Throw in neglect and politicization of the judicial system and you see the result: soaring rates of cocaine trafficking through Venezuela and worsening corruption of institutions.
What Chavez has done [in Venezuela] is that he has brought extreme poverty to an end.
The main thing that I hate the most is ignorance, like the prejudice problems of America. I know it is worse in some other countries. But I wish I could borrow, like from Venezuela or Trinidad, the real love of color-blind people and bring it to America.
Venezuela and its revolution will endure under the proven leadership of Vice President Maduro.
Venezuela has changed forever.
In Venezuela, which doesnt have thousands of prestige universities like the U. S. , people usually stay at home while attending to college. After they graduate, they move for a job or get married.
I love to fish offshore for billfish, and have fished all over for them from the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico to the Texas gulf. I haven't made it to Australia yet, but someday I'm going.
One of the things you can learn from a figure like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is that if you take all the resources of the state for yourself, you don't build much of a constituency and you have to rely on repression, and repression is difficult in the modern world.
I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet.
My husband is from Venezuela and he cries when he needs to cry!
Chávez inadvertently made the US drug war tactics look good. Quite a feat, given the disaster which is the drug war. After expelling the DEA (not necessarily a bad thing, given its record in Colombia and elsewhere), he failed to devise a credible strategy for Venezuela.
The fact that I am a writer comes from the experience of being cut away from my roots and living in Venezuela, where I couldn't find a place for myself, for years and years.
Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves in the world. And the biggest gas reserves in this hemisphere, the eighth in the world. Venezuela was a U. S. oil colony. All of our oil was going up to the north, and the gas was being used by the U. S. and not by us. Now we are diversifying. Our oil is helping the poor.
Venezuela's oil is unimportant for Bolivia. We are not dependent on Venezuela. We complement each other. Venezuela shares its wealth with other countries, but that doesn't make us subordinate.
I'm afraid I didn't really like Caracas in Venezuela. From what I saw it seemed so crime-ridden that you really have to be on your guard all the time.
Repressive regimes do not endure change willingly - and Venezuela is no exception.
Venezuela is a free country, and we will not be blackmailed by anyone. We will not accept being told what to do over Iran; we will not accept being anyone's colony.
If the United States was mad enough to attack Iran or aggress Venezuela again the price of a barrel of oil could reach $150 or even $200.
But I went down to Venezuela and spend a few weeks going through jungles. It's fantastic looking.
Classical music in Venezuela is now something like a pop concert. You can see people screaming or crying because they don't have a ticket.
