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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Awed by Angkor
By Antonio C. Abaya Written Oct. 04, 2006 For the Standard Today, October 05 issue The Vietnam Airlines flight from bustling Ho Chi Minh City to the tranquil haven of Siem Reap in Cambodia takes only one hour, but, like a magic flying carpet, it transports you to an entirely different dimension. You leave the frenetic and hurly-burly world of resurgent capitalist commerce trying to make up for time lost to dour socialist pretensions, and enter into a timeless universe of ascetic contemplation, the crown jewels of Khmer civilization, enveloped by the eternal silence of a forest primeval. First the logistics. As in HCMC, we booked our hotel in Siem Reap through the website www.hotels.com, paying in advance online by credit card. This gave us the chance to search for hotels offering promo rates. We had the good fortune to book with the Le Meridien Hotel, categorized as �very expensive� in our guide book, but where we were given a $260/night room (that can sleep a family of three or four) for only $100, including complimentary breakfast. The hotel building itself is only three levels high, spread out in a square about half a hectare in area, with a beautifully landscaped garden for a courtyard, and a swimming pool and spa to one side. A truly relaxing oasis after hours of climbing up and down temples and ruins. Its floors are all tiled, not carpeted, in the foreknowledge that all or most of its guests would be coming in from Angkor at all hours of the day with dusty or muddy shoes. The hotel is a few kilometers from downtown Siem Reap, about $3 away by taxi or tuktuk. Except for the presence of many hotels of all price categories, Siem Reap has the languid air of a very provincial town. It does have a small cosmopolitan section near the Old Market, with restaurants of various cuisines, and art galleries, patronized by foreign visitors of all nationalities. And Internet cafes where one can have cyber access for only $0.75 per hour (compared to an atrocious $15 per hour in the hotel). There are no shopping malls or supermarkets, and many of its streets do not even have sidewalks. But, of course, it has Angkor Wat and some thirty other temples and ruins of temples, and that makes all the difference in the world. That is the only reason why some one million visitors from all over the planet come each year to this clearing in the Cambodian jungle. The best time to visit Angkor , we are told, is between November and February, when the monsoon season is over and the days and nights are relatively cooler. This year, starting Nov. 22 and up to past the New Year, a Korean company is collaborating with the Cambodian government to present a nightly son et lumiere spectacle at the principal temples. This has not been tried before. The temples are so photogenic during the day, they should be spectacular at night. But so will the prices be, I am sure. We had flown from Manila to Ho Chi Minh City , thence to Siem Reap. To cut down on costs, one can take one of the budget airlines at Clark for Kuala Lumpur or Singapore , and from there direct to Siem Reap. I do not know where he got his information, but our Cambodian taxi driver San told us that there would soon be a direct budget airline flight from Manila (he must have meant Clark ) to Siem Reap. If true, we are planning for a second visit this early. Access to Angkor Wat and other temples is strictly controlled, as well it should be. One must be photographed at the control office for a laminated ID card, which is checked at every site. It costs $20 per person for a one-day visit, $40 for a three-day visit, and $60 for a week�s visit. Since the sites are kilometers away from each other, it is best to hire a taxi or a tuktuk for the day, preferably with an English-speaking driver who has some background information about the sites you are visiting. That will cost you $20 a day. If you can afford it, engage the services of a professional tour guide, in addition to the taxi and its driver, but it will probably cost you $50 or more per day. Visiting the temples and appreciating their architecture, interiors and history involves a lot of walking and climbing. The steps are very narrow (some only about 6 inches deep) and one must climb up sideways to get a firm footing. Furthermore the gradient is sometimes a life-threatening 75 degrees, or almost perpendicular. It is almost like rock-climbing, except that there is no harness to secure your butt, and only a few of the stairs have metal railings to hold on to. Just try not to sneeze, because you might start an avalanche of bodies cascading down the temple steps. And what of the temples themselves? My initial reaction was one of awe, and I am not sure if I have transcended that. As a typical Jesuit-educated Filipino colonial, my intellectual upbringing was almost exclusively devoted to ancient Greece and ancient Rome as the foundations of Western European and Anglo-Saxon civilizations. My peers and I were taught absolutely nothing about the history and civilizations of Southeast Asia . So standing there amid the splendors of Angkor Wat and the other temples, I was simply awed and overwhelmed, by the sheer size and spread of the structures, by the intricate details of their