Chicagoans is a first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. This week’s Chicagoan is Ana Gil-Garcia, 60, Venezuelan-American and Northeastern Illinois University professor.
Chavez was trained in the military, and for me, a person that is trained with such a philosophy only has one way of thinking. Because of him, the Socialist Party came to power and has remained in power. It has become a dictator type of government. A year after his inauguration, he was changing the constitution to give himself more powers. He created this sense of division in the country: “If you’re not with me, you are my enemy.” He was obsessed about how to get all the institutions under his control. Freedom of expression immediately started getting cut. Cuba had a lot to do with this—it became the number one adviser of Venezuela. Fidel [Castro] finally found somebody who really went along with his ideas about dominating Latin America. Chávez was the perfect puppet. Maybe that looks familiar, right?
