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Venezuelan middle class flees Chávez rule of hate
Will the last one out please turn off the lights?
Venezuela's once-thriving middle class is packing its bags and fleeing the country, afraid for the future as the socialist president, Hugo Chávez, calls on the slum-dwelling masses to rise up and seize wealth from those better off than themselves. Growing numbers of professionals, business owners and shopkeepers are fed up with the climate of hostility that the Left-wing president has encouraged in his effort to boost his populist credentials.

María Carolina García was blowing up helium balloons in her party-decorations shop in Caracas one day when two customers asked her how much they cost. "When I told them the price, which was just a few dollars, they started yelling at me that it was far too much," Mrs García recalled. "You're a thief! You're all thieves! You just came to this country to steal from the poor," the men shouted before marching out of the shop.

Mrs García, 46, a mother of two whose parents emigrated to Venezuela to escape the Spanish civil war and made a new life as jewellers, was upset. But it was nothing new. "Ever since Hugo Chávez was elected [in 1998] he has been fomenting hatred for those who have, among those who have not. 'Rich is bad.' That's his message. So the people who follow him have decided it's not just the world's superpower they hate, it's people like me too."
Posted by: Steve White 2006-03-05
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=144476