Chavez a ‘guiding light’

It was with much sadness that I learnt of the death of the President of Venezuela, a man whom put himself forward to the people 14 times.

And a man who former president of the United States Jimmy Carter called “The Best in the World”, a man who lifted the poor of Venezuela out of poverty and who brought forward huge social programmes to help its people, using the vast resources of oil for the benefits of its people.

My abiding memory of Chavez was his denouncing of another president of the US George W Bush at the United Nations in Sept 2006 as the “Devil”. Chavez’s anti-imperialism was to many of us on the left a guiding light. He will be missed.