before. Her shop sold everything said. I had to point out the exit, however, church, but he had an apartment else­ from soap to soda pop and vegetables, and and direct him from there. As we ap- where in the city; he had children from to bring in supplies she made the journey

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up and dov.rn nine floors several times a tioned him suspiciously. When he men­ bus station, and near a narrow bridge, day. Irwas tiring, she said, but she couldn't tioned Daza's name, they let him go, but which allowed residents to cross the river afford to pay the mototaxis, who charged only reluctantly. In the stairwell going on foot or on motorbike. El Milagro was fifteen bolivares (about eighty cents) for down, we saw graffiti that read "El Ni1io now a community of about ten thousand each ride. She had a daughter who helped sapo"- "El Niii.o is a squealer." It seemed people, and it was still growing. her, and a grandson. that Daza had enemies within the Tower. Argenis, a charismatic black man with Gomezwas afraid she would be forced Some conflict seemed ine~table. Be­ a booming voice, ran a half\vay house in El to move from the Tower. "Thi; building tween the entry fees, the maintenance Milagro for former prisoners, who came is too expensive for people like us to be charges, and the rent for the garage, there to him for help in making a transition to here," she said. One day the authorities was a good deal of money to be made as the outside world. Venezuela's prisons would want to take it back. She hoped an invasor. One afternoon, Daza took may be the worst in Latin America. The that the government, which was building me to a restaurant up the street from the country's thirty facilities were designed to housing for the poor on nearby Avenida Tower, a small, hot place with an open hold about fifteen thousand inmates but Libertador, would get around to the kitchen. Soon after we sat down, three house three times that many. Narcotics are Tower, too, and rehouse everyone. "All I men walked in and hovered by our table bought and sold openly, and inmates have want is my own little house and a little menacingly, standing right behind our access to automatic weapons and gre­ patch ofland to grow things on-some­ chairs. Daza arched his eyebrows and nades. In many prisons, the wardens have thing I can call my own." stopped talking, until after a few long ceded control to armed gangs run by Albinson Linares, a Venezuelan re­ minutes the men went outside and stood strongmen called pranes-named for the porter who has written about the Tower, on the curb. Later, Daza told me that the sound, pran, that a machete makes when described its residents to me as "refugees men made a ~ng organizing invasiones. it hits concrete. The pranes lead the bur­ from an underdeveloped state li\~ng in a "They're professionals," he said . "It's geoning criminal community, both inside sttucture that bdongs to the First World." what they do." I asked him if they were the prisons and out; with a woefully cor­ It contains a cross-section of working enemies. He said no, not exactly, and rupt and inefficient Venezuelan police caraqueilos: nurses, security men, bus driv­ then murmured that there were few peo­ force and judiciary, they pro~de structure ers, shopkeepers, and students. There are ple in life one could trust. where none exists. unemployed people, too, and Daza's circle The pranes had grown powerful of evangelical ex-cons. Each floor had its half hour's drive from the Tower enough to deal directly with the govern­ own sociology. The lower floors are largely A was another invasion, El Milagro. It ment. Argenis worked as an adviser to Iris resetved for older people, who can't make had been founded several years earlier by Varela, Chavez's recently named prisons the climb up to the higher levels. Some Jose Argenis, an ex-con turned pastor, minister, whom he was helping to nego­ floors are dominated by family life, and who joined other former inmates and tiate with the pranes. Itwas an unpaid job some are occupied mostly by tough-look­ their families to invade a patch ofriverside "so far," he explained, but it was in his in­ ing young men. One day, a photographer land outside Caracas. It \·vas a scrubby, terest to work with her; he was hoping I was travelling with was pulled into an garbage-strewn area, but it was in a good that his halfivay-house model could get apartment by a pair of men who ques- location: just off the main road, next to a government funding, and that he could build other facilities across Venezuela. Argenis had done nine years for homi­ FRo"1 THE TII..H5UR.Y Of A'AES-S'£JC APER~v> cide, which is how he had come to know Ni. 2733 t -t2. --- ...... :.- Daza. After prison, they had stayed in 11 touch. 'When they took the Tower, El Niii.o was still involved in that world, the underworld," he said. "And there were those who wanted disorder, but he im­ posed order-the old-fashioned way." He gave me a wised-up look. At one point, Daza had come to him for help. "He came here for six months. He \vas still officially at the Tower, as its leader, but he stayed here." As Argenis told it, Daza had "come out ofpr ison with prob­ lems. There were people who \Vllnted to kill him, and we protected him." He left open the possibility that Daza would re­ turn to criminal life. "I think he's hung up his gloves," Argenis said, and smiled wryly. "But he could always fall back into temptation, because we have the need to "We really need to have our rugs vacuumed professionally one ofthese days." look after ourselves, you know?"

