From Weekly Standard.com

The Cubanization of Venezuela

Castro works to keep Chávez in power and the cheap oil flowing.

BY Jaime Daremblum
March 8, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 24

The Cubanization of Venezuela began a long time ago, but it took another large step in early February, when Cuban general Ramiro Valdés arrived in Caracas to serve as a government consultant. Valdés, 77, has been one of the most brutal enforcers of the Castro regime, beginning in the 1960s when he was responsible for crushing popular protests over energy-use restrictions. He established Castro’s ruthless G2 intelligence service and is currently number three in the Cuban hierarchy.

According to Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, Valdés and his retinue are there to help the South American country solve its dire electricity crisis. Cuba has been experiencing major electricity problems for 50 years, so it’s unclear just what assistance its advisers would be able to provide on energy policy. (Writing in the Ven-ezuelan newspaper El Universal, journalist Nelson Bocaranda noted that the Cubans have actually damaged several Venezuelan power generators.)

And Valdés is no energy expert. He is an expert in managing the repressive organs of a police state. He’s been sent to Venezuela to help Chávez suppress the popular revolt and further consolidate his autocracy. It’s part of a broad Cuban effort to prop up the Bolivarian revolution and ensure that Chávez keeps providing the Communist island with generous shipments of cheap oil.

Havana has good reason to be worried about Venezuelan stability. Recent months have seen massive anti-Chávez demonstrations, with tens of thousands of angry Venezuelans filling the streets to complain about, not just electricity shortages, but also water rationing, high crime rates, runaway inflation, corruption, and the erosion of democracy. Venezuela is suffering from a lengthy drought, which isn’t Chávez’s fault. But the rest is. As Venezuelan exile Gustavo Coronel has written, “For the last ten years the infrastructure generating both hydroelectric and thermal electricity in the country has been badly neglected, in favor of Chávez’s demagogic programs of handouts to poor Venezuelans and to friendly politicians in the region.â€