VENEZUELA: Chavez looks for an 'axis of good'

BY STUART MUNCKTON

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has answered right-wing commentators who have attacked Brazil's new president, the Workers' Party candidate, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, with the claim that Brazil will, with Venezuela and Cuba, forge a new "axis of evil".

The accusations have linked more traditional "red-baiting", focusing on links between Lula and revolutionary Cuba, to the new bogey of terrorism, alleged links between Lula and various "terrorist" organisations from around the world.

Chavez, an outspoken critic of what he refers to as "savage capitalism", hailed Lula's victory and said he hoped to see an alliance between Cuba, Brazil and Venezuela aimed at fighting poverty. "An axis of evil?" Chavez said in an October 28 interview on his television program Hello President. "More like an 'axis of good' — good for the people, good for the future ... A new impulse of freedom is sweeping the continent again."

From Green Left Weekly, November 20, 2002.

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From GLW issue 517