Friday, 19 June 2009
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has again urged President Barack Obama to adopt socialist principles to see the United States through the ongoing economic crisis.
Speaking on Thursday on his new television program, Hello President, Chavez said the U.S. administration has taken some interesting steps in attempting to counter the "difficult crisis."
He said that in Venezuela, socialism and well-timed state measures have helped the country save its "healthy national economy and healthy national bank in contrast with other world powers."
"I recognize Obama's good intentions, but will repeat once again: Unite with socialism! Obama, join socialism and we'll see if we can really change the world." He warned that "capitalism will kill the world."
In March, Chavez told the United States that socialism is its only way out of the crisis, and urged Americans to seek a "higher" destiny and leave behind "the sad role that it has been given, as a murderous, attacking power that is hated all around the world."
Chavez, a former army paratrooper who styles himself the builder of "21st-century socialism," announced the beginning of the third phase of his "Bolivarian revolution" earlier this year, aimed at fighting poverty, corruption and crime, and improving literacy.
Chavez believes that the first two stages of the "Bolivarian revolution" were completed successfully in 1999-2006, and in 2007-2009.
Since 1998, the Venezuelan authorities have carried out a large-scale nationalization campaign targeting major domestic companies in key sectors of the economy, ploughing large volumes of formerly private revenue into social projects across the country. The government has nationalized the steel company Sidor, the cement industry, private oil fields, the telecommunications sector and 2.3 million hectares of agricultural land. The number of people living below the poverty line was estimated to have declined from 48.1% in 2002 to 30.2% in 2006.
