Interview with Mexican Historian Enrique Krauze : Venezuela, a Democracy Committing Suicide

You even suggested that as happened in Argentina in the Falklands, Chávez could seek a war to cover up domestic tensions.

The instincts are there. Every time Chávez orders tanks to the border, or when he says that winds of war are sounding, in the background it is a performance, but the instinct is the same. I am not optimistic. Where absolute power reigns, with very few exceptions do people face the truth and then there are entire generations that come after who have to pay for what happened. Look at Argentina in 1981. When Galtieri launches Argentines into a war against England, the Argentines are absolutely convinced they would win. Outside of the country there, no one believed it, it was obvious that this was not going to last. But of course, they did it with the goal of providing an escape valve. The danger is, when cornered, what Chávez can do. The first target is the Colombian situation. Because, furthermore, in his delusional mind he is Bolivar and this is Sucre. Historical mythologies say a lot and history can be very intoxicating.

You write that in Venezuela "the dispute about the past is the dispute about on the future, why is the country fighting today?

There is an abuse of the figure of Bolivar and the texts of Bolívar, in the sense that Chávez uses it as if it were his representative, attorney and his spiritual medium. Almost as if Bolivar had spoken about him, but instead of it being in Bolivarian terms, it was in Chavista terms. That use of history by Chávez is what serious historians object to when they say that he is using Bolivar in an absolutely ahistorical way. Bolivar could not rule on the truths of the twenty-first century, did not even know anything about the issue of socialism. The manner in which Chávez has used Bolivar is totally alien to the historicity of the character. But he uses it as a source of legitimacy. He has expropriated the character and then, imperceptibly, it has been lowering Bolivar from his pedestal and has placed himself on the pedestal with Bolivar. It is elemental: the mind of this character is a mythological mind that, knowing that Bolivar was the hero of the nineteenth century and Castro the hero of the twentieth century, wants to be the hero of the twenty-first century. He is competing with Bolivar and Castro. And he thinks he's winning the fight.

What happened ten years ago when he won?

What the rise of Chávez caused in Venezuela was the resignation of the political elite, and the businessmen began to stop believing in the historical parties; many of them, including the media, went with Chávez. The case of Venezuela is extremely rare, that of a democracy committing suicide. In Venezuela there was a mass resignation of intellectuals, entrepreneurs, trade unions, the political class, they all surrendered. And if everyone surrenders, well then here comes the autocrat.

You talk about Chávez as an autocrat and criticize his willingness to perpetuate his power, what do you think of Álvaro Uribe's desire to amend the constitution to govern a third term?

I have an admiration for Uribe. He has been very courageous. And I see that in a country where the tradition is to surrender to a cult of elections and laws, it has not been bad to have a strong leader...

Many call him an autocrat...

We call him autocrat, but within the institutions. I, nevertheless, vehemently oppose reelection. Reelection is another form of resignation. It is resigning from the existence of a citizenship and from the possibility that the younger generation emerge as leaders. It is not possible for a country to say, for all the good that a president has done, "our fate depends on him." That's messianism, and all political messianism and is bad. Any perpetuation of power is bad.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón, citing Carlos Fuentes, said this week at the Bogotá Book Fair that "a society without languages is a mute society, and society without imagination is a dead society," does autocracy (caudillismo) not imply a crisis of imagination?

In Venezuela, for example, young people are premature adults. They are 23 years old and and have great political maturity. In the year 2007 they made a luxury of imagination. And the next day, nevertheless, continued onward with the military and the power of corruption and the oil and Chávez on television again and again...There is a limit, and they go on spending. To ask imagination from something that is being stifled is very difficult. As for Colombia, democracies must have alternative projects, social and economic. What is healthy is the circulation of political generations.

Changing the subject, many South American leaders are strengthening their anti-U.S. rhetoric, what can an alternative government such as that of Barack Obama do to calm the situation in the region?

I think he is playing his cards well. We can not pretend to have an administration more liberal than what is there, furthermore, American diplomacy today is keeping a low profile, the best we can do now is stand still and not give in to the provocations of Chávez. What I do object to them is that they have not yet accepted the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia. It is an error for the United States to be a military ally Colombia but not an economic ally. The U.S. Senate is still very ignorant about the region.

And what if Obama would accept the invitation from Lula to sith with South America to discuss Washington's strategy...

The dialog that the United States should be looking for is with Brazil, the great economy of the region. I still do not understand why there has not been a better convergence between Obama and Lula. In fact, that would make it easier for Cuba to transition to democracy and would soften Chávez.