adornments � some of truly exquisite beauty � by the narrative stories carved into miles of bas-relief that wrap around the temples like some giant celebratory ribbon in stone�..but without really understanding much of it or putting it in proper perspective in relation to my own Europe-centered appreciation of history. This little I learnt: the Angkor period of Khmer history stretched from the 9th to the 15th centuries, during which these structures were built by Khmer kings heavily influenced by Indian or Hindu civilization as brought to Cambodia by Indian merchants. Angkor Wat (which means the City of the Temple) itself was built by King Suryavarman II between 1112 and 1150 AD, at about the same time that the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was built. Its central tower is said to be as tall as Notre Dame, but its spread is several times larger than that of the French cathedral. At its height, Khmer civilization stretched to as far as parts of Vietnam , Siam and the Malay Peninsula . A bigger complex of temples was built by King Jayavarman VII in Angkor Thom, north of Angkor Wat, from the middle of the 12th to the early part of the 13th centuries, and includes such noteworthy structures as Bayon, Bakeng, Baphuon, Ta Keo, Ta Prohm (where ancient and giant trees have been left untouched in their act of devouring parts of the temple), etc. My own favorite site is Preah Khan, with its untypical colonnade reminiscent of ancient Greek or Egyptian temples. Jayavarnam dedicated his temples to Buddhism. Hindu temples converted into Buddhist shrines, with no one apparently infuriated by the eclecticism. Three cheers for religious tolerance. Would that the Taliban had not dynamited the 12th century giant Buddha statues in Banyam , Afghanistan , because they were considered an affront to Islam. But a dry recitation of these Angkor names is as meaningless to the reader who has never been there, as it is to me who has been there but has understood nothing because of a huge gap in my education. Of greater import to the Filipino traveler is the absence of anything similar to the Angkor structures in our islands. We were told in high-school history class that our islands were once part of the Shri Vijayan (Hindu?) and Madjapahit (Buddhist?) empires in Southeast Asia . But where are our glorious monuments and our priceless artifacts? Did somebody steal our national patrimony so early in our history? At least, predominantly Muslim Indonesia has its giant Buddhist shrine in Borobodur in central Java, and Hindu temples and a vibrant Hindu culture in Bali . Thailand has its Ayuthaya, and Myanmar its Pagan, and Vietnam its Citadel in Hue . And, of course, Cambodia has its Angkor . But we seem to have inherited nothing significant from pre-Hispanic civilizations. .Is this the root of our national inferiority complex? But we are not alone. Neither Malaysia nor Singapore has any significant relic from a glorious past either. Yet both countries have been able to build successful societies, by looking forward to the future. Our tragedy seems to be that we are bereft of a glorious past as we are of an exciting future. We seem to be stuck in an unchanging and unchangeable present. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles since 2001 in www.tapatt.org. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
| Reactions to �Awed by Angkor�
There was no evidence of any buildings built by Hindus and Buddhists in Pinas. The Muslims from Indonesia emigrated to southern Philippines. Thank God that the Philippines was colonized by the Spaniards and Christianity was spread in the country. If they stole that part of history, it's a blessing to my ancestors and my future generation because we became Christians. Tessie Centeno, [email protected], Oct. 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Very informative. Thanks for sharing. Might consider going on tour to the place Genny Ferrer, [email protected], Oct.o5, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I have a theory on why we do not have any relics like Angkor Wat from the past. It is because we were probably the islands scattered outward from mainland China AFTER the great earthquake of centuries back. If you see the great half-dome in Ansel Adams' collection and read the explanation of its creation, you might believe... What we did have was Rizal, perhaps a head (literally) taller than the other giants of Asia, Gandhi, Mao, etc. Rizal was a writer, a physician-surgeon, a lover, an inspiration to the entire Malay--as well as the intellectual Europeans of the time--race; he was brilliant. Of course I am biased--he was also my mother's grand uncle, and he lived once upon a time, in our ancestral home in Binan, Laguna...Regards, Cita Abad Dinglasan, [email protected], Oct. 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Maybe by completely substituting Hollywood for our then subsisting and flourishing peninsular culture, we set off the process of decay and eventually agreed to have our names engraved on the grimy streets where we now sleep on. Thanks a lot to the Masons of the last century! Chipper Santos, [email protected], Roxas City, Capiz, Oct. 