[R-G] Review of ¡Hugo!: The Definitive Chavez Biograph

[Anthony Fenton]

Review of ¡Hugo!: The Definitive Chavez Biography
by Chuck Kaufman
	
September 29, 2007

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=13916

[¡Hugo!: The Hugo Chavez Story From Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution,  
by Bart Jones Hardback, 570pgs, Steerforth Press, Sept. 2007, $30]

I am not a reader of biographies and I am not a fan of learning  
history by studying the lives of “great men.”  Having said that, I  
believe that ¡Hugo!: The Hugo Chavez Story From Mud Hut to Perpetual  
Revolution by Bart Jones is one of the most important books of 2007  
and a must read for anyone who wants a fair and balanced account of  
the great changes sweeping Venezuela and the historical roots that  
shaped the man, Hugo Chavez, and the Bolivarian process that is  
transforming the country.

Liberals and progressives in the United States have been influenced  
by the relentless Bush administration and corporate media campaign to  
depict Chavez as an autocrat who is a threat to democracy, press  
freedom, and human rights norms.  Newsday reporter and author of  
¡Hugo!, Bart Jones, has contributed a fast-paced, thoroughly  
researched and balanced book that allows the reader to make her own  
judgments.

Jones lived eight years in Venezuela arriving in 1992 just as Chavez  
and mid-level military officers were launching a failed coup against  
Carlos Andres Perez which landed Chavez in prison for two years.   
Jones lived in a poverty stricken Caracas barrio as a Maryknoll lay  
worker for the first year and a half and then landed a job as  
Associated Press correspondent through 2000.  In the barrio he lived  
across the street from a mud hut just like the one where Chavez was  
born in his grandmother’s hut.  As an AP reporter Jones lived in the  
exclusive Altamira neighborhood, a bastion of the rich opposition to  
Chavez.  He therefore has witnessed firsthand the two extremes of  
Venezuelan society.

Jones was originally interested in writing a book about the 2002  
failed coup against Chavez, but his publisher, Steerforth Press,  
convinced him to write the definitive biography to date of the man  
who is a hero to millions and a villain to a different set of  
millions, including his nemesis George W. Bush.

Jones describes the story he documented as “straight out of  
Hollywood.”  Indeed, I lost sleep two nights running because I just  
couldn’t put the book down.  I also was so engrossed in the two  
chapters about the 2002 coup that I got on the Washington, DC metro  
heading in the wrong direction and was in the suburbs before I became  
conscious of my surroundings. Despite the novel-like action pace of  
the book, it is meticulously researched with 55 pages of references  
and an extensive index.  It is not a book of fiction; it is reality  
mirroring a bestselling action novel.

One of the best features of the book is the various side trips Jones  
takes in the early chapters into Venezuelan history and key events in  
the life of Simon Bolivar and other leaders who are largely unknown  
in the United States but who are heroes in Venezuela and much of  
Latin America.  These mini history lessons greatly enhance the  
reader’s understanding of the roots of the “Bolivarian revolution”  
and how history shaped Hugo Chavez, the majority poor who adore him,  
and the minority elites who view him as an uncouth “monkey” whose  
dark skin and boisterous manner are as much a cause of their  
revulsion as his policies.

As an organizer in the US Venezuela Solidarity Network, which is  
working to build opposition to US intervention in Venezuela and  
solidarity support for the poor majority which, for the first time in  
Venezuelan history, feel like they have a stake and a role in  
determining their own fate, I was especially interested in the role  
of other Venezuelan leaders, both Chavistas and the opposition, and  
those who have moved back and forth between support and opposition.

I met many of them in October 2006 when I led a delegation to  
Venezuela to investigate how the US government was attempting to  
influence the December presidential election through spending at  
least $26 million of US taxpayer money in grants from the so-called  
National Endowment for Democracy and the US Agency for International  
Development.  The grants are overseen by a US embassy-based office  
tellingly named the Office of Transition Initiatives.  ¡Hugo!  
includes information about these “democracy” interventions as well.

If our only source of information is the Bush administration and  
corporate media, people could be forgiven for believing that  
Venezuela is a country inhabited by a single person – Hugo Chavez --  
and that he is the source of every problem.  It has long been a  
successful strategy for the US government and media to personify  
targeted countries leaders as the sole problem standing between good  
relations between the two countries.

Jones points out that Chavez’ overheated rhetoric often plays into  
the hands of those who would vilify him.  Calling Bush the “devil”  
and talking about the lingering smell of sulfur during a UN speech  
enraged even some liberals in the US although the fact that he  
received the most sustained applause of any world leader by the  
assembled UN diplomats usually goes unremarked.

But these incidents and misinformation about the decision to not  
renew the expired broadcast license of RCTV, false speculation that  
proposed constitutional amendments would make Chavez “president for  
life,” and other charges that he is “hollowing out democratic  
institutions,” have taken a toll on support among US progressives and  
liberals. ¡Hugo! details opposition charges, letting the opposition  
spokespeople damn themselves with the absurdity of their claims  
against a backdrop of a system that Venezuelans, in a poll of Latin  
Americans about the level of democracy in their respective countries,  
believe is the most democratic in Latin America.

I am an opponent of US government and corporate domination of Latin  
America and the world.  Bart Jones is an ethical reporter who may  
come off as pro-Chavez because he is imposing objectivity in an area  
where the reporting has been so biased as to distort reality to the  
breaking point.  Jones believes that both the opposition and the  
supporters of the Bolivarian “process,” as supporters have come to  
call it, have legitimate points that deserve to be discussed.  One of  
his goals was to make that possible by writing a book which upholds  
the best standards of unbiased reporting.  In the process he writes a  
“page-turner” book that will captivate and educate the reader.  This  
book belongs on the New York Times bestseller list and in the hands  
of every intellectually curious US adult who questions the right of  
the United States to rule the world.

[Chuck Kaufman is National Co-Coordinator of the Nicaragua Network  
where he has worked for 20 years.  He is Interim Coordinator of the  
new Venezuela Solidarity Network.  He can be reached at Chuck at afgj.org]