Tracking Hurricane Hugo

By Tim Padgett/Caracas

When Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, talks about the Bush Administration, he does so with invective that can be both bellicose and sophomoric. Since he became President in 1999, Chavez has publicly, in Spanish, called Bush an a______who is trying to assassinate him. He has referred to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as an "illiterate" who has a crush on him. Chavez often airs his attacks on Alo Presidente, a weekly, hours-long television call-in show from the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas. His fulminations are such a hit with Venezuelan supporters that Chavez has broadened his audience. During a recent live broadcast, he exhorted people across the region to join his anti-U.S. campaign. "Latin America," he said, "is done kneeling to take orders from the White House."

Hearing that bluster, one might assume that Chavez fancies himself a 21st century Fidel Castro. Chavez does idolize Castro, rarely missing an opportunity to be seen with the Cuban leader--like last week, when, with Castro at his side, he announced a regional "solidarity" fund to give cash-strapped Caribbean countries cheaper access to Venezuelan oil. Although Chavez was democratically elected, he flirts with autocracy. And he indulges in Castroesque paranoia about the U.S.: This summer Venezuelan civilians are training alongside the army in antiaircraft and antitank warfare so they will be able to thwart the next Bay of Pigs.

Yet for all that, Chavez is not, so far, a dictator. But he has one thing that Castro did not, and that is why his rhetoric is being taken more seriously from the barrios of Caracas to the hallways of Washington. Chavez controls the hemisphere's largest oil reserves and is the U.S.'s fourth largest foreign supplier. As oil prices hit $60 per bbl. this summer, his government reaped a multibillion-dollar windfall. Chavez has used that, and his rising prestige in the region, to lead a political shift in Latin America that is buzzing like a Che Guevara souvenir convention. With the Bush Administration tied up in the global war on terrorism, Chavez and his allies have mounted an assault on U.S.-backed free-market reforms that are allegedly widening the gap between the region's rich and poor. Since Chavez was elected in 1998 (and again in a special 2000 election), leftist leaders like him have taken power or are leading voter polls in eight countries, including the two largest, Brazil and Mexico. The most recent domino to fall was Bolivia. Last month an uprising by indigenous citizens demanding the nationalization of the country's natural-gas reserves toppled the President, Bolivia's second to go in less than two years. Says Evo Morales, the rebellion's leftist leader, who is a favorite to win a presidential election later this year: "Chavez is our example."

There is so far no evidence that Chavez is financing the rippling revolts. But while the Bush Administration continues to regard Chavez as a "negative force," as Rice calls him, some U.S. officials feel it is time to stop dismissing him as a hothead with a dubious popular mandate--especially because he is likely to win another six-year term next year. Chavez "may be a radical," says a high-ranking U.S. official, "but he's a radical with deep pockets."

Chavez, 50, who led a failed coup in 1992--he still wears his red army beret at rallies--was elected on a wave of anger at Venezuela's epic corruption. Since then he has faced a coup attempt, a general strike and a recall referendum--all of which, he says, were aided by the U.S. But he survived them, thanks to an inept opposition and Venezuela's legions of poor, whose barrios now get schools, bodegas, potable water and free clinics. Chavez, who grew up in the poor rural state of Barinas, holds that base with his earthy and confrontational llanero (cowboy) touch. During last year's referendum campaign he employed a Venezuelan folk song in which a llanero beats the devil in a singing contest. Chavez cast himself as the llanero and Bush as Satan. "He has enormous communications talent," says Alberto Barrera, co-author of a biography of Chavez. "He has created his own populist myth, and the U.S. can't figure out how to discredit it."

The myth does deserve some puncturing. To U.S. and opposition critics, Chavez is a polarizing would-be dictator who has subordinated institutions like the courts. Thousands of public employees claim they were fired last year for signing petitions to recall Chavez, and his new media law contains a broad definition of slander that opponents say is meant to stifle dissent. Still, Venezuela's opposition can freely rail at Chavez. And it's harder for the U.S. to demonize Chavez as an oil autocrat when Washington's main oil ally, Saudi Arabia, has a far worse record.

Oil is the U.S.'s major anxiety. Chavez led the drive to raise crude prices by urging OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member, to rein in production. Venezuela's state-owned oil industry can't afford to cut off the U.S., but Chavez, to reduce dependence on the American market, is inking delivery deals with oil-thirsty giants China and India. That leads pols like Indiana Senator Richard Lugar to wonder if the U.S. can mitigate the effects of a possible Venezuelan shortfall. Oil analysts say Chavez may be pushing prices higher by dramatically raising taxes and royalties on U.S. and multinational oil firms, which in the 1990s received unusually generous contracts to help pump Venezuela's heavy crude. Such companies are "vultures watching meat," Chavez said last week. (The firms will not comment.)

Of course, his influence could dry up if oil prices fall. Like the profligate elite he defeated in 1998, he has presided over soaring increases in public spending. Nonetheless, unemployment remains high. However, Chavez prefers to play up the specter of U.S. aggression and how he will stand up to it. He says, for example, he will have to "reconsider" diplomatic relations with Washington if the U.S. does not extradite suspected terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted in Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Francisco Arias, a former army officer who took part with Chavez in the 1992 coup, says it is that doggedness that explains why, "for better or worse, people follow Hugo. They know he'll cross the Rubicon for them." And from now on, he's likely to make a bigger splash each time he does. --With reporting by Brian Ellsworth/Caracas

With reporting by Brian Ellsworth/Caracas