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, Good evening! I have read your write-up re: Awed by Angkor..I do really admire how you put into words your experiences in the Angkor Temples...Yes, I've been to Cambodia and Siem Reap several times and I still love to visit the temples over and over again because I do appreciate the geniuses and the great efforts put together by the ancient people who worked manually day and night (I guess) as a team for the realization of such grand temples. By the way, my name is FE T. PAGLINAWAN,I am working here in Vietnam. Maybe in one of your travels you can drop by Saigon and say hi and hello. I have read a lot of your write ups and I like the way you express into words what's in your heart and in your mind. MORE POWER!!! Best regards, Fe T. Paglinawan, [email protected], Vietnam, Oct. 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, I share with you your beautiful experience in Siem Reap, especially Angkor Wat and the other temples. Another site which really awed me is the giant trees with the very big roots. Siem Reap is one place I would like to go back to again! Happy writing! Ming Jacinto, [email protected], Oct. 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, Could it be that the Philippines never had a great civilization because it has always been on the outer fringe of the two great southeast Asian empires? The Philippines never had great kingdoms in the strict meaning of the word - only petty tribal chiefs. Ironically, it was the Spaniards who brought some semblance and legacy of visual culture with the fort city of Intramuros , permanent Spanish towns and the numerous Romanesque and Baroque churches still extant in the archipelago. Frank Jimenez, [email protected], West Orange , New Jersey , Oct. 06, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony, I really enjoy reading your articles, but this one really caught my attention in a special way. Maybe because it is not centered on our dirty politics, but more on culture and history, which are my passion. Perhaps, although I am Dominican- and Recollect-educated, I was Franciscan-formed, and that translates to openness to cultural dialogue. I can only see Ankor Wat through Discovery Channel and NGC, and appreciate its magnificence from the boob tube. And while the present human civilization largely revolves around Western ideas and history, indeed Asia had been far more advanced (but somehow stagnated at certain point). Taking a cue from the saga of the great Chinese admiral Jung He, crab mentality may not be confined to Filipinos. It may be the greatest fault of Oriental culture... we tend to bring anyone who advances down instead of following the lead. But then again, the world would be very much different if Asians conquered the world instead of the Europeans. Felipe Rommel Martinez, [email protected], Oct. 07, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, You feel exactly the way we felt when my entire family visited Siam Reap some years back. Each one of us expressed the same awe and wonderment and lamented the fact that we were taught so much about European, American and Chinese history and almost none of the Asian past! All of us were so touched by the experience that my daughter wrote an article about her experience right after we came home. So too are my two sons no longer intimidated and feel inferior when we visited Europe recently. We also wondered why our country does no have any of these shrines and temples and magnificent works of art? This question was answered a few moments after we landed in Manila . Oh yes, My wife Teena and I went back and visited the temples again. We continue to gaze and wonder. When and how can our country be immortalized? Hope to see you soon! Cesar Sarino, [email protected], Oct. 07, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (The following article was emailed to us by [email protected]) <http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/signs20060919_TimeandMrAhmadinejad. php>http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/signs20060919_TimeandMrAhmadinejad.php TIME and Mr. Ahmadinejad By Henry See September 19, 2006 Signs of the Times Time magazine went to Cuba and met with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And while they were willing to print the man's words, they made sure that Time correspondent Scott Macleod put them in "context". In the case of Ahmadinejad, that means painting him as a crafty war-mongerer. Never-mind that Iran is fully within its rights as a signer of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty to develop its nuclear industry. Never-mind that the United States of Pathocratic Corruption has singled Iran out, alone, as the target of its ire, while Brazil and India have proceeded apace with their own development. It is the US and Israel who are making an issue of Iranian nuclear development, not because Iran is a threat to anyone if it is left alone, but solely because the US and Israel have decided to enforce a "regime change" in Iran, and 1) they need a pretext, even one that is as flimsy or even less so than Saddam's WMDs, and 2), were Iran in fact to develop nuclear weapons, the true war-mongerers, the US and Israel, would be the potential targets because of their less than innocent interest in toppling the government and installing their own puppet regime there. Were the rest of the world to agree with Bush's argument of "preventative defence", then Iran would have every right, according to Bush himself, to attack Israel , because Israel doesn't even attempt to conceal its desire to get rid of the current government there. Therefore, in order to ridicule Ahmadinejad, nothing is too little to go unremarked. Notice this first comment, describing Ahmadinejad as he enters the room and sits for the interview: "For a moment, he seems irked by the chair, perhaps because it makes him seem even smaller than his 5 ft. 4 in., but soon he's smiling, prodding, leaning forward to make his points." Did you notice that: "perhaps because it makes him seem even smaller than his 5 ft. 4 in."