[NYTr] Chasing Chavez: New Biography Due Out on Venezuelan President

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[Well, The Daily News says it's "non-partisan."  We shall see...]

New York Daily News - August 8, 2007
http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/2007/08/08/2007-08-08_chasing_chaacutevez.html


Chasing Chávez

By Carlos Rodriguez Martorell

He called George W. Bush the Devil, he loves Fidel Castro and Pat
Robertson wants him dead. That much we all know, but who is Hugo
Chávez, really?

Venezuelan journalists Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka, a
married couple, followed their president through numerous sources, from
childhood buddies to some of his many girlfriends, to come up with the
most authoritative biography to date of the most polarizing Latin
American political figure in decades. "Hugo Chávez" (Random House,
$27.95) goes on sale next Tuesday.

One of the authors' main challenges was to pick apart the man?s
contradictions -- starting with his brazen political theatrics, which
are often out of sync with his actual policies.

"Chávez is an extremely complex man who can transform depending on the
audience and his political goals," Marcano said via e-mail from
Venezuela. "But that doesn't mean that his rhetoric and his actions
never correspond," she added, pointing to the recent nationalization of
the phone and power systems and the control over some oil operations.

Sometimes the leftist leader seems to be a sleight-of-hand master. As
the book reveals, for all his insults to Bush, Chávez has spent record
amounts of money to lobby firms in Washington in order to improve
Venezuela's image in the U.S.

"Beyond the anti-imperialist rhetoric, the U.S. is Venezuela's main
commercial partner, and there are interests to be addressed," said
Marcano.

"It wouldn't surprise me," she added, "[if] in the hypothetical case
that Barack Obama won the U.S. presidency, we would see Chávez visiting
the White House." "Hugo Chávez," first published in Spanish in 2004,
recounts the extraordinary life of the man who grew up poor in the
rural town of Barinas dreaming of becoming a baseball star. Inspired by
his hero ? the Libertador Simón Bolívar ? he headed a military coup in
1992 that can only be described as disastrous. Still, an imposing TV
appearance made him a national hero, and after a stint in jail, he went
on to win the presidency in a landslide victory in 1999.

Chávez's media appeal also turned him into a kind of sex symbol. His
former girlfriend, Herma Marksman, is quoted in the book saying she
felt "like a widow" after seeing her partner of nine years turn into a
"messianic figure" and a womanizer.

To the authors' credit, they have written a nonpartisan account in an
extremely divided country.

"Political debate in Venezuela is limited to personal discrediting or
clichés instead of analyzing issues or proposing ideas," said Marcano.

Thus, she added, the opposition has failed to put forward an
alternative to promote democratic values, but Chávez doesn't help
either: "The government demonizes all dissidence and shuns any
possibility of dialogue."

President Chávez is currently planning an amendment to the constitution
he sponsored in 1999 to further develop his "Socialism of the 21st
Century."

"Only when he offers the parliament his constitutional reforms will we
know where he wants to guide the country," said Marcano.