by Tina Gazier
This story out of Miami highlights the reasons the United States should support governments in South and Central America in moving toward democracy. News out of Venezuela in the past few months has shown Chavez to be a totalitarian style dictator and that means oppression and fear for the citizens. It means our immigration problem, too many too fast, is exacerbated. In this case, it also means a country allied with terrorists placing us in greater danger. Ordinary citizens don't flee their country on a whim or because their candidate lost...they flee for freedom and protection from tyrants.
MIAMI - Parallels in Alejandro Costa's family history are unsettling. His father, Jose Costa Moure, fled to Venezuela in 1959 after Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba. Costa fled Venezuela in 2004 after concluding that Castro's ally in Caracas, President Hugo Chavez, was turning Venezuela into another Cuba.
Those who seek asylum are claiming persecution or that communism is about to take hold in Venezuela. In 2004 and 2005, more than 3,000 Venezuelans filed petitions for asylum in immigration courts - a dramatic rise from 1997 to 2001 when only a few dozen applied each year.
Costa, 41, left in 2004 after thugs he believes were pro-Chavez beat up his wife Claudia and threatened to kill him. The couple and their two daughters and a son got asylum in 2005.
"Chavez is moving faster every day toward a Castro-style communist government. What's coming is going to be terrible. Venezuelans aren't fleeing economic problems, they are leaving because of persecution. It's not hypothetical anymore that Venezuela will be a communist country - it's a fact." Ernesto Ackerman, president of Independent Venezuelan-American Citizens.
Chavez has been re-elected because he speaks to hearts of the little people. Those would be the people with "little" understanding of democracy and "little education in general, and filled to the brim with irrational left-wing hatred for America and Bush.
This makes them vulnerable to the moronic pitch by a classless dictator like Hugo Chavez, who now promises these little people that HIS communist government will care for them after nationalizing everything of value.
Comrade Chavez absurdly claims to be a lot like Jesus. He will likely just ruin the Venezuela economy in his mad pursuit to rob the rich while he re-creates his nuevo communista society.
Oh, please. I suppose taxation could be considered a form of persecution, but they'll get used to it. And it's not like they aren't getting anything for the money. All the poor people go to school and learn to read. They didn't used to. All the rich people pay taxes to support this. They didn't used to. It's a big adjustment to make, but all is just as it should be.
Except for the thug gangs. The previous administration had them. This administration has them. What is it with that?
Sounds like, "let them eat cake" to me Libby.
The "poor people" could be enjoying the same positives you claim they will now get in a democracy. Instead they will be limited to what the state hands them. It's bread lines for the compliant folks who don't make trouble and accept their fate like dogs eating crumbs from the table...and a gulog for anyone who wants to have more.
Yep, this is the voice of compassion...let them settle for crumbs while The Man lives in luxery with the power to make grease spots of those who dare to dissent.
Meanwhile this "man of the people" plots with other thugs to bring murder and chaos to the world and to our country in particular.
I'm repeating here but history does give us a clue...democracies do not make war with other democracies...we enjoy free trade, prosperity and a higher standard of living even for the most poor among us. Dictators, on the other hand, plot & make war on other countries while murdering and oppressing their own people by the millions...but it's all the same, right?
What's coming is going to be terrible. Venezuelans aren't fleeing economic problems, they are leaving because of persecution.