? Do you really think that this is what is going on in Ahmadinejad's mind? Are we meant to associate Ahmadinejad with Napoleon, well known for his short stature? Are we meant to think that his "craziness", always implied, comes from his preoccupation with his small height? Another comment fills the reader in on how to read his words: "Ahmadinejad is a skilled, if slippery, debater. In his press conferences, he has shown himself to be a natural politician, gifted in the art of spin and misdirection." You'd think he was describing his ownh president or vice president. When I read the interview, as well as other interviews with the man, I find him to be quite reasonable. His arguments are logical, and he is willing to call out the interviewer on his own biases. Notice this response on the question of Israel : TIME: You have been quoted as saying Israel should be wiped off the map. Was that merely rhetoric, or do you mean it? AHMADINEJAD: People in the world are free to think the way they wish. We do not insist they should change their views. Our position toward the Palestinian question is clear: we say that a nation has been displaced from its own land. Palestinian people are killed in their own lands, by those who are not original inhabitants, and they have come from far areas of the world and have occupied those homes. Our suggestion is that the 5 million Palestinian refugees come back to their homes, and then the entire people on those lands hold a referendum and choose their own system of government. This is a democratic and popular way. Do you have any other suggestions? TIME: Do you believe the Jewish people have a right to their own state? AHMADINEJAD: We do not oppose it. In any country in which the people are ready to vote for the Jews to come to power, it is up to them. In our country, the Jews are living and they are represented in our Parliament. But Zionists are different from Jews. This response and approach is extremely reasonable. The Zionists, through the complicity of their pathocratic brothers in Britain and the United States , stole Palestine from its rightful inhabitants. They erected the United Nations to give this theft the semblance of legality. The theft has continued since the founding of the Zionist entity in 1949. The Palestinians are being extinguished, drop of blood by drop of blood, and their land stolen acre by acre ever since. Ahmadinejad is proposing nothing more than allowing the people who live in Palestine to elect their own government, but that is too democratic a solution for a people who call themselves the "chosen people" of Yahweh and who refuse to live by the laws of the goyim. Moreover, Ahmadinejad never said that Israel should be wiped away. That was a misquote, and under the conditions of the threat of war, it was undoubtedly an intentional misquote, that is, a lie. In the speech that was so misquoted, the Iranian president made essentially the same comment, that the people who wished to live there should decide for themselves. Of course, suggesting that the state of Israel should be changed, that it should give way to a state of all of the people of Palestine , is "anti-Semitism". "His incendiary statements--he has declared the Holocaust a 'myth,' has said Israel should be 'wiped away' and has called the Jewish state 'a stain of disgrace'--have made him the most polarizing head of state in the Muslim world." As for his statement that Israel is "a stain of disgrace", what other conclusion can we come to when we look at its history? When we look at the continual murder of Palestinians, when we look even no further than the recent war against Lebanon, with the million cluster bombs dropped on civilian territories in the last days of the fighting, when Israel knew a cease-fire was only days away. What else is such an act if it is not a "stain of disgrace" for people of conscience. The conscious, methodical, and cold-blooded targeting of civilians, of woman and children, is that not unconscionable? In the final part of the interview, that most objectionable of subjects was raised: the Holocaust. According to Time: "He waved a hand dismissively when I couldn't grasp his logic in questioning the Holocaust. Asked to defend his claim that the Holocaust was a myth, he went on a rambling rant, claiming that those who try to do 'independent research' on the Holocaust have been imprisoned. 