Those who suggest that Hugo Chavez got the best of President Obama at the Summit of the Americas might want to read this article from Venezuela’s El Universal, which advises that the truth is just the opposite – that Obama played Chavez like a harp, forcing him into a situation in which he had to back down.
Castigating the ‘antics’ of President Chavez and expressing his personal discomfort over his gift of an untranslated Spanish-language book on imperialism to the U.S. head of state, For El Universal, Roberto Giusti writes in part:
“Obama dismantled the Chavez racket in regard to imperialism and it wasn’t, as they say in Caracas and Washington, that Obama was coddling Chavez. On the contrary, Chavez was won over when confronted by an irrefutable argument, and there was nothing left to do but support it.”
“Don’t think that we are dealing with a kind of ‘socialism light’ that will tolerate the existence of dictators in its own neighborhood. Obama is not Bush, but he’s also not Carter. … So if Chavez thinks Obama is a Black in his pocket, he’s deluding himself.”
By Roberto Giusti
Translated By Liz Essary
April 20, 2009
Venezuela – El Universal – Original Article (Spanish)
If the copy of Open Veins of Latin America that Chávez gave Obama had been an English translation, perhaps the gesture would have made some sort of sense. But even then it would have been impossible to conceal Chavez’ failure to grasp, not to say ignorance, toward a man who represents the first non-WASP [White Anglo-Saxon Christian] president of the United States. The gift was vain and pretentious for many reasons. First, because Obama is a mulatto, which resulted in his having to suffer racial discrimination first-hand and grow up in the mid-point between two worlds divided by prejudice. Next, because of his African blood and his childhood in Indonesia where he studied at a Catholic as well as a Muslim school, where he got to know misery close up. But also because of his job as a social worker, his privileged upbringing and his keen intelligence.
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