Purging Loyalists, Chávez Tightens His Inner Circle

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/world/americas/17venez.html

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At a time when Mr. Chávez struggles with public ire over electricity shortages and an economy in recession, the arrests show his ability to nimbly consolidate power while crisis swirls around him. To do so, Mr. Chávez is using tactics like secret-police raids and expropriations of some of his most powerful supporters’ businesses, relying on a dwindling number of military loyalists to carry out his orders.

“We are witnessing the battle between competing mafias who prospered at Chávez’s heel,” said Ismael García, a leftist legislator who broke with the president in 2007. “Chávez still has the cynicism to camouflage his rule in socialist rhetoric, but anyone with a brain sees that his loyalists are in it for just two things: the power and the money.”

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This is absurd. Chavez's opponents are just CIA trained fascists.

Pretty soon there will be some form of a purge. The only thing missing so far is a scapegoat. He's gonna start a shooting war down there to be sure.