Small Events have Large Consequences

On Monday, prominent Christian leader and Moral Majority founder Pat Robertson urged the American Government to assassinate Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela. Many commentators have already written about the apparent moral contradiction of a person who spends his life demanding obedience to Christian doctrine, while urging an intentional violation of Moses’ 5th Commandment.

In fact, I know very little about morality and judging morality. As an engineer, what I really understand is cause and effect, and how events often work out in human history. So that is the prism that I will look through to consider Mr. Robertson’s comments.

Among people that I am familiar with, Hugo Chávez most closely reminds me of Louisiana Senator and Governor Huey Long. Like Mr. Long, Mr. Chávez is very egotistical and loves to talk (Mr. Long once delivered a 15-hour filibuster all by himself in the U.S. Senate, my father was a witness). They also have (had) an incredible desire for power, and built much of their power by being champions for poor people.

Among many Latin Americans, however, Mr. Chávez most closely resembles Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (1898-1948), who was a major political force in nearby Colombia.

Mr. Gaitán was from a very poor family and worked his way through college to become a labor and criminal defense lawyer. Because of his humble origins and his excellent speaking skills, he had a special connection with poor people. In 1946, as mayor of Bogotá, he ran for the nomination for President from the Liberal Party. However, the Liberals considered him too radical, so he had to run as an independent. With the Liberals split, the Conservative Party won easily.

By 1948, violence was increasing and social conditions were declining among the lower and middle class. Mr. Gaitán gained control of the Liberal Party, and was thought of by many as the next President of Colombia.

However, on April 9, 1948, he was shot dead in the streets of Bogotá on his way to lunch. To this day, his murder is something of a mystery. A crowd quickly set upon the killer and beat him to death, so he never had the opportunity to explain his reasons. Did anyone put him up to the act? No one has ever admitted to doing so. Mr. Gaitán’s daughter insists even now that the CIA arranged for his death, but no valid evidence has ever surfaced to support this.

What is known is that the citizens of Bogotá, suddenly deprived of their champion, went on a rampage. It killed more than 2000 people in the city by the end of April, and led to an upsurge in violence throughout the country. Conservatives, already fearful of the rise of communism in the late 1940s, responded with repressive measures, firing all Liberal provincial Governors and closing Congress. The frustration of the many Colombians who felt they had lost their one link to the decision-making process was too much. Paramilitaries formed on both sides, leading to a low-level civil war. By 1958, 200,000 to 300,000 people had been killed. In Colombian history, this period is called simply “La Violencia”.

Moderates in both parties managed to form a coalition Government in 1958 to reduce the violence, but the civil war begun in 1948 continues on a smaller scale to the present. The main participants are now the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Each supports itself through involvement in the cocaine trade and kidnapping for ransom; and engages in targeted killings of anyone they consider an “enemy” and destruction of “enemy” territory. Each is a terrible cancer on Colombia that the country is unable to rid itself of.

Venezuela of 2005 is similar to Colombia of 1948. It is a society highly polarized around a central leader. Very few Venezuelans have only a mild opinion of Mr. Chávez, they either love him or loathe him. He is especially popular in the massive slums of Caracas, since he uses the Government’s great wealth to better the lives of the people who live there, the first time any Government has paid any attention to them. (Why does Venezuela have so much money? It is the fifth largest producer of oil in the world, and so is a beneficiary of the Bush administration’s “Reward People Who We Don’t Like Program”.)

Into this volatile mix, then, Pat Robertson proposes to throw in a U.S. Government-sponsored killing, as if the act will be a beginning and end all by itself, and have no other consequences. This is unfortunately typical of the mindset of many American leaders today, and not just the Bush administration. They believe that all bad things in the world are the result of one or at most a very few people - if you can eliminate those people, everything will be fine. Eliminate Saddam Hussein, and we will make Iraq a democratic paradise. Eliminate Hugo Chávez, and Venezuela will again be free and no longer a danger to the rest of South America. It is so short-sighted. Iraq of early 2003 was much more than just Saddam Hussein, and the Venezuela of 2005 is much more than just Hugo Chávez.

As Mr. Gaitán’s murder shows, things that people like Pat Robertson think are “so simple” actually have terrible reverberations that last for decades. We set these off at our peril, as Iraq has shown. Fortunately, the Bush administration says that it rejects Mr. Robertson’s remarks, so for now, at least, we will not so stupidly and callously set off a similar chain of events in Venezuela.