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Argenis still had enemies, too. "I killed last January, apparendy by his own men. him in office. "The truth is we need a rev­ men. I lefi: others in wheelchairs. I lefi: Mter Chavez was reelected, he de­ olution here, and ifwe can't achieve it now some men sterile. Just imagine-they're clared a state of emergency in the coun­ it ,vil! come later, ,,,~th another face," he going to hate me their whole lives." \1\ihen try's prison system and promised a com­ said. "Nlaybe in the same way as when we I asked how the rulture of malc.ndros had plete transformation. Still, Argenis came out, one midnight, vvith guns." become so prevalent, he said that it was suggested, the damage v;as already done. These days, there is probably no other because of the prisons. The men inside "This government has been more permis­ chavista as openly radical as Juan Barreto. didn't even try to escape anymore, he ex­ sive-previous governments were more A fifi:y-year-old professor at the Universi­ plained, because "they have everything repressive," he said. "And so the cultura dad Central, Barreto is a loquacious, bril­ they need there, and live as well or better malandra has flourished, and it has gone liant, rotund Marxist. H e was the alcalde than they did in the streets." The prison mayor ofCaracas, supen~sing all the city's economy was booming, with billions of districts, from 2004 to 2008, when many bolivares generated through control ofthe of the invasiones--including that of the drug trade. "The prisons are really strong, Tower ofDavid- occurred. In early 2008, and they've become much stronger in the I spent some time in his company, and it last seven or eight years." was clear that he was seen by some squat­ Argenis had served time in a prison ters downtown as their protector. (Barreto called Yare, situated amid scrub-covered has always said he didn't support invasio­ hills an hour south ofCaracas. In 2001, I nes, but approved ofexpropriating unused visited there, and a prison official drove city properties to help with the housing me on a dirt road around the perimeter out from the prisons to the schools, to the crisis.) In a typical move, Barreto had in­ fence. VVe stopped, and I saw two tall universities, to the streets. It has become furiated the city's wealthy by threatening cellbloc.ks '~~th scores of bullet holes in the national culture." to confiscate the Caracas Country Club, their fas;ades; where the 'vindows should where palatial villas and gardens surround have been there were jagged holes, and a he first thing a visitor arriving from an eighteen-hole golfcourse, on behalf of large group of shirtless, rough-looking T the Caracas international airport sees the people. In the end, the plan was aban­ men looked down at us. A thick black is a slum, perhaps the city's most famous: doned, apparendy on Chavez's orders. line ofhuman excrement ran down an ex­ the 23 de Enero. "El23," as it is known, Barreto's outspokenness has made him terior vvall, and in the yard below was a was built in the nineteen-fifties as a pub­ numerous enemies, and even mainstream sea of sludge and garbage several feet lic housing project by one of Venezuela's chavistas see him as a loose cannon, prone deep. 'We can't hang around here," the greatest architects, Carlos Raul Villa­ to mouth offin public about "arming the official said. "If we stay too long, they nueva. A complex of eighty buildings, it people" to defend the revolution. As m ight shoot at us." As we drove off, he occupies a huge sloping piece of land at mayor, he clearly loved being the enfant explained that there were only six guards the northern entrance to the city. It was terrible ofChaveis revolution. He orga­ at a time inside the prison. The inmates conceived as a vast suburb, roughly di­ nized a crev,r ofmotorizado s--motorcycle­ allowed one handpicked guard to come to vided between four-story apartment mounted bodyguards- to travel with a certain gate to retrieve dead bodies they buildings and fifteen-story high-rises, in­ him. Among his entourage was a teen­ lefi: there. terlaced with gardens and pathways. aged former contract killer named Cris­ Chivezwas imprisoned at Yare for two Today, the green spaces have been tian, whom he was rehabilitating. He in­ years after his coup attempt. Although he overwhelmed by invasores. El 23 is troduced him to me by asking, "Cristian, was kept in a secure area for political pris­ effectively a shantytown of a hundred how many people have you killed?" The oners, at one point he reportedly listened thousand people, studded with Villa­ boy mumbled,"About sixty, I think," and helplessly as another inmate was gang­ nueva's apartment blocks. The area is a Barreto