Word: chavez
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...city of Barinas, the state capital, has long been defined by the vast, rough-and-tumble plains, or llanos, and their cattle culture, that encircle it. Much of the city's gossip, however, revolves around the Chavez clan. It's not uncommon to see red graffiti splashed across street walls in Barinas warning, "If they try to kill Chavez, death to the oligarchy." And anecdotes about young Hugo, accurate or not, flow freely...
...Joaquina Frias, the president's 73-year-old aunt, sits on the porch of her small house in the sweltering heat in Sabaneta, the Barinas town where Hugo Chavez was born. When Hugo was a child, she says, he told other children that he would become President, and when he did he would fix a broken water fountain in front of their school. Others, like childhood friend and neighbor Flor Figueredo, don't recall Chavez showing much political ambition back then. Except once. "He made a comment that with there being so much oil in Venezuela, look...
...Change directions it certainly did after Chavez won the presidency in 1998. Nine years later, the United States is the main enemy and the President aims to consolidate his revolution by overhauling the constitution for a second time, ending presidential term limits, making it easier for the state to expropriate private property, and allowing the government to detain citizens without charge in a state of emergency. And the changing times have changed the fortunes of the Chavezes, leaving their humble beginnings behind to become the most powerful family in the state...
...event near Barinas commemorating independence hero Simon Bolivar's birthday, Argenis walked down a red-carpeted aisle and told a crowd seated on a high-school basketball court that Venezuela has an "ineludible commitment to march towards the socialism of the 21st century under the maximum leader, Hugo Chavez Frias...
...Nacho has his own problems with Washington, saying tension between the two countries prevents him from visiting his son. "If the CIA sends someone to kill Chavez, they'll regret it," says Nacho. But he also says his American friends taught him the importance of giving, which he now sees as a pillar of socialism. "The American people are nice. They are good people. And we don't have anything against them. Some things that the government does against us, that's the problem...