Hugo Chavez by Cristina Marcano

Author:Cristina Marcano [Marcano, Cristina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781588366504
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-08-13T23:00:00+00:00

AFTER A NUMBER OF MISHAPS with the old Boeing 737, the president decided it was necessary to purchase a new aircraft. As the air force began to weigh the options, Chávez placed only one condition on the purchase of the new plane when he discussed it with the experts advising him in the matter: it must not come from the United States. With this in mind, they recommended an aircraft manufactured in France, with VIP furniture and fittings, including an executive office, bedroom suite, and a luxury bathroom. When it came to light that the president with the Robin Hood airs had finally settled on this plane, an Airbus 319 that would cost a total of $65 million, the public went ballistic, for it was quite a contrast to his constant wheedling about the need for austerity. The transaction was protracted, but this did not slow Chávez down in the least. During his first three years as head of state, Chávez spent 170 days outside the country—in other words, more than five months. Visiting seventy-one countries on four continents, he circumnavigated the earth.

Finally, when the new plane arrived in Venezuela in March 2002, the Airbus spent an entire week in the hangar because it was deemed unwise to exhibit it in a country where antigovernment protests had reached a boiling point. On April 6, when the gleaming new aircraft, named FAV 0001, performed a test run at La Carlota air base, a massive human chain—complete with cacerolas—surrounded the airport to protest what they felt was extravagance that was inconsistent with the president’s preaching. A week later, a fleeting coup attempt against President Chávez threatened his chances of ever sitting down in seat number 1, behind which hung a painting that he had personally ordered, of his hero Ezequiel Zamora. As fate would have it, he would make it back to Miraflores and debut his new plane. Months later, a video of its luxurious interior (which also boasted portraits of Bolívar and Simón Rodríguez) were broadcast on television. It was an extraordinary sight to behold, with beige leather seats and gold fixtures. According to an air force pilot familiar with the matter, the new plane had in fact been necessary, and he even added that of all the Airbus models in existence, Chávez had selected the smallest one, with forty-two seats. This, however, did not stop the newspaper El Universal from baptizing it el chupadólares, “the dollar drain.”

The old aircraft, Chávez decided, “is going to become the first plane to be used in a new tourism program for the masses, so that the poor may see Canaima [national park] and visit the islands of the Caribbean.” Until the middle of 2004,2 this was not the case. The next time anyone heard anything about the old Boeing 737, it was during the protests that erupted when people learned that it had been used to take Chávez’s ex-wife, Marisabel, and her two children to Disney World. Later on, the former presidential pilot Juan

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