A menace to freedom

Hugo Chávez, the communist president of Venezuela, has changed his country's intelligence service and its name. Every time he makes a change, it is to add power to his dictatorship. This time, Venezuelans and foreigners are to denounce anyone whose activities, or even words, express or reflect anti-communist or anti-government sentiments. Refusal to do so will result in prison terms of two to six years.
    These changes reflect an effort to assert greater control over the citizens and institutions, just because last year he couldn't impose a constitutional reform package.
    In short, Fidel Castro did the same thing starting in the 1960s, which worked like this: Children denounced parents and parents denounced their children, with members of a family becoming informants for the government. Neighbor against neighbor, friends as enemies and every block of each town or city had secret police and community monitoring groups.
    For example, a father was against the Cuban communist regime, but nobody knew but his family. Then, after the intelligence overhaul, one of his children denounced his father’s way of thinking government-wise. That man was imprisoned, but his son was interrogated about why he had never said it before, and he also ended up in jail. If you multiple those scenes by the thousands, almost everyone was in danger of ending up in jail.
    This kind of "regulation" made fear contaminate the air we — and they still do — breathed in Cuba. Now, it's the Venezuelans’ turn. Before I had the opportunity to hear about some cases where we happened to know the families, I thought those situations were only part of movies, stories or books about the Nazis.
    Actions by the secret police against citizens are intimidating and threatening, but it is unbearable when the accusation comes from a member of the family, a friend or a neighbor. Monitoring also works to denounce anyone who has extra food that wasn't provided through the government's ration book. These ration books are not food stamps, absolutely not. Food stamps are to help people and ration books are to keep the records, but the recipient has to pay high prices for staples.
    Chávez’s latest decree is an effort to assert greater control over public institutions and people in general, due to several setbacks in the last year, when he lost the election to reform the Venezuelan constitution. He says this move is to guarantee national security and defend against "imperialists’ attacks.” He calls Americans imperialists.
    When I was still in Cuba, Fidel made holes for dynamite in a brand-new highway to be ready for the imminent American invasion. This took place in the 1960s. I bet he ruined the road for nothing because U.S. has never even thought of invading Cuba.
    People fear the controlling minds of Castro and Chávez. They play a kind of war game where they decide who is the enemy and meanwhile, they insult the United States, its government and institutions.
    Hugo Chávez is seeing a fierce backlash from human rights groups, because his actions are seen as creating  a society of informers.
    Evidently, Chávez is an advanced student of Fidel Castro's treacheries.