Hugo Chavez's death was welcome news for the United States, which is now wagering on changing Venezuelan attitudes vis-à-vis the U.S. But Washington, in its wager, will not bide its time and sit idly by, and will match its desires with action towards change, either through direct intervention or by helping allies take power. Washington must see that now is the time to turn tables upside down in Caracas. Elections are around the corner, and Chavez's opponents are ready to pounce. The U.S. has never abandoned them, or they it. Washington supported them when they carried out coups against the ‘Comandante' many times, and when they held protests against his rule. In other words, the U.S. is gearing up for a battle, to be fought by Venezuelans, against the Bolivarian spirit that Chavez promoted in his country. But the ideals of Simon Bolivar and his quest in the eighteenth century to unite South America and liberate it from Spanish colonialism have never really ended. Bolivar had many successors, from Emilio Zapata to Castro to Chavez, not to mention Che Guevara. The Bolivarian spirit spread from Mexico in the early twentieth century to Venezuela in the twenty-first century, passing in its way through all South American countries that became models for revolution against colonialism. For this reason, the mainstream media and Hollywood in the U.S. vilified those revolutionaries and their peoples who aspired to freedom and justice (with the exception of Elia Kazan's film Viva Zapata), and mobilized their armies and threatened or invaded these countries. The common trait among all those leaders was their quest for unifying South America and their concern for issues beyond their national borders, as well as their bias in favor of the poor and their confrontation of colonial globalization with leftist globalization. Chavez was the heir of this movement that spanned a whole century or more. He knew how to come to power democratically. He did not confront the U.S. militarily, as he knew this was impossible. Instead, he stood up to its policies that favored landowners, merchants and business owners, and redistributed land to peasants. He also liberated the oil wealth from the dominance of the cartels, and allocated a large part of oil revenues to fighting poverty in the vast rural areas. Outside Venezuela, Chavez forged alliances with all those opposed to U.S. policies, from South America to the Middle East. When George W. Bush decided to wage war on Iraq, and declared this at the UN, Chavez stood on the podium, renounced the “devil" who spoke before he did, and said, “It smells of sulfur in here." Those friends of Chavez will miss him greatly, just like the leftist South American leaders will. Together, they had formed a permanent thorn in the U.S. side, and a strong source of support for Brazil, which aligned itself with China and Russia, forming the so-called BRICs – while Brazil aspires to become a strong part of this bloc and a leading pole on the world stage. Venezuela has entered a new stage of the struggle for power and the relationship with the U.S. With the absence of the “Comandante," the rightwing camp has rid itself of a leader who can mobilize the majority of the people to defend his economic programs and foreign policies. Meanwhile, the traditional left, which was hostile to him and opposed his populism and funding of revolutionaries abroad, will find in his death an opportunity to express itself more freely. True, Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's deputy whom he met in prison, is a veteran politician who served lengthily alongside his leader, but no one can replace the “comandante." Particularly so when the coming attack will be a major one, and will be waged jointly by the right and some of the left at home, and foreign powers led by Washington, which has been waiting for this moment impatiently. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has his work cut out for him in Venezuela, in addition to the Middle East. Fortunately for him, death has removed a major obstacle from his path. It is as though cancer was allied with Washington, according to one Venezuelan.
