Anti-Bush Chavez visits Harlem church

Virgil Wright

NEW YORK — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, preaching the gospel of social change in a Harlem church, left the choir and congregants shouting their approval as he denounced exploitation of the poor.

Introduced by actor Danny Glover, the fiery Latin American populist shared his left-leaning views on history, religion and petro-politics during a 90-minute talk, interrupted by frequent bursts of applause from the largely African American crowd jammed into the Lenox Avenue sanctuary.

Chavez’s appearance came the morning after a controversial Sept. 20 speech at the United Nations where he used his 22 minutes on the podium to rail against neo-imperialist U.S. policies and repeatedly refer to President George W. Bush as the devil.

While reprising some of his incendiary comments from the day before, Chavez’s message to the Uptown church focused largely on using Venezuela’s vast oil wealth to help the poor.

“North America has a serious energy problem,” said Chavez. “Here energy is wasted. The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population but consumes 25 percent of the energy produced on the planet. It is the rich people who waste the energy. They build cages made of glass. There is no way to ventilate them, so they use air-conditioning 24 hours a day.”

Criticizing a culture of “extreme individualism and capitalism” in the U.S., Chavez proposed his “Bolivarian Revolution” as an alternative model — using his country’s petroleum riches to aid not only poor states in South America and the Caribbean but the poor of North America as well.

In keeping with that vision, Chavez pledged to increase the commitment of discount heating oil to the poor of the U.S., building on a program launched during the winter of 2005-2006 by CITGO Petroleum, the U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company.

“Today, in this special place, I want to announce that we are increasing our distribution of heating oil to our friends in America to 100 million gallons,” said Chavez, listing 16 states, including Massachusetts, targeted by the CITGO program this coming winter.

Citizens Energy Corporation, a Boston-based nonprofit, will handle the oil distribution to over 400,000 families, said Chavez.

While chants of “Viva Hugo!” resounded in the converted synagogue, much of the audience beyond the sanctuary, watching through a bank of TV cameras, found the fiery populist’s message too hot to handle.

Moments after Chavez, clad in his trademark red shirt, walked down the granite steps of the Mount Olivet Baptist Church and roared away with his entourage, reporters doing stand-ups on the sidewalk began reading statements criticizing the president’s remarks, in particular his comments equating President Bush with the devil.

“I want President Chavez to please understand that even though many people in the United States are critical of our president, we resent the fact that he would come to the United States and criticize President Bush,” said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY.

The Harlem congressman, who has defended Chavez in the past and is one of Bush’s most vociferous opponents on Capitol Hill, said in his statement that the Venezuelan president had crossed the line and should have used his appearance in the U.S. to cement ties between the two nations rather than inflame tensions.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., who brokered the deal bringing the discount oil to the U.S., also asked Chavez to tone down the rhetoric, saying it was compromising his good work for families struggling to stay warm in the winter.

While unrelenting in his criticism of Bush and U.S. foreign policy, Chavez held out an olive branch to the American people, expressing hope that U.S. voters would elect a president he could work with.

“I ask God that some day the people of the United States will choose a president with whom we can talk,” said Chavez.

The Venezuelan president, swept into office in 1998 after widespread dissatisfaction with rising poverty and increasing concentration of wealth, has survived in office in spite of crippling strikes, an attempted coup, and a recall referendum backed by the U.S.

His opponents, united behind a single candidate in the December presidential elections, have pointed to rising crime rates, corruption and Chavez’s frequent forays to rub shoulders with unsavory foreign leaders, including Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as reasons to drive him from power.

Chavez currently leads his opponent, Zulia state Gov. Manuel Rosales, by a 20-point margin.

With Venezuela holding the largest oil reserves in the hemisphere and providing 15 percent of America’s oil imports, Chavez has consolidated control of the national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, to pursue an aggressive form of petro-diplomacy throughout the world — creating an alternative to neo-liberal trade policies advanced by the U.S. and international lending institutions.

He has signed energy deals with China, traded oil for medical care with Cuba, forged pipeline agreements with Brazil, used petroleum revenues to bail out sinking Argentine debt, and provided discount fuel to Haiti. At the same time, he has supported populist candidates throughout Latin America.

While wildly popular among Venezuela’s poor, Chavez has stirred bitter opposition among the country’s elite. The first mixed-race president in Venezuela, Chavez frequently cites pride in his African and Indian origins and has directed substantial resources to alleviate poverty and illiteracy among Venezuela’s isolated indigenous people.

Actor and social activist Harry Belafonte, introducing Chavez at the Great Hall of Cooper Union the night of his U.N. address, recounted how the president described himself in their first meeting.

“President Chavez met with our African American delegation in Miraflores palace in Caracas,” said Belafonte. “He told us, ‘Look at my thick lips. Look at my broad nose. Look at my kinky hair. I am an African.’”