hankyoreh

By Lee You Ju-hyun, staff reporter

In March, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was in critical condition following a cancer operation. As I was preparing an obituary for Chavez, a colleague in the office, joked, “Who is going to protect the world now that Chavez is gone?”

At the time we all had a good laugh and didn’t think much more of it, but looking at the situation of the world today, I find myself wondering what the world would be like if Chavez were still with us.

Already, almost a month has passed since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the US government had been engaged in illegal intelligence gathering both inside the US and overseas. However, the US government doesn’t seem very apologetic.

Barack Obama, at one time a symbol of hope and change for many people, not only in the US but around the world, has been a huge disappointment. “And I guarantee you that in European capitals, there are people who are interested in, if not what I had for breakfast, at least what my talking points might be should I end up meeting with their leaders,” Obama said. His response to reports that the US had bugged the office of the European Union was a “but they do it too” style of excuse.

What is even more unbelievable is how several European countries who are themselves the victims in these events are gladly serving as lackeys of the US. While attending a meeting in Russia, Bolivian President Evo Morales told the press in an interview that he would consider granting Snowden asylum if it was requested. Shortly thereafter, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy blocked Morales’ presidential jet from passing through their air space because they thought that Snowden might have been aboard the plane. Snowden is still believed to be in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow.

Ultimately, Morales had no choice but to make an emergency landing at Vienna International Airport to refuel, and even there he was only able to fly out after his plane was searched. The government of Bolivia was outraged, claiming that the US intelligence organizations knew where Snowden was located and had plotted to block Morales’ plane in a plot to humiliate him.

There is no doubt that Morales - who is the first left-leaning president of indigenous origin in the history of Bolivia - looked pitiful as he sat in the waiting room at the airport talking on the phone with a troubled expression on his face. While the Bolivian government tried to save face by maintaining that Morales had declined to allow the plane to be searched, Austria said that it had confirmed that Snowden was not on the plane.

After returning home, Morales warned that he might shut down the US embassy, and South American leaders gathered in Bolivia on July 4 to demand an apology from several countries including Spain. But this was little more than diplomatic venting of injured emotions. Though Venezuela and Nicaragua indicated their willingness to grant Snowden asylum two days later, it is impossible to bring him out of Russia without Russia’s active cooperation because his passport has been cancelled.

What would have happened if Chavez were still around? Wouldn’t he have been the first to provide Snowden with documents demonstrating his refugee status, and if that didn’t work, to send a government aircraft to Sheremetyevo Airport to pick him up? And even if complicated international circumstances kept him from defying the US through action, he would probably at least have used rhetoric to take the US down a couple pegs.

Chavez showed off his repertoire of verbal quips during a 2006 speech to the United Nations General Assembly. “The devil came here yesterday,” he said, referring to the fact that former US President George W. Bush had been at the UN. “It still smells of sulfur today.”

Chavez didn’t go easy on Obama, either. At the end of 2011, Obama brought up the issues of human rights and abuses of democracy in Venezuela during a media interview. Despite the fact that Chavez had recently been diagnosed with cancer, he came out vigorously.

“It seems like Obama is attacking Venezuela in an attempt to win the election next year,” Chavez observed. “Don’t say such irresponsible things, Obama. You are such a clown. Why don’t you just keep the promises you made to your own people?”

What would Chavez have said if he were watching Obama’s sophistic defense of the US, a country that is drawing upon its overwhelming power to infringe upon the human rights and democracy of people all over the world? I think, at least, he would have said something like this: “Obama, I thought you were just a glib talker, but it turns out that you aren’t any different from that devil that preceded you. I get a whiff of hell’s sulfur from you, too!”

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]