In addition to a representation in Asuncion, the group has a broad social base made of landless campesinos, indigenous people and left wing sectors.

Ultima Hora reported that its declaration of principles identify it within a socialist line.

Lugo has announced his resignation from religious life to allow to devote himself full time to politics, and has a list of 100 thousand backers.

The Paraguay Constitution prohibits a religious minister from occupying the presidency.

He also admitted that he would like to have a woman accompany him on the ticket as vice president.

According to ABC Color, the Paraguayan scene is moving towards a change because of the crisis of the traditional parties.

That entity s national survey gave the 55-year-old bishop a majority against President Nicanor Duarte if elections were held now.

Notwithstanding that interring caudillos has not been a consuming passion of Latin America's ruling elite (or U.S. policy makers), it is fitting that the Times reporter sided with that elite. A few years later, in April 2002, following Chávez's re-election by an even greater margin, Times editors cheered a coup against Chávez by Venezuelan elites (Extra! Update, 6/02), declaring in Orwellian fashion that thanks to the overthrow of the elected president, "Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator."

For Pedro Carmona-the man who took power in Chávez's brief absence, declaring an actual dictatorship by dismissing the Venezuelan legislature, Supreme Court and other democratic institutions-Times editors had much nicer language, calling the former head of Venezuela's chamber of commerce "a respected business leader."

Following Chávez's return to office a few days later, Times editors issued a grudging reappraisal of their coup endorsement (Extra! Update!, 6/02). Still insisting that Chávez was "a divisive and demagogic leader," the editors averred that the forcible removal of a democratically elected leader "is never something to cheer."

As if this pro-opposition bias were not enough, in January 2003 the Times was forced to dismiss one of its Venezuela reporters, a Venezuelan national named Francisco Toro, when it was revealed that Toro was an anti-Chávez activist (FAIR Action Alert, 6/6/03).

The Times anti-Chávez campaign was manifest in a recent book review (9/17/06) of Nikolas Kozloff's Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the United States, in which Times business columnist Roger Lowenstein rebuked the author for praising the Chávez government, explaining that Chávez "has militarized the government, emasculated the country's courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy and hollowed out Venezuela's once-democratic institutions." But Lowenstein failed to provide much evidence for his charges-a frequent characteristic of Chávez bashing-or to note that similar charges can be made against other governments, including one much closer to home.

Calling names

The New York Times is not alone. A Newsweek column (11/7/05) asserted that Venezuela has turned to "destructive populism" under Chávez, while a news report in the magazine (10/31/05) cited the "increasingly authoritarian tilt of the Chávez regime, which has packed the Venezuelan judiciary with pliable magistrates and enacted legislation curtailing press freedoms." In his May 2006 Atlantic profile, New Republic editor Franklin Foer complained that under Chávez's presidency Venezuela had taken an "anti-democratic turn."

The Washington Post's news pages have relentlessly criticized Chávez in news stories, calling him "autocratic" (8/12/04) and "authoritarian" (8/7/06). However, a much more ferocious campaign is waged against Chávez on the Post's editorial and op-ed pages. In one column after another, the Post's opinion pages have charged him with assaulting democracy and stifling dissent. In one column (10/16/06), deputy editorial editor Jackson Diehl called Chávez an "autocratic demagogue" and accused him of "dismantl[ing] Venezuela's democracy." Editorial page editor Fred Hiatt (12/26/05) explained that Chávez had "consolidated one-party rule and moved to export his brand of populist autocracy to neighboring nations."

Even putative liberal commentators have joined the media chorus. On the O'Reilly Factor (12/5/05), Fox News contributor and NPR reporter Juan Williams said of Venezuela, "What you're seeing there is really communism." In September, when Democratic operatives Paul Begala and James Carville appeared on New York City public radio station WNYC (9/25/06), Begala told host Brian Lehrer that Chávez was "an autocrat, not a democrat," and said he had "a terrible human rights record." Carville told Lehrer, "I've worked in Venezuela and I would be very reluctant to call Chávez a democrat." What Carville didn't say was that he worked in Venezuela as an advisor to Venezuelan opposition groups leading an economically devastating strike by managers of the national oil company in an effort to destabilize the government (Washington Post, 1/20/03).

Is Venezuela undemocratic? And is Hugo Chávez an autocrat who has consolidated one-party rule? An examination of Venezuelan elections, governing institutions and public opinion indicates otherwise.