cackled ,,vith delight. raped, slashed in the throat, and then voL1.tile mosaic ofself -governing groups Once Barreto lefi: office, he went into stabbed to death. I n 1994, Chavez was that range from those \vith left- wing political limbo, but last year, during amnestied, and early in his Presidency pretensions to outright criminals. Many Chavez's reelection campaign, he re­ he promised to help reform the prison are armed. turned to favor. At the head of an infor­ system. But, as new crises and causes One ofE123's emblematic figures was mal group of slum-based radical colecti­ emerged, the prisons were forg-otten; of Lina Ron, a militant activist with bleached vos, he had formed a new organization, the twenty-four prisons he promised, only blond hair and a bombastic manner. Be­ called Redes-Networks- which joined four were built. Last year, there were more fore she died last year, ofa stroke, she led the campaign. Caracas was plastered than five hundred \~olent deaths in the anti-imperialist protests, noisy affairs that \vith Redes posters, showing Chavez, system. In August, two gangs at Yare en­ sometimes turned violent. Chavez toler­ swollen from steroid treatments, grasp­ gaged in a four-hour shootout that killed ated her and her rowdy followers, because ing the even more corpulent Barreto in a twenty-five inmates and a visitor. Photo­ she was a passionate supporter ofhis pol­ manly embrace. graphs ofGeomar and El Trompiz, the icies, often appearing alongside him at I found Barreto living in a gritty Cara­ two gang chiefs responsible for the massa­ rallies. I n 2001, Chavez suggested to me cas neighborhood called El Cementerio, cre, show them posing defiandy\vith their that he had embraced the far lefi: as a way named for the large cemetery there, where weapons. El Trompiz was murdered ofpreventing a coup like the one that put malandros hold rituals for their fallen com-

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here since 2008," he said, laughing. 'W~ve gotten into firefights with them." Corruption in the security forces was a deep-seated problem, Barreto told me­ the real source ofthe country's criminal cul­ ture. He had fought it when he was mayor, he said, replacing much ofthe police force 'vith members ofthe T upamaros, an armed group from El23. The situation, Salvador said, stemmed from Chavez's inability to take on the real criminals: "Chavez hasn't gone against the malandros because he be­ lieves they can go against him."

ne Sunday, fifty plastic chairs were Oset out for services in Daza's church, but only a dozen people showed up, al­ most all of them women and children. "First, you're gonna dig a hole." Daza seemed unperturbed. He wore a tie and slacks and black shoes and tested the • • microphone, singing "Gloria" and "Halle­ lujah," while a couple of men bustled around the musical equipment-a set of rades. Slums covered the nearby hills. Bar­ Vive, one of the most organized of the drums, an electric organ, and the huge reto's house was fronted by a huge iron armed colectivos in El23. He suggested we speakers. A few more women arrived, and double door, and a couple of armed secu­ drive up to see them. As we got into one knelt to pray before joining the congrega­ rity men with Alsatian dogs hung around. of his S.U.V.s- which Barreto said tion. Daza's compmiera, Gina, came in Once they had identified me, they waved Chavez had lent him-a bodyguard pro­ with their children, and took out a Bible me in through the carport, where t\vo duced a submachine gun, a Belgian P90. wrapped in a hot-pink cover. armored S.U.V.s were parked. Inside was "Beautiful, isn't it?" Barreto said, smiling. While the musicians played, Daza an atrium filled with modern art and "It shoots fifty-seven bullets." He said that sang from the side ofthe stage, badly but sculptures, along with a large aquarium. weapons like this were necessary for self­ without self-consciousness, and banged Barreto was upstairs, in a state-of-the-art defense. "It's not that we're against the on a bongo drum. Eventually, he took the kitchen, cooking tamales. Next to the government. It's that I can't find the microphone, and began shouting into it kitchen was a living area, where a group of means to fully support it." He laughed. rhythmically in a hoarse growl, talking young men, members ofhis entourage, sat "It's like when you have a beautiful woman about good and evil. He said, "There are at a table ,.,~th laptops. The room was dec­ but you've fallen out oflove with her. It's wars in the world, in which the people orated with an erotic painting by Bar­ difficult. You still want her, but you don't don't care ifchildren die, ifwomen die, if reto-a topless woman, ~vith a man's hand want her, you