Hugo Chavez Love Fest Tour
South American bad boy, Hugo Chávez has just completed a world tour love fest which included Libya, Iran, Algeria, Syria, Turkmenistan, Belarus and Russia. He even found time to visit Spain and was all smiles when he joined his favorite film director Oliver Stone at the Venice film festival. Chávez stars in Stone’s latest distortion of fact and history in the documentary movie, “South of the Border.”
The Economist noted that on his jaunt he was decorated by Libya’s leader, Muammar Qaddafi and embraced by Aleksandr Lukashenko, president of Belarus.
The Digital Freedom Network states that Lukashenko “is often referred to as “Europe’s Last Dictator.” According to the U.S. State Department, he has manipulated the constitution to extend his term in office, the judiciary is an arm of his regime, and the government restricts freedom of the press. Journalists are imprisoned and political opponents are attacked for expressing opposition viewpoints.”
The entire trip was copiously anointed with tirades against the U.S. and admiration for any country that held similar views as his own.
The Economist added that, “Apart from discussing weapons and oil with the Russians, he also courted condemnation by inviting Sudan’s pariah president, Omar al-Bashir, to Caracas, and breezily announced a nuclear co-operation deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president.”
The resumes of some of his hosts during the trip are quite incredible. For example, Sudan’s president, Omar al- Bashir is the first head of state to be charged with war crimes by the international criminal court in The Hague.
The Christian Science Monitor reported that Chávez announced that Russia will lend his country $2.2 billion to update its military arsenal. The money will be used to purchase 92 T-72 tanks and an S-300 anti-aircraft rocket system.
With the mountainous Venezuelan terrain and thick jungles, he failed to include the bull dozers that would be necessary to modify the landscape for tank warfare.
