The Editor, Sir:

The column that you published on November 11 by John Rapley, 'Populism in Venezuela', is most troubling. This is not the first time that he has misrepresented, grossly, the Venezuelan reality. Some years ago, just after he had returned to Jamaica from a visit to Washington, he wrote about the 'implosion' of the Venezuelan economy at a time when Venezuela was consistently showing growth that was the strongest in Latin America.

What is more, as is currently the case, that growth was being put to use for the development of the Venezuelan people. Since that time, there has been an enormous expansion of first-rate health care in the country, thanks, in part, to Venezuela's close cooperation with Cuba. Thanks also to Cuba's help, illiteracy has been wiped out, and the once-illiterate are moving up the educational ladder. Food for the poorest is being subsidised, while idle lands taken from latifundias, or large estates, are being put into agricultural production.

The cultural development of the people is flourishing, for instance, with its now world-famous youth orchestras and with newly created publishing houses producing massive editions (up to a million copies of books such as Don Quixote) of works of world literature for its population. Venezuela will presently host an International World Book Fair, with plans being made during that fair for the hosting of another World Festival of Poetry to be held in June next year at which the poetry of the English-speaking Caribbean will be featured.

Progressive changes

Along with this new general cultural development, matters such as the hygiene of all the people are being taken into account. That is why, at a time when Venezuela and neighbouring countries are suffering from severe drought, Chávez is asking people, so that all of them can have their daily bath, not to sing in the shower and thus use more water than necessary. It takes time to build the water and electrical services that would accommodate a previously underserved or neglected 70 per cent of the population.

All of these progressive changes that have been taking place in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are much to the dislike of Washington that was not unhappy when at least 70 per cent of Venezuela's people lived in poverty while its resources benefited a small group that had very friendly ties with Washington and the multinational companies that exploited these resources.

Venezuela's present helpfulness to its Caribbean and Latin American neighbours, in these times when the developed Western countries are in crisis and are scrambling to take every penny they can from the world that wants to be developed, is especially fortuitous.

Rapley speaks hopefully and misleadingly about Chávez's political demise. In point of fact, his popularity has been growing. In the latest survey carried out by the Venezuelan Institute of Data Analysis and published on October 8, 2009, Chávez enjoys a 62.4 per cent approval rating, much higher than President Obama's, who, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports, enjoys only a 47 per cent approval rating in his country.

Disservice

Rapley's column is nothing short of a disservice to Jamaica. What if Chávez - described in the Western media as a volatile person - upon reading a column like this, were to 'get vex' and remove us from his Petro-Caribe initiative with its economic and social benefits? How would we assuage the grief caused by this new deluge of misinformation coming from Rapley's think tank? Should we then apply to the Washington-controlled International Monetary Fund (IMF) for more of that sweet pain promised a few days ago in The Gleaner by the representative of Wall Street's Oppenheimer & Co, Inc?

And what is worse, Rapley's snipes at Venezuela encourage the United States in its now-outright militarised approach to Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. Its new access to seven military bases in Colombia, Venezuela's hostile neighbour, with equipment that gives it surveillance and attack capacity that extends from Latin America and the Caribbean to Sub-Saharan Africa, is something that will necessarily distract Venezuela from some of its domestic and international development good works and compel it to look more to its own military defences. These developments will have negative consequences for Jamaica as well.

I am, etc.,

KEITH ELLIS, FRSC

zellis@yorku.ca

Professor Emeritus

Toronto