Chavez returns to power. (Insider Report).

After several tumultuous days, which saw Venezuela's Marxist President Hugo Chavez ousted from power by a low-key military coup, the revolutionary Marxist once again firmly controls the world's fourth-largest oil producer. Hugo Chavez, a former army paratrooper who himself led an unsuccessful coup attempt in 1992, managed to win the Venezuelan presidency in the 1998 election. But he quickly alienated large sectors of the Venezuelan population with his diatribes against Venezuela's wealthy (whom he has referred to as "squealing pigs"), his crackdowns on organized religion, and his rigid socialist economic policies.

Chavez has forged close ties with Cuba, Libya, Iraq, and Iran. He has been accused not only of involvement with the Communist insurgency known as FARC in neighboring Colombia, but also with Spain's Basque terrorist group ETA. More ominously still, Chavez has brought Cuban revolutionary advisors into Venezuela, according to reports from the Venezuelan press. Not only do these advisors form part of his most intimate circle of political confidants, but they have also been instrumental in organizing, arming, and indoctrinating Chavez' "Bolivarian circles," a network of revolutionary cells spread throughout the civilian and military sectors. According to Venezuelan journalists Patricia Poleo and Ibeyise Pacheco, in recent comments to the Miami-based Spanish-language newspaper Venezuela al Dia, Chavez' innermost ring of personal security is Cuban. There are also "Cuban functionaries training people in the so-called Bolivarian circles, not only in the use of arms and in the application of violence, but also ideologi cally. And there are camps dedicated to this in Cojedes state, and military forts where [such] training is carried out. It's also done among the police affiliated with the government."

In the wake of Chavez' triumphant return to power, his international supporters rallied to his defense. Iran hailed the "people's victory" in Venezuela, while Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz congratulated Venezuela for its "victory over a U.S. imperialistic conspiracy." Libya's Ghadafi telephoned Chavez personally to express relief at his "safe comeback." The Cuban press, meanwhile, gleefully reported a return to normalcy "disagreeable to those who, beyond [Venezuela's] borders, had built up hasty illusions concerning the counterrevolutionary coup d'etat which was rapidly swept away by a popular tide."

History may remember the disastrous coup attempt as Venezuela's Bay of Pigs, since Chavez, like Castro, will doubtless seize the newfound political momentum to consolidate power. His enemies are now at the mercy of his revolutionary thugs, since the recent overthrow attempt brought them into the open. But perhaps this was what Chavez and his supporters intended.