Sean Penn and Other Hollywood Elite Worshipped Chavez
By Bill Hoffmann, Newsmax
A host of Hollywood A-listers have rushed to support Hugo Chavez over the years — the most glaring example of which was Sean Penn.
The Oscar-winning actor Penn continuously praised Chavez, saying he generously helped his country’s poor and destitute and was a fascinating and bold leader.
Chavez, who ruled Venezuela with an iron fist for 14 years, died on Tuesday after battling cancer for two years. He had, over the years, been feted by Hollywood’s elite even as he remained a thorn in the side of America’s policies in the region.
During the Penn visit to Chavez, the loudmouth star ripped the policies of President George W. Bush towards Chavez and once whipped himself into such a frenzy that he reportedly called for the arrest of those who referred to Chavez as a dictator.
“[Chavez is] one of the most important forces we’ve had on this planet,” Penn gushed late last year as the Venezuelan president’s health deteriorated.
“And I’ll wish him nothing but that great strength he has shown over and over again. I do it in love, and I do it in gratitude.
“I just want to say, from my very American point of view, of my friend President Chavez: It is only possible to be so inspiring as he is, as a two-way street.’’
Penn also accused the American media of going after Chavez and telling “lies’’ about him.
The actor’s love of Chavez became so embarrassing to some in Hollywood that Matt Stone and Trey Parker savagely lampooned him in their movie “Team America: World Police” a parody that infuriated the star.
Penn had plenty of company when it came to his Chavez worship.
Other unabashed admirers included Kevin Spacey, Danny Glover, Oliver Stone, Harry Belafonte, Naomi Campbell, and Princeton University Professor Cornel West.
And some are nearly as critical as Penn.
Belafonte labeled George W. Bush the “greatest tyrant in the world,’’ while telling Chavez how “millions’’ of Americans supported him.
Boxing promoter Don King praised Chavez and his “revolution,’’ announcing, “To see what is happening here makes me feel good all over.’’
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Chavez Propped Up Cuba, ‘Father’ Figure Fidel Castro
By Bill Hoffmann Newsmax
From the moment Hugo Chavez assumed the presidency in Venezuela, he formed a very close bond with Cuban President Fidel Castro — one that boosted Cuba’s economy through trade, advanced its health care system and bolstered its military might.
“Venezuela is traveling towards the same sea as the Cuban people, a sea of happiness and of real social justice and peace,” Chávez said during a visit to Havana in 1999, the same year he rose to power.
One of the first major ties between the two countries came in 2000, when the two presidents inked an agreement under which Venezuela sent 50,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba at a heavy discount. The shipment was nearly doubled by 2005.
In exchange, Cuba sent thousands of specialists in the fields of education, the arts, sports and medicine to Venezuela.
In 2005, the two countries hammered out a contract to bring tens of thousands of health care workers, including doctors and nurses, to Venezuela and establish them in brand-new health care centers.
Chávez and Castro signed a declaration ripping the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a program supported by the United States as an “expression of a hunger to dominate the region.”
Cuba also helped Venezuela free itself from U.S. influences on its military by helping train its soldiers in guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency.
In 2007, Chávez signed an agreement with Cuba to embark on a series of technical projects, including the construction of an underwater fiber optics cable.
Venezuelan and Cuban scientists also worked together to improve their countries’ food production — spearheading a research project to improve the growing of rice.
Last summer, as The New York Times reported, Chavez announced an agreement with Cuba to create a factory to produce Coppelia ice cream, famous in Cuba for its tropical flavors.
Washington has kept a wary eye on the ongoing cooperation between Venezuela and Cuba with the idea they are trying to dominate the Caribbean economically and militarily. And both sides have fired verbal shots.
President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice slammed Cuba as an “outpost of tyranny.’’ She labeled Chavez a “negative force’’ in Latin America.
Chávez called Bush’s diplomatic efforts “a false democracy of the elite.’’
The friendship between Venezuela and Cuba long predates Castro. Diplomatic ties between the two powers were first established in 1902. In 1913, they agreed to an extradition treaty.
The bond between the two men was often described as a father-son relationship — with Castro was seen as a father figure to Chavez.
“Fidel to me is a father, a comrade, a master of perfect strategy,” Chavez said in 2005.
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Chavez Often Lambasted Former President George W. Bush
By Cyrus Afzall Newsmax
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died Tuesday, was not a fan of former President George W. Bush. Some of his more hitting comments aimed at the man he considered a chief nemesis:
• When Bush toured Latin America in 2007, while speaking to a crowd in Argentina, Chavez showed his displeasure with Bush’s visit by demanding: “Gringo go home.”
• During a Sept. 20, 2006, speech before the U.N. General Assembly, Chavez declared: “The devil came here yesterday,” while theatrically sniffing the air. “It smells of sulfur still.”
• In that same speech, Chavez also said Bush promoted “democracy for the elite” and a “democracy of bombs.”
• On a separate occasion in 2006, Chavez labeled Bush “a donkey.”
• Later that same year, Chavez said of Bush: “You are an alcoholic, a drunk, a liar, an immoral person, Mr. Danger. You are the worst . . . a psychologically sick man.”
• Criticizing Bush for his handling of the federal response after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Chavez said: “That man, the king of vacations . . . the king of vacations in his ranch said nothing but: ‘You have to flee’ and didn’t say how . . . that cowboy, the cowboy mentality.”
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