http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/world/americas/11venezuela.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
Chávez Begins New Term Vowing Socialism Leslie Mazoch/Associated Press President Hugo Chavez took the oath of office after a sweeping victory that has given him free reign to pursue more radical changes. By SIMON ROMERO Published: January 11, 2007 CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan. 10 - President Hugo Chávez was sworn in to a new six-year term at a ceremony here on Wednesday in which he described Jesus as "the greatest socialist in history" and pledged to speed Venezuela's metamorphosis into a Socialist country. "Fatherland! Socialism or death, I swear it!" Mr. Chávez yelled as he was sworn in and given the presidential sash and a golden key to the tomb where the remains of Simón Bolívar, the South American liberator, are interred. In his speech, the president defended his decision this week to nationalize companies in the telecommunications and electricity industries and promised to seek greater control over natural gas projects. He also renewed his request to Congress for decree powers, saying a "revolutionary law of laws" would allow him to hasten the construction of Socialism. Since his re-election last month, Mr. Chávez has moved swiftly to group his varied supporters into a single Socialist party. In addition to his nationalization campaign, he has called for the end of the central bank's independence from politics and the rewriting of the commercial code. Headlines in the afternoon newspapers here reflected continuing polarization over his ideas. "Socialism Has Arrived," proclaimed El Mundo, which, like most Venezuelan newspapers is friendly to Mr. Chávez's government. Tal Cual, a small opposition paper, titled its main editorial "The Monarch." Teodoro Petkoff, editor of Tal Cual, said Mr. Chávez's "21st-century Socialism" had exhibited the same autocratic characteristics of Socialist movements of the 20th century. Others pointed to the president's political instincts as an explanation for his sharp ideological turn. Fernando Coronil, an authority on Venezuelan history at the University of Michigan, said Mr. Chávez was acutely aware of his supporters' high expectations of change. His effort to redefine the ideological and organization basis of his government, from the creation of a single party to the concentration of power in the presidency, are a response to that reading of popular sentiment, Mr. Coronil said. "People voted for Chávez but didn't give him a blank check," he said. "Now he has to pay back." In his speech on Wednesday, Mr. Chávez, who hinted at the possibility of seeking another term once this one ends in 2012, seemed to evoke Fidel Castro's leftward ideological evolution in the years after taking power in Cuba in 1959. Mr. Chávez, who has forged a tight economic alliance with Cuba, peppered his speech with references to the works of two Italian Marxist theorists, Antonio Gramsci and Antonio Negri. He weaved in quotations from Napoleon and Trotsky, saying Trotsky had the right idea when he said, "The revolution never ends." He also quoted liberally from the writings of Bolívar and the Bible. He railed against his domestic political opponents and dissidents in the Roman Catholic Church, singling out Archbishop Roberto Luckert of Coro, who recently criticized the president's decision not to renew the broadcast license of RCTV, one of Venezuela's oldest television stations. "Monsignor Luckert is going to wait for me in hell," he said. After his speech, Mr. Chávez traveled to Managua to attend a similar ceremony for Daniel Ortega, the former Sandinista guerrilla leader elected president of Nicaragua. Venezuela is preparing to sign a farreaching economic assistance agreement with Nicaragua [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
