Chavez: crazy no, misguided yes



‘10 battalions and tanks to the border! Try crossing our border Uribe, and see what happens! Don’t even think it!’ Obviously the USA, CIA, FBI etc. are all behind this, Chavez claims (which could well be true, by the way). Meanwhile, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is asking the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bring charges against Chavez. This again, in Chavez’ view, is proof that the ‘Western powers’ are behind all this.

People of the Netherlands Antilles, watch closely! Iraq is far away, but the world has become interdependent and interconnected. What happens there, affects us directly. We don’t like and don’t agree with what George Bush has done, but the truth (and problem) is, he has divided the world into two camps. And chances are that we will all be forced to choose between the two. Let’s - all of us - do what we can to avoid having to make such an insane decision. Because it simply is not true that one side is all good and the other side all bad.

If the Criminal Court in The Hague decides to bring charges of “financing genocide” against Chavez, do you think he will be happy with our little islands off his coast (where the US has a FOL airbase)? Don’t forget, we are still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, capital The Hague. What happens, if the ICC should find him guilty? Do we want to become part of Venezuela? Now that Colombia plainly accuses Venezuela of backing the FARC rebels resulting in a war-scare, this question may have become a little more than idle rhetoric.

Raúl Reyes, second in command FARC

Venezuela and Ecuador have broken off ties with Colombia over a raid launched into Ecuador against the FARC. Colombia’s incursion into Ecuador saw the killing of senior FARC commander Raúl Reyes, and 16 others. Colombia says records found in a laptop belonging to Reyes suggest the Venezuelan government recently gave $300m to the FARC. This claim could well be misinformation, but it is notable nevertheless. We may presume Colombia will present its evidence to the ICC. Let’s wait and see.

The BBC reports that Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos has declared that evidence of plans to make a dirty bomb - a bomb using radioactive material - was also found on the computer. Whenever you read something about a ‘dirty bomb’ these days, the suspicion arises that this is part of the scare-tactics pursued by the US government, blindly repeated by an uncritical press, including international icons such as the BBC. How the Bush administration wishes a dirty bomb were thrown! Isn’t that precisely what they need to prove their point?

For its part, Venezuela has expelled all Colombian diplomats. Venezuela and Ecuador have deployed troops to their borders amid calls for restraint led by the head of the UN. Latin American powers including Chile, Mexico and Brazil have offered to mediate in the dispute.

There will be no war

Chavez is trying to unite the Rest against the West. And if ‘the Rest’ is a bit too ambitious, then at least the South American continent should be united behind his ‘21st century socialism’. The world has relapsed into a 21st century Cold War version, socialism and Islam rivaling for supremacy this time in their opposition against the West. Nevertheless, we hope and expect that in the end Chavez will realize it’s not worth it. There will be no war. But ‘war-words’ are afloat. And that is dangerous.

War can be avoided by quitting the 20th century conflict paradigm between two opposing ideologies and moving toward a threefold harmony paradigm. Without a third balancing political/economic force, peace cannot be permanent. This third force must be broadly spiritually based for two reasons:

1) Atheism is an ideology of despair and unreason, for ‘nothing cannot give rise to something’, as the Greek philosophers already pointed out long before the birth of Christ. It is everybody’s good right to believe in atheism, but the third ideology will be based on reason. And reason shows that the essence of all serious religions - usually referred to as ‘God’ - is identical in all religions. Therefore, the third ideology is based on interfaith spirituality.

2) In an interconnected and interdependent world, religions will have to learn to truly respect each other’s point of view. In the final analysis, there is no religion but truth. And nobody and no religion has a privilege to truth. Truth is like the sun, each ray expressing only part of the whole. Thus all religions express part of truth, even as every single person expresses a ray of truth.

Third Movement of Realism and Justice

The third ideology has already been revealed. It is there, complete and waiting for politicians. lawyers and economists astute enough to embrace it and develop it further. It is the paradigm of peace and abundance. The world will wake up to it. It’s a matter of time and communication.

Venezuelan economist Federico Alves calls on the Venezuelan armed forces to intervene and depose Hugo Chavez. He is calling for a coup d’état and a transitional government to reorganize the country and, one would hope - although he does not say so -, organize fresh elections. Obviously his proposal is completely illegal. But when serious people start suggesting things like this, isn’t it high time for the President to listen? View the video (NB in Spanish).