know?" old people die-all they care about is dropping a strawberry into her mouth­ At the headquarters of the Colectivo riches. But in the Bible it says there is only along with a bottle ofJ ohnnie Walker Ale.xis Vive, there were murals of Marx, one life and it is this life-the Lord knows Platinum ("a gift from a friend") and a Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara, but, of an eternal Life, but only him-and so figure ofBrando as Don Corleone. other than a few armed men who lingered we must live this one. We must live this Barreto explained that he and his com­ at the edges ofsome nearby buildings, the life and get good with God." paneros were working to turn Redes into a foot soldiers stayed discreetly out ofsight . The service went on for three hours. political party. Chavez had lately been One of the group's leaders, a young soci­ Women swayed and rocked on their feet, showcasing a plan for "n¥enty-first­ ology student named Salvador, explained their eyes closed. Daza's voice became a century socialism," in which Venezuelan that the colectivo controlled about fifty mesmerizing,'fall ofsound. At one point, society was to be restructured into comu­ acres, with about ten thousand inhabi­ a young guest preacher named Juan nas. Nobody understood exactly what the tants, whom they were trying to form into Miguel got up to testifY. He was from a term meant or how it would be applied, a self-sustaining Marxist collective. The poor barrio, he said, the son of an insane except perhaps Chavez himself, and a group was armed for self-defense, he said. father. He had been in prison, and his heated debate was taking place. Barreto Corrupt policemen and members of the home had been swept away by the floods said that he and his followers were con­ Venezuelan national guard were working of2010; he lived with thousands of other cerned that, 'vithout pressure from groups with groups of malandros in El23, some daumijicados inside the shopping center like Redes, the plan would be used to in areas that bordered their own territory. that Chavez had expropriated. ''VIle have "straitjacket" the true revolutionary forces. BaJTeto argued that the armed contingent had tough lives, hard lives, but God has To help create an authentic commune, was protecting its people against rogue called us to preach his word." His eyes Barreto was working closely with Ale.xis officers. "They haven't been able to come shining, he told Daza, "God has chosen

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you and chosen me. God has chosen Ven­ "Like that malandro you killed when soned by his enemies, but the autopsy \'l'llS ezuela to take el Evangelio to the world." you were fifteen." inconclusive. Mterward, he called for the One day, Daza drove me to the Daza was silent. After a minute, he new tomb. nearby state ofl\1iranda to see the slum said, "I \>VaS ignorant then, and I'm trans­ The building is a slender white wedge where he had lived with his ex-wife, and formed. I feel like a new man, a new per­ that rises, sail-like, a hundred and seventy where she still lived. Along the way, he son. Those were things one lived in life, feet into the sky. It has reportedly cost a talked, as always, about how God had and that, well, God allowed, but now I hundred and fifty million dollars to build, saved him. He'd left school when he was think I'm different." and, like everything Chavez has done, it is thirteen, and by fourteen he was in the Daza fell silent again, and then said, "In controversial. The construction was secre­ gang life. During his second stint in this life, when you become a leader, your tive, and the mausoleum, which was prison, he had learned how to read, and life becomes at risk, because you acquire scheduled to open December 17th, after the Bible \>VaS his first book. "' haven't enemies. Sometimes people think that several postponements, has yet to be inau­ had preparation like in a university, but I you're involved in the l\ilafia and strange gurated. Whenever it is completed, it will have prepared a lot in God. I used to talk things, because ofyour past. Enemies are become the centerpiece of a run-down to people offensively, with swear words. always going to try and discredit you. The corner of the city, next to an old military Me sa/fa Ia inm.undicia. But I read some­ Devil will try and make sure you remain fortress where Chavez was briefly impris­ where in the Bible-! can't remember miserable, to use you for his benefit." oned after his coup attempt, and the Na­ where-that bad language corrupts good In the end, it was difficult to tell whether tional Pantheon, a nineteenth-century customs. And when I read that I said, El Niiio Daza was a malandro or a genuine church where Bolivar's remains