'About historical events,' he says, 'there are different views.'" The following is the so-called "rambling rant" that was Ahmadinejad's response to the question: TIME: Have you considered that Iranian Jews are hurt by your comments denying that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust? AHMADINEJAD: As to the Holocaust, I just raised a few questions. And I didn't receive any answers to my questions. I said that during World War II, around 60 million were killed. All were human beings and had their own dignities. Why only 6 million? And if it had happened, then it is a historical event. Then why do they not allow independent research? TIME: But massive research has been done. AHMADINEJAD: They put in prison those who try to do research. About historical events everybody should be free to conduct research. Let's assume that it has taken place. Where did it take place? So what is the fault of the Palestinian people? These questions are quite clear. We are waiting for answers. If this response strikes you as a "rambling rant", then you're probably very happy with the direction Mr. Bush is taking the world, or you should be. Why is it only the relationship of the Jews to the Second World War that is off-limits? If a researcher tries to answer the question of "How many Poles were killed?" or "How many gypsies were killed?", he can publish as he pleases. Yet to question the official statistics is to invite imprisonment in some countries. Sixty million or more died during that global holocaust, and they had, as Ahmadinejad says, "their own dignities". But the dignity of tens of millions of non-Jews means nothing compared to one dead worshipper of Yahweh for those who eat of the poisoned apple of the "Chosen People". Perhaps in his next interview, Ahmadinejad should point out the abundant documentation showing Zionist collaboration with the Nazis prior to and during the war. It served Zionist interests that "Jews" be persecuted, for such persecution was the only argument they had in favour of stealing Palestine from its rightful inhabitants. And while the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis, Zionist terrorists were being armed in Palestine by the British under the guise of fighting fascism, when in reality, the arms were being used to terrorize the Palestinians and prepare for the war of colonization and ethnic cleansing that would lead to the establishment of the Zionist entity. Since the false flag operation of 9/11, the US and Israel have unleashed a crusade against Arabs and Muslims. Afghanistan has been sacked. Iraq is being sacked and dismembered. Other false flag operations have killed innocents in Madrid and London . And, of course, while the world's attention was focused elsewhere, the genocide of the Palestinians has continued unabated. Through their deeds, the leaders of the US, Britain, and Israel have proved that they see war as the only way to implement their policies, backed by torture, the illegal detention of whomever they deem necessary, and the breaking of the laws of whatever country they are operating in. And yet Time portrays the Iranian president as the one leading the world to war: "Though pictures of the Iranian President often show him flashing a peace sign, his actions could well be leading the world closer to war." What actions are those? Those of refusing to be cowed by the imperial designs set in Washington and Tel Aviv? TIME: Why won't you agree to suspend enrichment of uranium as a confidence- building measure? AHMADINEJAD: Whose confidence should be built? TIME: The world's? AHMADINEJAD: The world? The world? Who is the world? The United States ? The U.S. Administration is not the entire world. Europe does not account for one-twentieth of the entire world. When I studied the provisions of the NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty], nowhere did I see it written that in order to produce nuclear fuel, we need to win the support or the confidence of the United States and some European countries. TIME: How far will Iran go in defying Western demands? Will you wait until you are attacked and your nuclear installations are destroyed? AHMADINEJAD: Do you think the U.S. Administration would be so irrational? TIME: You tell me. AHMADINEJAD: I hope that is not the case. I said that we need logic. We do not need attacks. Time spells it out: Iran must meet "Western demands", not those of the world. And when analysed, "Western demands" comes down to the demands of a very small group, the neocons in Washington , and the leaders of Israel . The word "demands" is also interesting because it is in fact extortion. Iran is being told: "Stop your nuclear programme or we will wage war on your country". That sounds more like the local mafia don speaking than what would pass for statesmanship in a class on political science. We live in a world where the "West" has become the "world", where "Zionism" has become the "West", where illegally attacking a sovereign state has become "preventative defence" and the kidnapping and torture of individuals has become "extraordinary rendition". The process of ponerization so well described by Andrew Lobaczewski in his book <http://www.qfgpublishing.com/product_info.php?products_ id=54&osCsid=02613737a0ee1c3460276a1fd7a16aff>Political Ponerology is so entrenched that words have lost their original meaning. That Time can serve its readers such a loaded concoction under the label of objective reporting, and that it is taken down by its readers without a burp, illustrates the dire situation we face. The distance between a Time report and objective reality is the distance we must cross if we are ever to live in a world free from