Dead Socialist Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez was praised throughout his life by many figures in academia, journalism and Hollywood despite his brutal regime.
This praise included Salon writer David Sirota’s piece after the leader’s death, titled “Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle.” In British publication The New Statesman, a headline as Chavez was nearing death in January 2013 was “Hugo Chavez: Man against the world,” and its sub-headline read “As illness ends Hugo Chavez’s rule in Venezuela, what will his legacy be? Richard Gott argues he brought hope to a continent.”
This praise of Chavez by so many who enjoyed the benefits of living in a capitalist society while looking at the economic record of the late leader, as well as what his succcesor President Nicolas Maduro, has come undone.
Mexican NGO, the Citizens’ Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, published its annual ranking of urban crime in January 2016, and found that in 2015, Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, was the most murderous place on Earth. Caracas has 119.87 murders per 100,000 people. Other than personal concerns for safety, Venezuelans suffer from lacking economic opportunity due to low oil prices and government mismanagement of the state-owned oil firm.
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