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In fact, he's a beloved democrat first elected in 1990 with 67% of the vote, ousted by a US-supported coup months later, returned to Haiti in 1994, then, because he couldn't succeed himself in 1996, ran in 2000 and was overwhelmingly re-elected with 92% of the vote. Today in exile, the great majority of Haitians want him back but paramilitary occupiers, under orders from Washington, won't let him.
Following Hugo Chavez's December 1998 election, The Times Latin American reporter, Larry Roher, wrote:
Regional "presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders (concerned about the) specter (they) thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo (strongman)" taking power.
Ever since, Times writers consistently:
-- turned a blind eye to Venezuelan democracy;
-- bashed Chavez as "divisive, a ruinous demagogue, provocative (and) the next Fidel Castro;"
-- said he "militarized the government, emasculated the country's courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy, and hollowed out Venezuela's once-democratic institutions:" common conditions during decades of pre-Chavez rule that columnist Roger Lowenstein falsely said exist now in:
-- calling him anti-capitalist for sharing his nation's oil wealth with the people by providing essential social services, and for lifting the most needy out of poverty; and
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