lies. Of course, we expect nothing different from Time magazine or anyone else in the mainstream media. We expect no different from the majority of what calls itself the "alternative media". We have all swum in this cesspool of lies our entire lives. We were raised to consider our assumptions as self-evident truths. We are all infected with this evil. The decision to align oneself with truth must be a conscious decision, and it demands a continual putting into question of everything one reads and hears. It demands a constant putting into question of one's own assumptions and beliefs. The sad fact is that it is work, a lot of work. It isn't easy, and it isn't comfortable. It is much easier to continue to be swept away by the many currents, mainstream or alternative, that prefer to go only so far, that prefer not to bring the ultimate struggle down to what is going on inside your own head, your own emotions, your own programming from your families and your schools. The sacred cows of Time magazine are clear to see. Our own are much more difficult. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia but....... By Greg Palast Sept. 21, 2006, The Progressive "I've known Hugo Chavez for years, let me tell you that man knows a diablo when he sees one." -- Greg Palast You'd think George Bush would get down on his knees and kiss Hugo Chavez's behind. Not only has Chavez delivered cheap oil to the Bronx and other poor communities in the United States. And not only did he offer to bring aid to the victims of Katrina. In my interview with the president of Venezuela on March 28, he made Bush the following astonishing offer: Chavez would drop the price of oil to $50 a barrel, "not too high, a fair price," he said -- a third less than the $75 a barrel for oil recently posted on the spot market. That would bring down the price at the pump by about a buck, from $3 to $2 a gallon. But our President has basically told Chavez to take his cheaper oil and stick it up his pipeline. Before I explain why Bush has done so, let me explain why Chavez has the power to pull it off -- and the method in the seeming madness of his "take-my-oil-please!" deal. Venezuela, Chavez told me, has more oil than Saudi Arabia. A nutty boast? Not by a long shot. In fact, his surprising claim comes from a most surprising source: the U.S. Department of Energy. In an internal report, the DOE estimates that Venezuela has five times the Saudis' reserves. However, most of Venezuela's mega-horde of crude is in the More...form of "extra-heavy" oil -- liquid asphalt -- which is ghastly expensive to pull up and refine. Oil has to sell above $30 a barrel to make the investment in extra-heavy oil worthwhile. A big dip in oil's price -- and, after all, oil cost only $18 a barrel six years ago -- would bankrupt heavy-oil investors. Hence Chavez's offer: Drop the price to $50 -- and keep it there. That would guarantee Venezuela's investment in heavy oil. But the ascendance of Venezuela within OPEC necessarily means the decline of the power of the House of Saud. And the Bush family wouldn't like that one bit. It comes down to "petro-dollars." When George W. ferried then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah of Saudi Arabia around the Crawford ranch in a golf cart it wasn't because America needs Arabian oil. The Saudis will always sell us their petroleum. What Bush needs is Saudi petro-dollars. Saudi Arabia has, over the past three decades, kindly recycled the cash sucked from the wallets of American SUV owners and sent much of the loot right back to New York to buy U.S. Treasury bills and other U.S. assets. The Gulf potentates understand that in return for lending the U.S. Treasury the cash to fund George Bush's $2 trillion rise in the nation's debt, they receive protection in return. They lend us petro-dollars, we lend them the 82nd Airborne. Chavez would put an end to all that. He'll sell us oil relatively cheaply -- but intends to keep the petro-dollars in Latin America. Recently, Chavez withdrew $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve and, at the same time, lent or committed a like sum to Argentina, Ecuador, and other Latin American nations. Chavez, notes The Wall Street Journal, has become a "tropical IMF." And indeed, as the Venezuelan president told me, he wants to abolish the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, with its brutal free-market diktats, and replace it with an "International Humanitarian Fund," an IHF, or more accurately, an International Hugo Fund. In addition, Chavez wants OPEC to officially recognize Venezuela as the cartel's reserve leader, which neither the Saudis nor Bush will take kindly to. Politically, Venezuela is torn in two. Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution," a close replica of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal-a progressive income tax, public works, social security, cheap electricity -- makes him wildly popular with the poor. And most Venezuelans are poor. His critics, a four-centuries' old white elite, unused to sharing oil wealth, portray him as a Castro-hugging anti-Christ. Chavez's government, which used to brush off these critics, has turned aggressive on them. I challenged Chavez several times over charges brought against Sumate, his main opposition group. The two founders of the nongovernmental organization, which led the recall campaign against Chavez, face eight years in prison for taking money from the Bush Administration and the International Republican [Party] Institute. No nation permits foreign funding of political campaigns, but the charges (no one is in jail) seem like a heavy hammer to use on the minor infractions of these pathetic gadflies. Bush's reaction to Chavez has been a mix of hostility and provocation. Washington supported the coup attempt against Chavez in 2002, and Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld have repeatedly denounced him. The revised National Security Strategy of the United States of America, released in March, says, "In Venezuela, a demagogue awash in oil money is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region." So when the Reverend Pat Robertson, a Bush ally, told his faithful in August 2005 that Chavez has to go, it was not unreasonable to assume that he was articulating an Administration wish. "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him," Robertson said, "I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war . . . and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." There are only two ways to defeat the rise of Chavez as the New Abdullah of the Americas. First, the unattractive option: Cut the price of oil below $30 a barrel. That would make Chavez's crude worthless. Or, option two: Kill him. Q: Your opponents are saying that you are beginning a slow-motion dictatorship. Is that what we are seeing? Hugo Chavez: They have been saying that for a long time. When they're short of ideas, any excuse will do as a vehicle for lies. That is totally false. I would like to invite the citizens of Great Britain and the citizens of the U.S. and the citizens of the world to come here and walk freely through the streets of Venezuela, to talk to anyone they want, to watch television, to read the papers. We are building a true democracy, with human rights for everyone, social rights, education, health care, pensions, social security, and jobs. Q: Some of your opponents are being charged with the crime of taking money from George Bush. Will you send them to jail? Chavez: It's not up to me to decide that. We have the institutions that do that. These people have admitted they have received money from the government of the United States. It's up to the prosecutors to decide what to do, but the truth is that we can't allow the U.S. to finance the destabilization of our country. What would happen if we financed somebody in the U.S. to destabilize the government of George Bush? They would go to prison, certainly. Q: How do you respond to Bush's charge that you are destabilizing the region and interfering in the elections of other Latin American countries? Chavez: Mr. Bush is an illegitimate President. In Florida, his brother Jeb deleted many black voters from the electoral registers. So this President is the result of a fraud. Not only that, he is also currently applying a dictatorship in the U.S. People can be put in jail without being charged. They tap phones without court orders. They check what books people take out of public libraries. They arrested Cindy Sheehan because of a T-shirt she was wearing demanding the return of the troops from Iraq. They abuse blacks and Latinos. And if we are going to talk about meddling in other countries, then the U.S. is the champion of meddling in other people's affairs. They invaded Guatemala, they overthrew Salvador Allende, invaded Panama and the Dominican Republic. They were involved in the coup d'etat in Argentina thirty years ago. Q: Is the U.S. interfering in your elections here? Chavez: They have interfered for 200 years. They have tried to prevent us from winning the elections, they supported the coup d'etat, they gave millions of dollars to the coup plotters, they supported the media, newspapers, outlaw movements, military intervention, and espionage. But here the empire is finished, and I believe that before the end of this century, it will be finished in the rest of the world. We will see the burial of the empire of the eagle. Q: You don't interfere in the elections of other nations in Latin America? Chavez: Absolutely not. I concern myself with Venezuela. However, what's going on now is that some rightwing movements are transforming me into a pawn in the domestic politics of their countries, by making statements that are groundless. About candidates like Morales [of Bolivia], for example. They said I financed the candidacy of President Lula [of Brazil], which is totally false. They said I financed the candidacy of Kirchner [of Argentina], which is totally false. In Mexico, recently, the rightwing party has used my image for its own profit. What's happened is that in Latin America there is a turn to the left. Latin Americans have gotten tired of the Washington consensus -- a neo-liberalism that has aggravated misery and poverty. Q: You have spent millions of dollars of your nation's oil wealth throughout Latin America. Are you really helping these other nations or are you simply buying political support for your regime? Chavez: We are brothers and sisters. That's one of the reasons for the wrath of the empire. You know that Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves in the world. And the biggest gas reserves in this hemisphere, the