Certified elections

Venezuela has held half-a-dozen major elections for national offices and issues since 1998, the year of Chávez's first presidential victory. That election saw Chávez beating his nearest rival by 16 percentage points, 56 percent to 40 percent, in a vote that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called "a remarkable demonstration of democracy in its purest form." (Chicago Tribune, 12/8/98.) In 2000, in a re-election required by the new Venezuelan constitution, Chávez increased his winning margin, 60 percent to 38 percent. In each case the elections were monitored and certified by a variety of observers including the Organization of American States, the European Union and the Carter Center.

A 1999 referendum backed by Chávez, which called for the convening of a constituent assembly to draft a new Venezuelan constitution, passed with 72 percent of the vote, in an election likewise certified by international observers. The resulting constitution, which strengthened the office of the president, also set up clear checks and balances between five branches of government, including a provision for a recall vote to remove the president after the mid-point in a presidential term was reached. (See box: "Unseparate and Unequal?")

This provision was invoked in 2004 when the opposition amassed the required signatures over challenges by the Chávez government and a recall was held in August. Despite the U.S. bankrolling some of the opposition groups organizing the recall through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the secretive Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), Chávez retained his office with 58 percent of the vote (Christian Science Monitor, 2/6/06).*

Though the OAS and Carter Center certified the recall referendum as fair, some opposition groups, like the anti-Chávez, NED-funded Sumate, charged (and continue to charge) a fraudulent vote tally. Such charges have been largely dismissed by an otherwise anti-Chávez U.S. press, but Sumate has managed to convince Washington Post editor Jackson Diehl of the righteousness of its cause. More than a year after the failed referendum (4/10/06), Diehl wrote favorably of "the election-monitoring group Sumate, which has meticulously documented Chávez's manipulation of the electoral system."

Sumate is not an "election-monitoring group," but a prominent political opposition group that spearheaded the recall. The group's co-founder, María Corina Machado, was a coup supporter who signed the 2002 Carmona Decree that suspended Venezuela's democracy. No actual election monitoring group challenged the referendum's official results (Miami Herald, 7/8/05).

A legislative election in December 2005 ended with a twist when four opposition parties decided to withdraw their candidates, allowing Chávez allies to win virtually all the seats. Not that they would have done well had they stayed in the race. As Venezuela political observer and Chávez critic Alberto Garrido told the New York Times (12/5/05), "Chávez would have annihilated them anyway." The predictable dominance of a Chávez-aligned coalition in the legislature was followed by a column by Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt (12/26/05) that charged Chávez had "consolidated one-party rule."

Participatory democracy

Free elections are a necessary condition for democracy, but aren't sufficient evidence to ensure that a functioning democracy is in place. Actual democracy depends on how elected institutions function and on day-to-day citizen involvement in between elections.

During his tenure, Chávez has tried to implement an agenda he has alternately called "21st century socialism" and "capitalism with a human face," which he says takes into account socialism's past failures. But rumors of communism in Venezuela are greatly exaggerated. The private sector has actually grown during his presidency. According to the Associated Press (7/7/06), Venezuelan central bank statistics show "the private sector accounted for more of the economy last year, 62.5 percent of gross domestic product, than when [Chávez] was elected in 1998, when it stood at 59.3 percent."

This doesn't mean Chávez isn't a strong believer in the public sector and a government supported cooperative sector, particularly when it comes to programs for the poor. He has created a series of programs dubbed "missions" to fight poverty, malnutrition, disease, illiteracy and other pressing social problems. In many cases, the administration, budgeting and other decision-making for these programs have been delegated to neighborhood councils located in Venezuela's poor neighborhoods. Even New Republic editor Franklin Foer (Atlantic, 5/06) conceded the impact of the missions:

Chavista investments in the slums are obvious. For the first time, blighted neighborhoods have government-subsidized grocery stores, access to the Internet, and doctors tending to their children. These improvements have translated into palpable optimism. Some polls show that Venezuelans are more sanguine about their economic future than Canadians or Americans.

Charges that Chávez has "militarized" the Venezuelan government (New York Times, 9/17/06) have their origins in an early Chávez government program. In 1999, when a recession left Venezuela short of money to fund poverty programs, Chávez implemented "Plan Bolívar 2000," under which the underutilized military was ordered to construct housing, build roads and carry out mass vaccination drives-hardly what one imagines upon hearing warnings of government militarization.

