Chavez is making history

Advisor to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that the Venezuelan leadership was "making history" arguing that his country has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world.

Raymond Qabshi, a Venezuelan of Lebanese origin, told The Daily Star in an interview Saturday that the Chavez government has been the victim of imperial America and its Venezuelan allies namely the Democratic Labor and the Christian Social Parties who had ruled the country for 40 years before the election of Chavez in 1998.

Sitting at his nephew's restaurant in Bneshaai, the 61 year-old law professor at the Venezuelan Higher Institute for Law Studies talked in fluent Arabic. Qabshi said that he left to Venezuela in 1958 after he was arrested for five days.

"Back then, there was a civil war in Zghorta, long before the Lebanese civil strife had started," he said. "I joined my two elder brothers in Latin America and finished my studies in law," he added.

During his days of yore, Qabshi was active among the Arab-Venezuelan community. "Arabs of Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese stock were maltreated," he noted saying that such treatment made him want to become a lawyer to defend their rights.

Meanwhile, he established the Arab National Union in 1965 and was elected its secretary-general. "It wasn't connected to any pan-Arab organization in the world but was rather linked to the Lebanese World Gathering."

He described his organization as a practical response to an Arab need. "We drafted the first Arab platform and established a newspaper," he recounted.

Qabshi does not remember when was the first time he met the current Venezuelan president. But he is certainly one of his admirers and close associates.

"Chavez is known since 1992 when as an army officer he sponsored a failing coup and was jailed for three years," said Qabshi.

But in 1998, according to Qabshi, "there happened a peaceful revolution in Venezuela when Chavez was elected president."

Prior to 1998, the pro-American ruling system "was dying but naturally refused to give up." Qabshi said that classifying the current Venezuelan political forces into pro-government and opposition would not be appropriate.

Instead, he believes that the classification should be rendered into a group that was working to modernize the country and another one that was fighting to maintain its benefits.

"When pursuing change, governments throughout the world might be forced to face a dominant feudal system, an influential church or religious establishment, external influence or even strong labor unions," Qabshi argued. "Chavez is facing all of them," he added.

The Lebanese-Venezuelan advisor denied that violations of human rights were reported under Chavez. "While the country witnessed 3, 000 strikes, demonstrations and a failing coup d'etats, the government did not even close down a newspaper."

"The constitution stipulates in the middle of his six-year tenure, the president should organize a poll to re-examine the popular opinion and should leave the presidency if he could not obtain a majority," according to Qabshi. The mid-term poll is due on Tuesday since in 1999, the opposition demanded re-election and Chavez succeeded with 60 percent of the vote.

Qabshi said that reform was based on the thought of 19th century general Simon Bolivard. "We changed the name of the country into the Republic of Bolivarian Venezuela."

He also said that his country was not willing to export or import its revolution. When asked about the validity of leftist thinking and the government's control of production sectors at the time world governments opt for privatization, Qabshi said that his government was not opposed to privatizing "a hotel or the national air carrier" adding that it was only opposed to the privatization of the oil industry which represents 50 percent of the country's GDP.

Venezuela is the second largest foreign oil supplier for the US. The industry is run by a monopoly, Petroleos de Venezuela. Ten percent of the nation's workforce is member of the powerful oil worker's labor union, Fedepetrol.

Previous governments used to hand out Fedepetrol jobs as political patronage. The workforce lives an upper middle class life-style in a country where 80 percent of the workforce receives 20 percent of the basic oil worker's salary.