eighth in the world. Up until seven years ago, Venezuela was a U.S. oil colony. All of our oil was going up to the north, and the gas was being used by the U.S. and not by us. Now we are diversifying. Our oil is helping the poor. We are selling to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, some Central American countries, Uruguay, Argentina. Q: And the Bronx? Chavez: In the Bronx it is a donation. In all the cases I just mentioned before, it is trade. However, it's not free trade, just fair commerce. We also have an international humanitarian fund as a result of oil revenues. Q: Why did George Bush turn down your help for New Orleans after the hurricane? Chavez: You should ask him, but from the very beginning of the terrible disaster of Katrina, our people in the U.S., like the president of CITGO, went to New Orleans to rescue people. We were in close contact by phone with Jesse Jackson. We hired buses. We got food and water. We tried to protect them; they are our brothers and sisters. Doesn't matter if they are African, Asian, Cuban, whatever. Q: Are you replacing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as "Daddy Big Bucks"? Chavez: I do wish that the IMF and the World Bank would disappear soon. Q: And it would be the Bank of Hugo? Chavez: No. The International Humanitarian Bank. We are just creating an alternative way to conduct financial exchange. It is based on cooperation. For example, we send oil to Uruguay for their refinery and they are paying us with cows. Q: Milk for oil. Chavez: That's right. Milk for oil. The Argentineans also pay us with cows. And they give us medical equipment to combat cancer. It's a transfer of technology. We also exchange oil for software technology. Uruguay is one of the biggest producers of software. We are breaking with the neo-liberal model. We do not believe in free trade. We believe in fair trade and exchange, not competition but cooperation. I'm not giving away oil for free. Just using oil, first to benefit our people, to relieve poverty. For a hundred years we have been one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world but with a 60 percent poverty rate and now we are canceling the historical debt. Q: Speaking of the free market, you've demanded back taxes from U.S. oil companies. You have eliminated contracts for North American, British, and European oil companies. Are you trying to slice out the British and American oil companies from Venezuela? Chavez: No, we don't want them to go, and I don't think they want to leave the country, either. We need each other. It's simply that we have recovered our oil sovereignty. They didn't pay taxes. They didn't pay royalties. They didn't give an account of their actions to the government. They had more land than had previously been established in the contracts. They didn't comply with the agreed technology exchange. They polluted the environment and didn't pay anything towards the cleanup. They now have to comply with the law. Q: You've said that you imagine the price of oil rising to $100 dollars per barrel. Are you going to use your new oil wealth to squeeze the planet? Chavez: No, no. We have no intention of squeezing anyone. Now, we have been squeezed and very hard. Five hundred years of squeezing us and stifling us, the people of the South. I do believe that demand is increasing and supply is dropping and the large reservoirs are running out. But it's not our fault. In the future, there must be an agreement between the large consumers and the large producers. Q: What happens when the oil money runs out, what happens when the price of oil falls as it always does? Will the Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chavez simply collapse because there's no money to pay for the big free ride? Chavez: I don't think it will collapse, in the unlikely case of oil running out today. The revolution will survive. It does not rely solely on oil for its survival. There is a national will, there is a national idea, a national project. However, we are today implementing a strategic program called the Oil Sowing Plan: using oil wealth so Venezuela can become an agricultural country, a tourist destination, an industrialized country with a diversified economy. We are investing billions of dollars in the infrastructure: power generators using thermal energy, a large railway, roads, highways, new towns, new universities, new schools, recuperating land, building tractors, and giving loans to farmers. One day we won't have any more oil, but that will be in the twenty-second century. Venezuela has oil for another 200 years. Q: But the revolution can come to an end if there's another coup and it succeeds. Do you believe Bush is still trying to overthrow your government? Chavez: He would like to, but what you want is one thing, and what you cannot really obtain is another. Watch my recent exclusive BBC interview with President Chavez Read the article here Also watch my LinkTV Chavez Special "Finding Bolivar's Heir" "Finding Bolivar's Heir" (Large File) "Finding Bolivar's Heir" (Small File) Greg Palast is the author of the just-released New York Times bestseller, "ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War" from which this is adapted. Go to www.GregPalast.com < http://www.gregpalast.com/> . OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |