17 years old, Chavez entered the Venezuelan military academy, 1975 obtained a master's degree in military science and engineering, and served as an alternate lieutenant for several months. Then Chavez was allowed to study political science at Simó n Bolí var University in Karakas, but he didn't get a diploma in the end.
After completing his studies, Chavez officially enlisted as a member of the riot brigade stationed in Barinas. Chavez's military career is as long as 17 years. During this period, he held various positions, commanders and assistants, and was finally promoted to lieutenant colonel. Chavez also served as a teacher and staff member at the Venezuelan Military Academy. At that time, Chavez was most famous for his enthusiastic teaching style, and he often strongly criticized the Venezuelan government and society at that time. During this period, Chavez also established the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement -200. After that, Chavez continued to be promoted to some high-level positions and won medals many times. Under the administration of President Carlos andres perez, the Venezuelan economy was in a slump, and the voice of discontent among the people kept rising. Chavez made a lot of preparations for launching a military coup. The original date was selected in199165438+February, and was finally postponed to 1992 in the morning. According to the plan, the armed forces of five battalions under Chavez's command will enter the downtown area of Karakas to attack and occupy the main military and communication facilities in the city, including the presidential residence, the national defense headquarters, the military airport and the history museum. Chavez's ultimate goal is to capture the current President Perez.
After the failed coup, Chavez surrendered to the government. He was allowed to appear on national television broadcasts, calling for a cease-fire for the rest of the rebels. When he called for a cease-fire, he famously quipped that he had only "temporarily" failed. Chavez has become the focus of the country, and many poor Venezuelans regard him as a hero in fighting government corruption and corruption. Chavez was sent to prison to serve his sentence, while President Perez, the target of the initial coup, was impeached 1 year later. In prison, Chavez's eyes became enlarged and later grew to his iris. His vision gradually deteriorated, although after many treatments and operations, Chavez's vision has been permanently impaired. After two years' imprisonment, Chá vez was pardoned by President Rafael caldera on 1994. After his release, Chavez reorganized MBR-200 into the new Fifth Republican Movement (MVR-Movimiento quintarepú blica, where V stands for five Roman numerals). 1998, Chavez began to run for president. Chavez's political views are based on his Bolivarian theory. Chavez and his followers claimed that their goal was to "lay the foundation of a new Republic" to replace the existing system. In their view, the current tradition of the two-party system is only a political system of sharing stolen goods. It can be said that the two largest foreign banks in Venezuela, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentina (BBVA) and Banco Santander Central Hispano (BSCH), illegally funded Chavez for millions of RMB during the election.
Chavez won the support of a large number of poor people and working class in Venezuela by using his personal charm and gorgeous speech style-a lot of spoken language and swearing. 1998 In May, Chavez's poll had risen to 30% and soared to 39% in August. Chavez finally won the election of199865438+February 6 with 56% of the vote, and was elected as the 53rd president of Venezuela. Since Chavez took office from 65438 to 0999, he has carried out extensive institutional changes. Venezuelan society under Chavez has rapidly changed from the free market economy and neo-liberal principles adopted by the old government to quasi-socialist income redistribution and social welfare plans. Chavez also completely subverted the original foreign policy tradition, cut off the original strategic interests with the United States and Europe, and turned to a non-mainstream diplomatic line, becoming a model for the development and integration of the southern hemisphere world.
Chavez's reform has been praised and criticized a lot. Many Venezuelans are also disgusted with him, especially the upper and middle classes. He also suffered many extensive political oppression and human rights violations. The great controversy caused by Chavez's policies also led to a short coup in 2002 and a recall vote in 2004. There are also many conspiracy theories that foreign forces try to overthrow Chavez through military coups, assassinations and even military invasions.
Economic Crisis and the New Constitution
Chavez was sworn in on February 2, 1999 on/kloc-0. In the first few months, Chavez mainly devoted himself to new legislative and constitutional reforms to abolish the old political system. The second key point is to immediately allocate more government funds to aid new social projects.
Chavez's economic policy is completely different from that of the previous rulers. He stopped continuing to privatize Venezuela's state-owned shares-such as social security system, aluminum shares and oil industry. However, although Chavez wants to promote wealth redistribution and increase control and social expenditure, he is not opposed to foreign direct investment in Venezuela. Like previous presidents, Chavez also tried to attract the influx of foreign direct investment to avoid the crisis of capital outflow and inflation.
Chavez also reduced Venezuela's oil exploitation to obtain higher oil prices, which can at least theoretically increase oil revenue, thus increasing Venezuela's severely shrinking foreign exchange reserves. He also strongly lobbied other OPEC members to reduce oil production. Because of these interventions in the oil industry and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Chavez was dubbed as a "price liar". Chavez also tried to renegotiate the 60-year mining rights contracts signed with Philips Oil Company and Mobil Oil Company of Daniel F. Akerson before Venezuela came to power. These contracts enable foreign oil companies to earn tens of billions of RMB from a large amount of oil mined in Venezuela every year, but only pay about 1% tax to the Venezuelan government. Later, Chavez said that his aim was to completely nationalize Venezuela's oil resources. Although the renegotiation with foreign oil companies failed, Chavez still focused on improving the efficiency of the domestic tax and auditing system, especially for large companies and landlords.
However, by the middle of 1999, Chavez's original anti-poverty bill was blocked by opposition members in the National Assembly, so angry Chavez announced that he would hold two more national elections in July 1999-only one month before the last presidential election. The first election is a national referendum to decide whether to hold a national constitutional convention, which will adopt a framework similar to Chavez's political ideology as Venezuela's new constitution. The second election was to elect representatives to the Constitutional Convention. The constitutional referendum was passed with 72% of the votes, and in the second election, Polo Patriotico, composed of Chavez's Fifth Republican Movement and other coalition parties, won 95% of the seats in the Constitutional Assembly (1, 3 1 seat).
In August of 1999, the Constitutional Assembly set up a special "Emergency Judicial Committee", which had the right to exclude judges without consulting other government departments-finally, more than 190 judges were suspended for corruption charges. In the same month, the Constituent Assembly declared a "legislative state of emergency", and a seven-member committee replaced the normal legislative function of the National Assembly, so the legislature's resistance to Chavez's policy was paralyzed immediately, and the Constituent Assembly also prohibited the National Assembly from holding any form of meeting.
The Constituent Assembly designed the new Venezuelan Constitution of 1999, with 350 articles, which is one of the longest constitutions in the world. At the same time, the official name of the country was changed from the original Venezuelan Republic to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The new constitution raises the term of office of the president from five years to six years, raises the original term limit from one year to two years, and establishes a national referendum system to recall the president-that is, the Venezuelan people can change the president in advance through a referendum. Such a referendum can only be initiated with the support of a certain number of signatures. The new constitution also gives the president the power to dissolve the National Assembly, which greatly increases the power of the president. The new constitution transforms the bicameral National Assembly into a unicameral legislature, but the power of the new legislature is not as good as before. The provisions of the new Constitution establish a new post-public defender who has the right to supervise the actions of the President, the National Assembly and the Constitution. Chavez called the public defender a "moral department" in the new government, whose duty is to defend public and moral interests. Finally, Venezuela's judicial system has been reformed. According to the new constitution, judges must pass public examinations before taking office, instead of being appointed by the National Assembly as before.
The provisions of the new constitution were adopted in the national elections in June 65438 +0999+February 65438, so the Constitutional Assembly constructed the new constitution in full accordance with Chavez's wishes. Chavez believes that such a change is absolutely necessary in order to successfully and widely implement his planned social justice policy. He plans to completely change Venezuela's government and political structure, and open more political environment to independent parties and third parties, as promised in the election campaign of 1998. In the process, Chavez also tried to deal a fatal blow to the opposition parties, the Democratic Action Party and COPEI.
1999 15 February 15, continuous weeks of heavy rain caused landslides in various parts of the state, killing at least 30,000 people. Critics claim that Chavez ignored the emergency report of the civil defense organization on the flood because he focused on the referendum and government reform. The government denied these criticisms, and Chavez personally arrived in the disaster area to lead the relief operation. After that, another landslide occurred in 2000, but it was reduced to only three deaths. Re-election
The new unicameral National Assembly held elections on 30 July 2000. In the same election, Chavez also supported the re-election of the president. Chavez's alliance won two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly, while Chavez won 60% of the votes in the presidential election. The Carter Center, an international organization, supervised the election. Their report believes that the election of the National Assembly is unconstitutional due to the lack of transparency, the biased attitude of the Election Committee and the pressure exerted by the Chavez government, but their report has not changed the results announced by the Election Committee. However, they believe that the re-election part of the president is legal.
Later, on 3 February 2000, local elections and a referendum were also held. Hold a referendum to decide whether to agree to a bill proposed by Chavez to force all trade unions in Venezuela to hold elections supervised by the state. The referendum was widely condemned by international trade union confederation, including the International Labour Organization, criticizing it as excessive government intervention in trade unions, and these organizations also threatened to impose international sanctions on Venezuela.
After the elections in May and July, 2000, Chavez proposed an authorization bill, which was passed by the National Assembly. This bill will authorize Chavez to govern Venezuela by decree for a period of one year. 20011,that is, one month before the expiration of the authorization bill, Chavez promulgated 49 bills in one breath. These bills include oil and gas law and land law. The Federació n de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV) strongly opposes these new bills, and plans to hold a general strike on 200 1, 12, 10, hoping that the President will reconsider these bills. However, the strike has not successfully affected Chavez's decision or policy.
By the end of the third year of Chavez's administration, Chavez's main policies had successfully hit the landlords in Venezuela. It is said that Chavez's reform has improved social welfare, reduced infant mortality, and established a free medical insurance system and a free education system funded by the government-until the university education stage. By February of 200 1, 12, under Chavez's capital control policy, Venezuela's inflation rate dropped from 40% to 12%, while its economic development was stable at around 4%. Chavez's policy is said to have also increased the number of primary school students by 6.5438+0 million. In 2003 and 2004, Chavez implemented a series of social and economic plans to maintain people's support. In July 2003, he launched "Misión Robinson", with the goal of providing free reading, writing and arithmetic courses for more than 6.5438+0.5 million illiterate Venezuelan adults (before Chavez came to power in 654.38+0.999). On June 5438+10/October 65438+February 2003, Chavez launched "Misión Guaicaipuro" to protect the livelihood, beliefs, land, culture and other rights of indigenous people in Venezuela. At the end of 2003, Chavez launched "Misión0 Sucre" to provide free higher education for 2 million Venezuelan adults who have not completed their basic education. In June+10, 2003, Chavez launched the Misión Ribas project, aiming at providing better education and diplomas for 5 million Venezuelan high school dropouts. At the first anniversary ceremony of Robinson Crusoe, Chavez gave a speech to 50,000 Venezuelans who completed literacy education. "In a year's time, we have 65438+250,000 Venezuelans graduated. However, Chavez suffered some setbacks, especially the inflation rate soared to 365,438+0% in 2002 and remained at around 27% in 2002, making the life of the poor more difficult.
On May 9, 2004, 126 Colombians were captured when they attacked a farm near Karakas. Chavez immediately accused them of being foreign-backed paramilitary forces with the intention of overthrowing his regime by violence. These incidents have only intensified the opposition between the camps supporting and opposing Chavez in Venezuelan society. Chavez also claimed that there was a coup plot to overthrow him in 2004, and the truth of this coup is still inconclusive. From June to 10 in 2005, 27 accused Colombians were convicted and the rest were released and deported.
In early and mid-2003, a referendum rights organization named "Súmate" began to collect millions of signatures needed to launch a referendum election to recall the president. By August 2003, it had collected about 3.2 million signatures, but the Election Committee, which is dominated by Chavez supporters, refused to accept these signatures, because the Constitution stipulates that the recall of the president must be initiated after half of the president's term (that is, three years), and these signatures began three years before Chavez took office. Opposition and international news reports said that Chavez began to punish those who participated in the signature, while Chavez's supporters claimed that many workers were forced to provide signatures by their employers in the workplace. In June 2003, 5438+065438+ 10, the opposition collected another joint signature, and as many as 3.6 million signatures were collected in just four days. At this time, there were rumors that Chavez fooled the signature collectors by deception, and riots broke out all over the country.
The constitution requires that the signatures of 20% voters must be collected before a recall referendum can be initiated. In addition, the national identity card number of the signatory is not confidential. The opposition also accused the Chavez government of raising the threshold for joint signing by granting citizenship to illegal immigrants and refugees. Before the referendum, the number of registered voters increased by 2 million, which greatly increased the threshold required to start the recall referendum by 20%.
Many reports also alleged that the Chavez government punished those who publicly mailed the joint signature. Government departments, including the state-owned Venezuelan oil company, Caracas subway, and public hospitals controlled by Chavez supporters, have all been accused of arbitrarily dismissing employees who participated in the signature. Finally, after the opposition submitted 2,436,830 valid signatures to the National Election Commission, the Election Commission announced that it would hold a recall referendum on June 8, 2004. Chavez and his political allies also began to mobilize voters to cast a "no" option.
The recall vote was held on August 15, 2004. As a result, 59% of the votes voted "No". EU observers claimed that the Chavez government imposed too many restrictions on them, which prevented them from observing the election [53]. Observers at the Carter Center thought the election was fair and open. Critics claimed that this was a false result and used some documents to prove the completely opposite election result. Many people also question whether the voting machines owned by the government are true. Opponents claimed that this was a "massive fraud" election and questioned the inference of the Carter Center. However, five opinion polls conducted by the opposition also show that Chavez will win.
After winning the recall vote, the high-spirited Chavez declared that he would fight "imperialism" in addition to poverty. Although Chavez promised to start a dialogue with the opposition, the Chavez government soon began to retaliate against the founders of Súmate, accusing them of treason and collusion with foreign forces, and accusing them of receiving funds from the State Council through the National Foundation for Democracy. Thanks to the victory of the referendum, Chavez's main goals-basic social and economic reforms and redistribution of wealth-have been greatly accelerated. Chavez once again put the development and practice of Bolivarian mission at the forefront of his political journey. The soaring global oil price made Chavez earn billions of foreign exchange reserves, and the economic growth rate was considerable, reaching double digits in 2004 and maintaining 9.3% in 2005.
Many new policies have been implemented since 2004. In March 2005, the Chá vez government promulgated a series of media control bills, which made it illegal for the media to slander and spread rumors about public officials. Defaming Chavez and other officials can lead to up to 40 months in prison. When Chavez was asked if he would really detain media figures for 40 months for being slandered, Chavez commented: "I don't care what they (private media) call me ... as Don Quixote said," If there are dogs barking, it's because people are working ". Chavez also expanded the land redistribution and social welfare plan by issuing more new bills, including "Mission Vuelta al Campo" and "Mission Barrio Adentro" launched in June 2005, aiming at building, supporting and innovating the second (comprehensive diagnosis center) and the third (hospital) public health insurance system. During the same period, doctors in Venezuela went on strike to protest that the new policy cancelled the institutions where they used to work and replaced them with Cuban doctors.
Chavez began to pay attention to Venezuela's diplomatic relations in 2004 and 2005, and adopted new bilateral and multilateral agreements, including humanitarian support and construction plans. Chavez's efforts won different degrees of victory, and many other countries also won friendship, including Nestor Kirchner of Argentina, Hu Jintao of China, Fidel Castro of Cuba and Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran. On March 4, 2005, Chavez announced that the American-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was "dead". Chavez declared that the neo-liberal development framework cannot be applied to Latin American countries, so the negative and anti-capitalist framework can increase the trade and diplomatic relations of Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil and other countries. Chavez also declared that he hoped to establish a left-wing Latin American military cooperation structure similar to NATO.
In 2004 and 2005, Chavez also tried to make the Venezuelan army reduce its ties with the United States in terms of weapons sources and troops. Under Chá vez's leadership, Venezuela gradually turned to buying weapons from different arms-producing countries, such as Brazil, Russian Federation, China and Spain. The sale of these arms gradually caused friction between Venezuela and the United States, so Chavez directly ended the military cooperation between the two countries. He also asked active American soldiers to leave Venezuela. In addition, in 2005, Chavez announced the creation of a large-scale "reserve army" in the Miranda Plan, including a militia force composed of 6.5438+0.5 million Venezuelan citizens as a means to resist foreign intervention and invasion. In June 5438 +2005 10, Chavez expelled a Christian missionary organization called the New Tribe Mission, accusing them of being "imperialist infiltrators" and hiding CIA personnel. During the same period, he granted the ownership of 6,800 square kilometers of land inhabited by Amazon aborigines, making it impossible for these lands to be bought and sold with western ownership. Chavez used these changes to prove that his revolution was also a revolution to defend the rights of indigenous people.
During this period, Chavez paid more attention to non-mainstream economic development and international trade mode, and many plans were ambitious in the form of international agreements covering the whole hemisphere. For example, on August 20th, 2005, Chavez delivered a speech at the graduation ceremony of Cuba's medical school that sent exchange students, saying that a medical school similar to Cuba would be established and free medical training would be provided-it would cost 20 billion to 30 billion US dollars to train more than 0/00000 doctors, and they would go to poor southern hemisphere countries to provide medical services as promised. He declared that the plan will last for ten years, and the new school will include more than 30,000 new locations to provide free medical education for poor students from Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Chavez also took advantage of a lot of opportunities in the world to compare the results of his plan with the globalization of neoliberalism. Most notably, at the 2005 United Nations World Summit, he accused the policies pursued by neoliberalism, such as the liberalization of capital flows, the elimination of trade barriers and privatization, as the root causes of poverty in developing countries. Chavez also warned that the world energy crisis is approaching, especially the depletion of hydrocarbons (based on Hubert's vertex theory). He believes: "We are facing an unprecedented energy crisis ... oil has begun to dry up. At the same time, on June 5438+065438+1October 7, 2005, when Chavez mentioned the failure of the Free Trade Area of the Americas in Argentina, he declared that "the biggest loser today is george walker bush", and Chavez also seized the opportunity to promote the non-mainstream trade model he founded-named ALBA-to replace Bolí var, which is On June 65438+ 10/0, 2007, Chavez was sworn in as the new president of Venezuela and delivered a speech. In his new cabinet, David velazquez and Yue Se Ramon Rivero from * * * were invited to be the affairs of the Ministry of People's Power Participation and Social Development and the Ministry of Labor respectively. Chavez told his new labor minister that he was a Trotskyite.
On June 26, 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Venezuela to discuss reducing crude oil production to solve the problem of oversupply of crude oil in the market. The two men said that they had spent billions of dollars to help some countries get rid of American control, and the two governments also signed the 1 1 agreement to cooperate in the fields of tourism, education and minerals.
In his televised speech on March 25, 2007, Chavez even said that he would implement "collective ownership", nationalize large farms and redistribute idle land to the poor, and implement "collective ownership" on March 30.
Chavez said at a mass rally celebrating the May 1 International Labor Day on April 30 that the Venezuelan government decided to raise the minimum wage to US$ 286, and its 20% increase exceeded the total account index for two years. People working in the public sector also enjoy a "vegetable basket" subsidy of $209, which is the highest minimum wage in Latin America. On May 1 2007, Venezuela paid off the debts of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank of US$ 3 billion ahead of schedule. Chavez announced Venezuela's withdrawal from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and asked them to return the membership fees paid by Venezuela. On May 4th, Chavez said that the 18 offshore oil drilling platform managed by multinational companies would be nationalized.
On 2 1 May 2007, a document from the Finance Committee of the Venezuelan Congress showed that the Ministry of Culture would allocate 1.78 million dollars to Glover for screenplay creation and field shooting. When Chavez visited the film studio in 2006, he accused Hollywood of defaming the image of South Americans in movies. On May 28th, Chavez ordered the closure of the Venezuelan (RCTV) TV station with a history of more than 50 years, supported alternative media in the community, and replaced RCTV with a new public broadcasting channel, which aroused criticism and concern at home and abroad in Venezuela. On the same day, Venezuelan Minister of Information and Communication William Lara held a press conference in Caracas, announcing that he had filed a lawsuit against CNN on the grounds that CNN put Venezuelan President Hugo Chá vez and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on the screen. In addition to targeting American television stations, the Venezuelan government also accused domestic global television stations on the grounds of inciting the assassination of Chavez.
Speaking to local college students in Karakas on May 24th, Chá vez said that the entrance examination system in colleges and universities is outdated, which has caused some young students to lose the opportunity to receive higher education. The entrance examination system in colleges and universities will be cancelled, and the examination system for students during their study in colleges and universities will also be cancelled.
On June 1 2007, Venezuela and Vietnam signed nine legal documents of energy, science and technology and political nature to strengthen the friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries. Chavez and Nong Demeng signed a joint statement, indicating their views on different international and regional issues of common concern and the latest progress in bilateral relations. He announced that Vietnam will work with Russian, Belarusian and China to develop the second block of Hu Ning in Venezuelan Orinoco oil belt, and Vietnam will export oil, which has great potential, especially offshore oil. Chavez delivered a speech on June 6, praising his friend Putin for "resolutely fighting back against American imperialism", thanking Putin for helping him stabilize the regime during the coup in 2002, and announcing that he would visit Russia, a "strategic ally", at which time he might put forward extremely favorable cooperation suggestions to Russian oil companies and increase the purchase of Russian weapons. He then revealed a completely unknown insider, thanking Putin for his active help during the coup in Venezuela in 2002. At that time, the opposition forced Chavez to lose control of the country for several days, but he did not disclose the details of Putin's help to stabilize the regime. On June 12, Chavez went to Cuba and held talks with Fidel Castro of Cuba for six hours, and discussed the common development of the two countries. In addition, on the 9th local time, Chavez accepted an exclusive interview with the American media, revealing some inside information of his previous talks with Castro, and declared that Cuba was more democratic than the United States. In an interview, he stressed that Venezuela is building its own socialism and has not copied Cuba's model. He also pointed out that the United States has been planning to invade Venezuela and Cuba.
On June 12, 2007, Chavez called on the people of the whole country to move those unused refrigerators to the central square and give their surplus trucks and pots to the poor. He promised to donate $250,000 and urged the Venezuelan people to follow his example. /kloc-in June, 2009, when Chavez attended the groundbreaking ceremony of a thermal power plant in suglia, he announced that the government would build more than 200 "socialist factories", which was part of the "National Bolivarian Revolutionary Development Plan". Chavez also said that in the remaining time, "socialist factories" will be established in strategic departments such as food, construction, clothing, chemical products, auto parts and computers. These enterprises will "strengthen our independence and sovereignty and give priority to meeting the basic needs of all people".
On June 24, 2007, Chavez issued a new call to the army. He said that the Washington government is using psychological warfare and economic warfare as weapons to launch an unconventional war against Venezuela in an attempt to subvert its government, and called on the Venezuelan army to think every day and be ready to fight a war of resistance. On the same day, Chavez announced that he would raise the salary of the army by 30% to promote the professionalization of the army. The first to benefit will be the frontline combat troops. On June 2 1, he also confirmed a new weapons purchase plan to buy a submarine fleet from Russia to protect the country's 500,000 square kilometers of Caribbean territory. On June 29th, Chavez paid a three-day official visit to Russia. On June 28th, when he attended the opening ceremony of the Latin American Cultural Center in Moscow Foreign Literature Library Building, he called on the participants to learn "the works about Marx and Lenin's prediction that capitalism will inevitably perish and defeat American imperialism". In his speech, Chavez pointed out that the US plan to deploy a missile defense system in Europe is obviously aimed at Russia, and said that it is even more intolerable for US President george walker bush to try to deprive a free Iranian country of the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy.