NewsMax.com.
Thursday, Feb. 1, 2001
Venezuela’s Castro-loving president has plans for his nation’s
schools – copy the brainwashing Cuba calls education.
Critics say that Hugo Chavez’s new National Educational Project,
allegedly aimed at improving Venezuelan schools, has a hidden agenda –
introducing Cuban-style indoctrination of schoolchildren.
After winning re-election last year, Chavez announced plans to set up what
he called "Bolivarian" schools, named in honor of the great South
American liberator, Simon Bolivar. His nation’s new constitution mandates
the teaching of "Bolivarian principles" heavily laced with Marxist
rhetoric, and includes premilitary training à la Castro’s schools.
According to the Jan. 27 issue of The Economist, new textbooks present
history from the Marxist government’s standpoint. For example, the
Education Ministry has approved an essay competition centered on the theme of
the late Che Guevara as an admirable role model for Venezuelan youth.
The nation’s teacher unions, private schools and the Catholic Church
have banded together to fight the Castroization of the school system. Under the
motto "Don’t mess around with our kids," they have come up with
their own plans for a new education law.
Among their principal objections to Chavez’s plan is the proposed
appointment of "senior school inspectors," whom the coalition brands
as nothing less than political commissars charged with the duty of enforcing
Marxist ideological purity.
"At no point were we consulted on the National Education Project,"
Jaime Manzo of the teachers federation told the Economist, adding that it took
his group a while to understand what was happening and "put the jigsaw
puzzle together."
Chavez’s Marxist sympathies should come as no surprise. He was
re-elected in an election that featured an alleged army of Cuban infiltrators,
as reported by NewsMax.com on July 24.
According to defecting Cuban agent Juan Alvaro Rosabal Gonzalez, Cuba’s
DGI intelligence agency sent 1,500 agents to infiltrate Venezuelan society and "brainwash"
people into supporting Chavez, a friend and supporter of Cuban dictator Fidel
Castro, in the presidential election.
Last year, Chavez described Cuba as "a sea of happiness" after
visiting the poverty-stricken island. | 