Venezuela's aggressive anti-poverty programs and "participatory democracy" have energized the poor and given them a stake in the country's fortunes. By the democratic measure of citizen involvement, Venezuela is doing rather better than many democracies. And Venezuelans seem to agree; a 2005 Latinobarometro poll surveying opinion in 18 Latin American countries found Venezuelans near the top in their preference for democracy over other forms of government, and in satisfaction with how their democracy is functioning. The poll found Venezuelans considered their country "totally democratic" at a higher percentage than in any other nation in Latin America.

* The NED has given $2.9 million in "pro-democracy" grants to Venezuelan groups since 2002; the more secretive OTI, a branch of USAID whose website says it works to "support U.S. foreign policy objectives," has spent over $26 million in Venezuela to "strengthen democratic institutions" since 2002 (AP, 8/27/06).

Research assistance: Matt Briere

Was it my imagination or were there lots of sad faces at last night's meeting at the Teresa Carrena theatre -- the site of so many Bolivarian rallies and celebrations? Certainly, here was another occasion for celebration. It was a meeting to recognize the electoral triumph of Hugo Chavez on 3 December and, in particular, to acknowledge the contribution of campaign workers organized in the Comando Miranda.

And, acknowledge they did: certificates were given to the state organizations which produced the greatest votes for Chavez's re-election: Amacuro Delta (77.98%), Amazon (77.81%), Portuguesa (77.05%), Sucre (73.70%), and Cojedes (73.33%) -- as well as to exemplary municipal battalions such as Rio Negro (96.4%). Definitely a time to celebrate.

So, why those glum faces? Well, it had to do with Chavez himself. Now, I've seen many Chavez speeches on the Channel 8, the state TV station. And, they've run the gamut -- those electric occasions in which high velocity currents flow between the red-shirted Chavez and red-shirted supporters (especially women) lifting them higher and higher, the meetings where Ministers and prominent leaders smile and chuckle on cue and wish for just-a-little-mention, and the similar gatherings where businessmen-who-want-to-do-business-with-the-state listen to the blue-suited Chavez for hints about their future. But this was like none of those occasions.

Last night, there were cheers in the back half of the theatre and in "the gods" -- but few in the high-priced seats. And, it had to do with Chavez's message. Not the part about going toward socialism (although there would have been some who still shudder at the word but who have retained hopes at working on the modifying adjective). And, not the part about asking all his Ministers for their resignation (because that can be just a formality but also does open up the possibility of new appointments). And, not the attacks on corruption (which have been heard before). No, it was all about the new party, the "unique party."

Many of those present have been looking forward to this idea -- ever since Chavez announced earlier this year that 2007 would be a year to create this unified party. After all, the battles among the various Chavista parties have been growing more intense recently. (And, so have the struggles among the various factions of the MVR, the Movement for the 5th Republic, the electoral party that Chavez formed initially.) Accordingly, the idea of bringing unity to an often-dysfunctional team did have its appeal (and not the least to Chavez, who was well aware of problems in the MVR and the other parties).

Of course, the terms of unification were unclear, and the MVR domination of the Comando Miranda didn't inspire confidence in the smaller Chavist parties. So, it wasn't surprising, after electoral results in which the prominently-placed MVR slot overwhelmingly captured the Chavez vote, that there were mutterings from that camp that the MVR is the party (and that all others should dissolve) or that the MVR initiated moves for the delisting of all parties which failed to receive 1% of the vote (which would remove all but 4 of the Chavista parties).

But, last night Chavez offered some surprises. The MVR is history, he said. The new party (provisionally called the United Socialist Party of Venezuela) will be there for all the parties to join or, alternatively, to separate themselves from the government. But this, he stressed, will not be a party that combines the existing parties. Rather, it will be a party that can only be built from the base. In your communities, in your patrols, battalions, squadrons, identify your neighbours who are supporters of the Revolution -- you know who they are, he proposed. Do a census, build the party from below. Make it a party that is not built for electoral purposes (although able to engage in electoral battles); make it a party that can fight the Battle of Ideas, one that can fight for the socialist project, one that allows us to read and discuss the way forward. Make this party the most democratic in the history of Venezuela.