are 'Ay, God is talking to me.'" advocate for the poor, or both. What watched over by ornately costumed We reached a small cinder-block seemed clear was that he was perfectly guards. There are persistent rumors that house on the spine ofa steep hill; it over­ adapted to life in Hugo Chavds Venezu­ when Chavez dies he will be interred in looked other forested hills, which had ela, able to gain advantage by every means: the mausoleum alongside Bolivar. been scarred by new invasiones. Daza's working the gaps left by the government, Chavez and his followers, of course, ex-wife's daughter was there, a plump hustling a capitalist enterprise, and negoti­ are hoping that his struggle will not be young woman in her twenties. She ating the criminal underworld when neces­ laid to rest with him. In 2001, Chavez seemed happy to see Daza. We sat down sary. As we left his old neighborhood, the told me that it was his fervent wish to in a tiny living room, and Daza began re­ street was crowded with a small political bring about a "true revolution'' in Venezu ­ calling his life with her mother. Although rally. Henrique Capriles, who had run ela. A few years later, though, his old he was then still a criminal, their relation­ against Chavez in the Presidential elec­ mentorJorge Giordani seemed concerned ship had been formative for him. She \>VaS tions, was the governor ofMiranda, and that his protege was not building for per­ older, and he felt that she had helped gubernatorial elections were looming in a manent revolution. "I'm also a Q.yixote," mold him as a man. She had also spoiled few weeks' time. Campaign volunteers in a he said. "But one must have one's feet him, he said, laughing-cooking and pickup truck were handing out beer and planted firmly on the ground. If we still cleaning for him and ironing his clothes. posters. Daza shntgged. He hoped that the have oil, we will have a real country in Daza had run off with other women­ pro-Ch:ivez candidate would win. twenty years' time, but we have a lot to do "! used to change girlfriends like you Daza remarked that he was consider­ between now and then." Giordani paused, change clothes," he had told me-and got ing getting into politics himself. As the and recited a Venermelan adage: "If the them pregnant. He and his ex-wife had head of the Tower of David, he'd got to dog dies, this is over." fought a lot. Standing up, he acted out a know some city officials, including some Now, as Chavez lies dying, men who particularly dramatic fight, in which he ofCha.vez's people, and they had urged call themselves chavistas convey his pur­ pinned her back to the wall, pulled out his him to consider running for a city coun­ ported wishes to his citizens. In the past pisto~ and fired it right next to her head. "It sellor's seat. With the changes being pro­ months, Venezuelans have had little reli­ was just to scare her," he said, smiling. But posed by the government, and the cre­ able information about his intentions or the she had been holding a knife, and when he ation ofthe comunas, he hoped the Tower true state ofhis health, and therefore little fired- "Maybe she thought I was really ofDavid could acquire legal status. He'd say in their own future. For them, Chavez's going to shoot her, or maybe it was just her begun to take some soundings in the death represents the end ofa long and en­ instinctive reaction"--s he had plunged it building. "People keep saying I should thralling performance. They gave him into his chest. He had staggered out ofthe run, and that I have a good chance," he power, in one election after another: they house and got himself to a clinic. He was said. "So I'm thinking about it." are the victims oftheir affection for a char­ lucky: the knife had missed his heart and ismatic man, whom they allowed to be­ other vital organs. The young>\'Oman nod­ n downtown Caracas, about a mile come the central character on the Venezu­ ded and giggled at the memory. "After­ I from the Tower of David, a splendid elan stage, at the expense ofeverything else. ward, we got together again," Daza said. new mausoleum is nearing completion. After nearly a generation, Chaver£ leaves his In the car, I asked Daza ifh e regretted Chaver£ ordered it built two years ago, to countrymen with many unanswered ques­ anything. provide a new resting place for the bones tions and only one certainty: the revolution "No," he said. ofSimon Bolivar. He had previously had that he tried to bring about never really "VVhat about the men you've killed?" Bolivar's remains disinterred and exam­ took place. It began with Chavez, and with "Like who?" ined, in the belief that he had been poi- him, most likely, it will end. •

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