U.S. Should Support Ouster of Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez
Feb 6, 2003

IRVINE, CA--"The United States should support the Venezuelan people's attempt to oust President Hugo Chavez," says Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "The fact that he was democratically elected is irrelevant."

      "Ninety percent of Venezuela's working population went on strike for two months to protest the dictatorship of Hugo Chavez and demand an end to his despotic rule," says Dr. Brook. "Unfortunately, the strike ended this week, with Chavez still in power. Even before the strike began, Chavez's armed forces had seized private property, shot peaceful protestors, arrested political opponents and tortured dissenters. His secret army of goons has bombed newspaper facilities, raided editors' homes and beaten and killed journalists.

      Chavez not only terrorizes his own people, he also exports terrorism. He supplies weapons and cash to drug-trafficking terrorists in Colombia and the Basque terrorists in Spain. Chavez provides free oil to Cuba, and speaks of Saddam Hussein as his "brother." His first visits abroad as president were to Iraq, Libya and Iran. Chavez called the U.S. military response in Afghanistan a form of "terrorism," no different from the attacks on the World Trade Center.

      To preserve his hold on power, Chavez hides behind the smokescreen that he was democratically elected. But the fact that Chavez was democratically elected doesn't confer on him a right, once in power, to silence, beat, torture and kill his fellow citizens. The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable--they cannot be voted away by a majority--or violated with impunity by a dictator. When a government tramples on its citizen's rights, it forfeits any legitimate claim to power.

      Chavez's brutal rule, his sponsorship of international terrorism, and his open association with countries in the axis of evil make it mandatory for the United States morally to support the Venezuelan people against Chavez.

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Dr. Yaron Brook is available for interviews. To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please e-mail media@aynrandcenter.org

For more articles by Yaron Brook, and his bio, click here.