Dilip Hiro, Guardian Comment is Free, July 6:
Buoyed by his re-election as president of Venezuela last December, and the continuing high price of petroleum in which his country abounds, Hugo Chávez is busily rallying countries opposed to United States’ hegemony in world affairs. He is doing so while preparing Venezuelans to develop resistance war as an effective anti-imperialist tool to counter Washington’s non-military campaign to overthrow his socialist government and seize Venezuela’s vast oil resources – an assessment disputed by the Bush administration.
To further these broad objectives, he recently undertook a week-long trip to Russia, Belarus and Iran.
Addressing a meeting in Moscow, Chávez urged his audience to remember Vladimir Lenin and “once again come back to his ideas, especially when it comes to anti-imperialism”. And alluding to the American policy-makers, he said: “They don’t want Russia to keep rising. But Russia has risen again as a centre of power, and we, the people of the world, need Russia to become stronger.”
Chávez singled out the pioneering flight of the Russian Sukhoi jet fighters over Venezuela’s independence day celebrations two years ago, on July 5 2005, as the moment when “we broke the fetters of dependence on the US.” This was in tune with his advocacy of a multi-polar world, which offers countries and peoples “real freedom”, not an American version, which allows Washington to “threaten nations and destroy cities” – an obvious reference to Iraq.