ShareThisBy JOSE DE LA ISLA
Hispanic Link
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Confronting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a plenary session of the XVII Ibero-American Summit, held in Santiago, Chile, this month, King Juan Carlos of Spain told the Venezuelan to bug off, in so many words.
The incident occurred when Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had the floor. Chavez interrupted a second time.
In his first interruption, Chavez denounced Spain's former president, Jose Maria Aznar. Rodriguez Zapatero cut in while Chavez revealed a conversation he had with Aznar during the former president's 2002 trip to Venezuela.
Chavez finished the statement, saying, "A snake is more human than a fascist or a racist; a tiger is more human than a fascist or a racist."
Rodriguez Zapatero called for some respect for the ex-president. "It's possible to be diametrically opposed to an ideological position and it's not I who is close to Aznar's ideas, but he was elected by the Spanish people and I demand that respect."
Chavez interrupted, claiming his right to express his opinions.
"Of course. Of course," said Rodriguez Zapatero. But Chavez continued making interjections. Juan Carlos, who was leaning back in a chair next to Rodriguez Zapatero, reared forward, his patience tried. Visibly upset, he faced Chavez at the end of the table and three panelists away, and raised his hand in Chavez's direction.
He then made his now-famous vituperation, "Why don't you shut up!"
That's when Chilean President Michelle Bachelet called for tabling private conversations. Now with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega starting to criticize Spanish companies, as had Chavez the day before, the king decided to leave the session.
Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage said in Venezuela's defense that an attack on Spain's former president was not an attack on the king or on Spain's current government.
Minutes later, Juan Carlos returned to attend the closing ceremony at the urging of Bachelet, who went out looking for him.
Not willing to let sleeping dogs lie at the closing ceremony, Chavez brought up Spanish colonialism as responsible for "the greatest genocide known in the history of our people." He added that Juan Carlos "might be king but he can't make me shut up."
In 2003, Chavez had deemed Aznar imperious for saying Chavez ought to not duplicate Cuba's experience in Venezuela.
Then in May 2005, Aznar, who was out of office and visiting Brazil, criticized Venezuela's relationship with Cuba. Chavez compared Aznar to Hitler and called him a fascist and an "imbecile."
Two years ago, because of the Venezuelan's close association with Castro, Aznar called Chavez a threat to democracy in Latin America. He also attributed Chavez's brashness to domestic failures softened by $60-a-barrel oil revenues padding Venezuela's coffers.
In October 2006, Aznar again called Chavez-brand populism and radicalism a threat to Latin America. In April of this year, Chavez remarked that it's better to have nothing to do with people like Aznar, telling a group of students that Aznar had supported the attempted coup against him in 2002 and supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Throughout the 1990s and to the present, Spanish corporations have been the leading European investors in Latin America. So much so their commercial interests are sometimes referred to as the re-conquest.
While he was at it, Chavez included Mexico's Vicente Fox and Peru's Alejandro Toledo as "lackeys and puppy dogs of the empire."
While Chavez was making his final remarks at the closing ceremony at the National Stadium in Santiago, Lage handed him his cell phone. Castro was calling.
Castro, Chavez told the audience, was remembering the Chilean combat volunteers who died fighting Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. Chavez called on the crowd to send out a cheer to Castro. "Fidel, Fidel! What is it he has the imperialists can't handle."
Maybe it was their last hoorah.
But the multitudes -- the nerve endings of economic statistics and commercial strategies, the consumers and workers talked about at forums -- they are the ones just now finding a voice and who won't shut up.
(Jose de la Isla, author of "The Rise of Hispanic Political Power," writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail joseisla3(at)yahoo.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com.)
