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Well we’re joined now by George Galloway,
who knew Hugo Chavez very well

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and spent two weeks working on his
campaign in Venezuela last year.

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He joins us from Beirut where
he’s been filming a TV programme,

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and from Washington by Republican Congressman Luke
Messer, who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

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Congressman Messer, thank you
very much for joining us.

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As the State Department’s
just been briefing and saying

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that America will send a
delegation to the Chavez funeral,

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and indeed President Obama was pretty conciliatory
in his remarks about the death of Mr Chavez.

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Are those remarks that you agree with?

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Well, listen, no one likes
to speak ill of the dead

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but we have to recognise in this
moment what Hugo Chavez was.

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He was [an] anti-democratic despot, he
left his country worse than he found it,

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I recognise that there were some
that benefitted from his leadership

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but those gains were largely stolen
on the backs of others in his country

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and I think that’s how history will remember him.

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George Galloway, your history will
remember him in a very different way.

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Well a Republican Congressman
would say that, wouldn’t he?

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Hugo Chavez expropriated the
richest of the oligarchy,

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he distributed Venezuela’s God-given oil
wealth across the mass of the population

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and that’s why he kept on winning elections.

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How someone can be described
as a despot and a tyrant

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when he won four Presidential
elections with thumping majorities

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and after 14 years in power won
the biggest vote that he’d

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ever had and I was there,
with my wife for two weeks,

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and the mass of the Venezuelan
people are in mourning.

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Of course, the gold-toothed émigrés who were
dancing in the streets of Miami last night

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that the Republican Congressman speaks for;

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they can dance on the lion’s grave,
but they can never be a lion.

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Well Congressman, it is true of course that
he did win democratic elections and indeed,

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no less an individual than President
Jimmy Carter witnessed one of them

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and certainly said it was a free and fair
election and that is a problem isn’t it,

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because Venezuela is a very divided country
like many other countries in Latin America

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and even perhaps many states in the
United States have rich and poor

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and Chavez sided with the poor?

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Yeh, we have to recognise that
while there were elections

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there, and I’m not
suggesting they were fixed,

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you have a tie between government and
government control in these elections

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that is not like an election what [sic] most
of us would consider [fair] in the West.

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When you take from one and give to another,

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the recipient of that theft may appreciate
it but those who were stolen from don’t.

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Margaret Thatcher famously said
‘the problem with Socialism

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is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.’

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Because of the oil wells in
Venezuela, Hugo- or Mr Chavez-

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was able to survive longer
than Socialism might elsewhere

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but the reality is that what he leaves for this
nation is a nation whose economy is in shambles,

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it’s had spiking debt, 20% level of inflation and
he left his country worse off than he found it.

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Before I go back to George
Galloway, let me ask you

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one question which is very
poignant in this moment:

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one of the things which has changed in
the last 14 years is that America itself

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has interfered much less in Latin
America than ever in recent history

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and that is surely a good
thing and may in part be down

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to the very independent line
that Hugo Chavez pursued.

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Indeed and he pursued Latin American
unity; he introduced Bank of the South,

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University of the South, even
TeleSUR, a television of the South.

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He was keen and working on various projects
like that ALBA Grouping, for example,

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to unite the peoples of Latin
America so that they would

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never again be victims of the
hegemony of the United States,

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and what the Congressman calls
‘theft’, other people call ‘taxation’,

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of rich people so that their
wealth can be redistributed

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amongst people who don’t
have enough to eat.

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94% of Venezuelans now eat three times a day.

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Let me pause you there
George Galloway, because I

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just wanted to get this
point with the Congressman,

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which is just the question of
America basically allowing

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Latin America to go its
way, and what a way it is.

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I mean Venezuela maybe to some extent
slightly behind but the fact is

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the continent is romping forwards and
that is an interesting development.

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That’s true, and those that have democratic
governments and capitalist economies

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are doing much better than the
Socialist regime in Venezuela

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I would associate myself
though with President Obama’s

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broad comments that now
is a new day in Venezuela

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and the Venezuelan people have the
opportunity to choose new leadership,

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let’s hope they choose wisely and America
looks forward to the opportunity

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to interact with the citizens
of that great nation.

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George Galloway, that is the next issue;
30 days to choose a new President.

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Obviously the Vice President
will be a candidate but

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he is- for whatever one
may say- not Hugo Chavez

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and it will be very hard
to match what went before.

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Well no one else is Hugo Chavez.
There’s not two

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Hugo Chavezes in the world,
never mind in Venezuela.

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But Nicholas Maduro, I
knew him when he was a bus

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driver, when he was a bus
drivers’ trade union leader,

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and I look forward to, if I can, helping him
get elected as the President of the Republic.

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He’s a man with the common touch; he used
to drive the common people in buses,

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not something the Congressman can claim
to do and nor the people the represents.

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I believe that Maduro will win a
thumping majority in 40 days’ time,

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I think the people of Venezuela are not
ready to abandon their revolution.

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They’ve seen the future and it works.

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But it is true, Congressman, as indeed you said,
that the economy is not in the best of shape.

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Whatever redistribution has taken place, the fact
is there is inflation, pretty romping inflation.

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How do you look forward, in such a short
period, to really very much happening?

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I mean if Venezuela is the
shining star of Socialism,

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it doesn’t say much for
Socialism, does it?

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Our hope is that the people
of this nation understand

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the opportunities that
would come with democracy,

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understand the opportunities that
would come with a capitalist society

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that could help grow their economy and
create wealth for broad cross-sections,

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not just redistribute wealth
from some and give it to others.

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Clearly in this new dawn
there is the new opportunity

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for that, that’s certainly
what I’m hoping for.

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I think America stands ready
to help if that’s the choice.

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George Galloway, it is perfectly possible that in
the medium term there will be change of some kind

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It’s interesting that already the stock markets
in what you would regard as the Capitalist world

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have reacted to what’s happened in Venezuela
by investing in American oil companies

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that may well very much hope to be
back on the ground in Venezuela.

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Yeh, despite the Congressman’s
efforts to paint Venezuela

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as a kind of hive of
Bolshevik-stroke Anarchy,

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the reality is that tax in Britain is higher
than it is in Venezuela on rich people.

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Most of the enterprises in Venezuela
are still in private hands.

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Most of the television
stations are still in private

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hands and against Chavez and
against the revolution.

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So this is not a Red in tooth and claw
revolution, this is a Labour revolution.

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Chavez stood for the kind of things
that Labour used to stand for.

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Most people in Britain and
most people in the world think

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that would be quite a good
thing, thanks very much!

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George Galloway in Beirut and indeed Congressman
Messer in Washington, thank you both very much.

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It’s rare that one gets both
sides of that dichotomy which

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confronts the people of
Venezuela so articulately put.

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Thank you both very much.