And, choose your true leaders, which only the base can do. There's been too much anointing of people from above with a pointing finger (especially mine). Choose the people you have faith in, whom you know -- not the thieves, the corrupt, the irresponsible, the drunkards. The bad boys must be kept outside. We need to stress socialist morals, socialist ethics.

All this was bad news enough for the politicians accustomed to the practices of the 4th Republic and those who had adopted them to succeed. But, the real dagger came with a message which summed it all up succinctly: "The new party cannot be the sum of old faces. That would be a deceit."

And Chavez said to those representatives of the old parties: we don't have the time for endless debates about this. We have to build this new party from below now. So, you decide what you are going to do because there's no time to lose.

Small wonder that there were glum faces at this celebration. The battle for a new party of the revolution and to build socialism is underway.

Harnecker has been involved in the formation and development of Venezuela's Communal Councils - bodies intended to be vehicles for popular power and public participation in the process of creating "socialism of the 21st century". Harnecker was interviewed by Green Left Weekly in late October.

How were the Communal Councils created and how is the process going?

What I have done in the past year is to look for interesting experiences, to find people who can exchange experiences. In Cumana, [in north-eastern Venezuela], I discovered that an organisation had existed for many years before the Communal Councils came into being. It was organised within a very small space, smaller than a barrio (neighbourhood), 200-400 families. And in some rural zones, you need even less, say 100 families, in an area where everybody knows each other, and you don't even need transport to get to meetings. It's easy to meet. It is a space that allows everyone to participate.

Evidently, the people who thought about this, discovered that such a small space allows the people who do not normally have a great ability to express themselves ... to express their opinions and to make decisions. As Freddy Bernal [mayor of Libertador municipality in central Caracas] said, [the Communal Council] is a basic cell of the future society.

If we are successful in constructing communities that orientate toward solidarity, the people will be concerned with the poor people who live in their area. Within [a framework of] solidarity, they look for a solution for this sector ...

Chavez was looking at different formulas for popular organisations. The Bolivarian Circles are more within a broad political framework. They are organisations aimed at political power. The Communal Councils include both those who are with Chavez and those who are not. They are the community: the Communal Councils must reflect all the colours of a rainbow; must cover everyone who wants to work for the community, without political affiliations, without government associations ...

Through this project, when one begins to work for the community, one begins to put solidarity in the forefront, one begins to be transformed. I think this will replace "Chavismo". At times, people think that to be involved politically one has to go out with placards, banners, red [caps and T-shirts]. The people in this period in which the world is living think that politics is [limited to a formal political] practice.

If you organise in the barrio, the organisation is on a much smaller scale. You need a person who is flexible, not sectarian, with the capacity to work with everyone - carrying out projects, trying to solve the problems of the people ...

In an article I wrote about the 4 million votes that were cast in the 2004 referendum to remove Chavez, I said that 3 million of those did not really vote against the Chavez project. They only voted against the Chavez project as it was presented by the opposition. Only about 1 million who voted against Chavez were completely convinced and knew what they were doing. The other 3 million were influenced by the opposition media, which say the Chavez project is a project of "communism", authoritarianism, dictatorship ...

When people become involved in practical work, they can begin to see that Chavez is an open, direct person, and that the president's project isn't what they thought it was. In regard to the election, the problem is that many people are not fully informed. There are many people who are anti-Chavista who have been misinformed by the opposition media in this country. The media do not respect the basic right of people to be properly informed.

Middle-class people are more susceptible to the media's work. The media manipulates the situation by beginning with small truths, and small failures, which they then exaggerate ...

What role does the workers' movement play in relation to community organising?

Logically, we accept that in general the experience of popular power means that, as it is based on territorial spaces, the workers do not appear [directly] as active members. I remember a very interesting discussion in Cuba, when they were planning popular power through electoral registrations. Inevitably, the neighbour who proposed a candidate in their area would choose the person who could solve the most practical problems within the community. This meant it was difficult, up to now, for the workers to be directly involved.

Because of this, in Cuba, it was suggested that there be two forms of choosing candidates, one territorial and the other at the workplace - two ways of deciding ... In Venezuela, up to now, we don't have unity of the workers within the [revolution]. The union movement is not strong enough at this stage.

I have said to the trade unions, "Why don't you strengthen the communal councils, by integrating with them? You, as workers, should be involved in the community." Up to now, they have not done this.

We should think of the communal councils as a central community of workers, [as well as of neighbours]. To me, it is very important to consider the micro-economy and the necessity to bring in economic organisations so that they can be democratised, in the direction of solidarity and not of corporatism. There should be a close link between the organisation of work and the community.

Could you describe how the Communal Councils work?

There are now 16,000 CCs, established in six months [since the start of the program this year]. It is a very serious initiative, in my opinion. The CC process requires many months to allow people to mature, and to elect true leaders. We began with a process involving motivators. The committee of motivators have to go house-to-house to make a census. This is one of the most basic jobs - a socioeconomic census. It requires the committee to visit all the households in the area.

It seems that it needs serious and diligent leaders who are capable of going house-to-house. Because of this, we think it would not be possible to elect spokespeople for the CC without going through this process. There should be an assembly first, and then an election.

There has to be a team, a promotions commission, who should do this social and geographic history - the story of the community. [To achieve this], it would take at least eight months. When they have the meeting of the assembly, they will elect the future spokespeople. Then the process is approved [legally]. Some of the CCs are working okay, others are not.

Another very important thing is that the CC has the opportunity to elect a new leadership ... The leadership must be elected by a general assembly where anyone can be proposed. The spokespeople are not the assembly - they are not the organisation. The assembly must ratify the proposals - whether from a committee for housing, or a committee for health. If someone who becomes the spokesperson does not have the confidence of the assembly, the CC will not work.

It is a democratic way to renovate the leadership, and permits the assembly to choose a new leadership. I think the law respects this will of the assembly. I was part of the group that oversaw the formation of the CCs. In the law it is very clear: Where is the power? The power is not with the spokespeople - it is with the general assembly. Why are they called "voceros"? Because they are the voice of the community. If they lose the position of spokesperson, they stop having any power ...

I think this is an experimental way of organising popular power. But, for me, it is the future direction we should be taking. This is the basic idea: not from above.

It also depends on the type of problem. There are problems that require the involvement of various CCs, because they are problems of the whole barrio - for example, the water pipes that pass through the whole barrio. This must be resolved at the level of the Barrio Council. The stairs, the lighting, the rubbish - you can resolve these within the CC. These CCs are the base - very democratic; a scheme for participation ...

They are looking for ways to prioritise the things the community can resolve: but not to create a kind of "begging" neighbourhood that sees a problem, and just calls on the state to resolve it ...

These are methods that allow the community to resolve issues ... We make an assessment and prioritise problems: what the community can resolve, and what it can't. The "voices" of the different communities must discuss these problems at a higher level.

This is how solidarity begins, because you start to see that your problem is wider than your small reality, and you must help others. Thus, the Communal Councils are more of a school for political formation. I think popular power, when it is really democratic, is the best school, because it produces this process. This is because you have been fighting for your house, your land. And you begin to realise that your house is in a barrio, and the barrio is in a city ...

What are some of the differences between the Cuban experience, and Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution, with its missions and so on?

I think this revolution has been carried out through the peaceful route, but the president has not been disarmed. In the Chilean case [Salvador Allende's left-wing government in the early 1970s], it was the peaceful way, but not armed. It did not have military support. Venezuela is very powerful, because it is armed, with the backing of the National Armed Forces. Nevertheless, it has been a process in which the correlation of forces means that the president could not impose a project on the country. The Venezuelan process obliges the government to achieve harmony.

The project has gained consensus with most of the sectors of society. Consequently, this obliges the transformation to be much slower. The state apparatus means that you have 80% or more of people employed in the government through clientalism, who are not interested in working. It is a public service, but it does not function. The majority of public servants are not public servants; they work against the public ...

[Venezuela] is a "rentier" country that does not have a high level of industrial development. The great majority of workers are in the informal sector. In Cuba, the revolution undertook [socialist] projects almost immediately. Instead, here, the series of battles are primarily ideological.

Thus, the direction of popular power is important, because they need time for the project to mature. With the peaceful route, it is much slower than a sharp transformation of the state.

Could you comment on Chavez's project for "socialism of the 21st century"?

The truth is we have many critics. Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan writer, said that when socialism failed in the Soviet Union, the West said that socialism died and so did Marxism. Galeano said that the socialism that is dead is not our socialism, because the socialist project that we are defending is fundamentally humanist, democratic and based on solidarity. The socialism that died was a bureaucratic socialism that the people did not defend, because there was no real participation.

I think Chavez knows this. Chavez knows that you can only create a socialist society of the future if the people, the most humble, the poorest, the most exploited, participate in this process. The great merit of Chavez is that he is a leader who promotes popular organisation - who is convinced that the force of this process is in the organisation. Chavez is always calling for more organisations and inventing new organisations. At times, too many. It is a creativity that gives the possibility that everybody can be organised.

Everything would indicate there was no other recourse left available to Bush than rummaging round in his father's closet when the time came to recruit high-ranking officials for his declining government.

Norman Bailey, whom John Negroponte - another leftover from the Reagan connection and currently national director of US intelligence - has recently named as head of the US intelligence mission for the two sister nations, has a longstanding curriculum with the CIA, that is certainly not lacking in inconsistencies and foolish mistakes.

His official biography indicates that Bailey is an "economic consultant" and "professor" of Washington's Potomac Foundation, a conservative think-tank embedded within the network of low-ranking Republican officials.

Former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan for international economic affairs and a member of the National Security Council (NSC), he urged the NSA - the electronic espionage agency that monitors the post - to spy on the movement of money on a worldwide scale.

He has his own lobbying office - Norman A. Bailey Incorporated - that has even advised the Mobil Oil firm.

But aside from all his titles and covers, this rotund sexagenarian, who was trained in military intelligence and graduated from Colombia University, has acted for many decades as a beachhead for the CIA, most notably with respect to Latin American governments which, after having placed their trust in him, have seen their own downfall.

In 1989, when the US. invasion of Panama was being prepared, it was he who handled the plans of George Bush Sr. in the State Department and the CIA.

It is said that it was thanks to his indiscretions, perhaps inspired by Otto Reich, that journalist Seymour Hersch published a veritable flurry of alleged crimes committed by Manuel Noriega in The New York Times, which gave rise to a widespread international campaign of discredit and a series of undercover operations.

He then advised Noriega and "accompanied" him to the disastrous denouement of the crisis that took the Panamanian president straight to a US jail cell, in the midst of a veritable massacre of poor Panamanians from the most marginal neighborhoods in the capital.

With the same shamelessness, he developed a close relationship with Argentine president Eduardo Duhalde, in the guise of a great U.S. financial expert - his favorite role - following the abrupt end of the De la Rúa government in December 2001, when the Argentine economy was in tatters.

On March 8, 2002, the Clarín daily, with admirable innocence, announced that "the president is now receiving advice from his American consultants" and that the previous day at the presidential palace he had met with Norman Bailey, "who advised (George W. Bush) in his campaign" with the aim of "improving his contacts in the USA."

He recommended that the vulnerable president fiercely repress social unrest or, if a strong hand did not work in the short term, to call elections as a means of diversion. He also recommended that Duhalde issue trusteeship bonds for state land.

Shortly after receiving such great advice from an "independent" advisor who belonged to both the CIA and the most intimate circles of the current occupant of the White House, Duhalde ended up in the inexorable archives of history.

He continued his links with Latin America. It is said that he made an appearance during the dollarization process in Ecuador and also participated in the conception of Plan Colombia.

But the thing that stands out most on his résumé is his confessed friendship with Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., former presidential candidate and prominent member of the far right in the US, who runs an intelligence network, the breadth and efficiency of which he has publicly praised.

In December 1999, in a cable from Washington which condemned the appearance of "new threats to the security of the United States in Latin America", the US AP agency quoted Bailey rudely attacking Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had been democratically elected the previous year.

In his lecture, Bailey declared that the government of Ecuador was "totally bankrupt", suggesting that "military intervention" should not be ruled out. Speaking of Panama, he said then that it was a country that was vulnerable to guerilla incursions and that possibilities for sabotaging the Canal are "enormous" allowing him, of course, to dream of another adventure in that nation.

In March 2001, in The Washington Times, the current Chief Spy against Cuba and Venezuela openly expressed his desire for a drop in oil prices which, he commented, would have "disastrous consequences" for Venezuela.

Bailey then blurted out an example of his unsubtle vision of Latin America: "Thinking that Bush needs Kirchner to contain Chávez is idiotic."

Reports of US troops being sent in alleged "humanitarian" missions to Peru, Panama, Paraguay and other Latin American countries may be a new scheme, Bailey-Bush style, to subvert the newly-elected governments and their neighbors in the region.

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(*) Based on a report by Jean-Guy Allard of Granma International, posted on this date.