Belize gets foreign aid from Colombia, S. America

* San Andres, Colombia
*Isla San Andres


BELIZE GETS FIRST FOREIGN AID FROM COLOMBIA

There is a recent news announcement that several Belizeans have had their training, transportation and living costs met by the South American country of Colombia, on a TRAINING course for teaching Spanish as a second language, on the famous Colombia vacation island of San Andres.

HONDURAS FINDS SECRET CACHE OF VOTES FOR REFERENDUM CHANGE

* ZELAYA'S voting fraud was set up and found by accident, while police were searching for $40 million stolen from the tax revenues by Zelaya right hand man.


HONDURAS MEDIA OUTLETS ANNOUNCE FIND OF SECRET CACHE OF CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM VOTES, ALREADY DONE, IN WHICH ZELAYA WON ! THE REFERENDUM THAT NEVER TOOK PLACE!

The story neither the USA media, or the Miami Herald are telling, or the Europeans. ZELAYA had the referendum votes already counted in his favor, BEFORE a REFERENDUM even took place.

ORTEGA OF NICARAGUA IS MAKING HIS COPY CAT REFERENDUM SET UP AS WE WRITE THIS. This also lends credence that Chavez stole Venezuela referendums and elections complaints and also those by Morales in Bolivia and Correa in Ecuador. It is all a FRAUD for ALBA Presidents for Life Club of tyrants.
------------------------------------------------

http://lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-corruption-ballot-counts-are-in.html
La Gringa's Blogicito
Tropical gardening and living in La Ceiba, Honduras.
Neither is easy for this expatriate American woman.


Sunday, July 19, 2009
More corruption: The ballot counts are in!
Computers that already collected and tallied the votes
Photo: La Prensa, Honduras

How can the ballots be counted, you ask, since the vote never took place?

¡No importa! as we say in Spanish.

Agents of the DNIC (criminal investigation) discovered ballots, computers, and certified vote counts in an office rented by Enrique Flores Lanza, member of Zelaya's mediating team who you may remember made a L. 40 million cash withdrawal from the central bank four days before the election was to occur. The count sheets neatly tallied the yes and no votes, the blank or disqualified votes, and the totals for various mesas (polling places).

You won't be surprised to learn that Zelaya's proposal won heartily with approximately 80% affirmative votes.

In fact, Zelaya's people should have probably used a little more discretion to make it believable. In one tally sheet that was reported, 'yes' votes totaled 450 while 'no' votes totaled only 30. Since a Gallup poll conducted from June 30 to July 4 reported that 63% of the respondents were against the fourth ballot box for a Constitutional Assembly, the fraudulent results should have been a bit more modest in favor of the cuarta urna.

Though this find was widely reported in the Honduran media, complete with reporters on the site of the investigation in process, here we are three days later and I'm willing to bet that you haven't heard about it yet from the media in your country.

Thanks to a reader, I found that Alberto de la Cruz of Babalú has already done my investigation work for me. He found only one one-sentence report in USA Today. You can read his report and a translation of the only detailed Spanish article that he was able to find. Since then, Lucianne and American Thinker have picked up the story.

Rick Moran at American Thinker wrote this:
It appears certain that the Honduran people narrowly avoided the prospect of a Chavez clone setting up shop as a dictator for life in their country. Only the courageous actions of their political, military, and judicial leaders avoided catastrophe.

I am ashamed of our president and government that they continue to support Zelaya at the expense of Honduran freedom. And I am ashamed of our media who obviously backed the wrong horse and are too arrogant to admit it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Big surprise: Today at the 30th anniversary of the Sandista revolution celebration, Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua, put forth the idea of a Nicaraguan referendum "to have a better constitution".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How can Honduras get a fair shot if none of the major media outlets are reporting the facts. It is NOT acceptable to dismiss news by saying, "Oh, it's coming out of the Honduran media therefore it must be false."

Reporters, come down and find out for yourself, please! Our newspapers have political leanings just like all of yours. That doesn't mean that everything they report is false.

Even better would be if some countries would send their own investigators to follow along with Honduras' investigators and report on their findings. I have no doubt that Honduras' government would welcome that outside cooperation with open arms.

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Posted by La Gringa at 7:54 PM
Topics: corruption, Honduran democratic crisis
16 comments:
Pete said...
've just emailed the newsdesks on ALL the leadimg UK newspapers asking why no-one has picked this up - I wouldn't hold your breath, though!
July 19, 2009 9:43 PM
Pete said...
I also emailed the "statue story" - see:

http://www.elheraldo.hn/Especiales/Honduras%20en%20contra%20de%20la%20ilegalidad%20del%2024%20de%20junio%20de%202009/Ediciones/2009/07/19/Noticias/Manuel-Zelaya-pretendia-inmortalizarse

to the UK tabloids in the hope that they might find it as funny as I did!!! :-)
July 19, 2009 10:01 PM
safariman said...
It's really frustrating to live in Honduras, and see the lack of interest of outsiders in the truth. Even more, the widespread acceptance of "News" snippets from such stalwart paragons of Truth as Chavez' own TV Company Telesur, which has been widely accepted and kindly re-broadcast by CNN and Reuters.

I've lived 14 years in Honduras. I'm proud of Honduras, and the way they've handled a serious, delicate situation.

We'll make it fine.

From Tegucigalpa
July 19, 2009 11:19 PM
K said...
You are doing excellent work. I really appreciate this information and analysis.
But how many of us who trying to get more truth out are only reaching the few that already 'get it'? I spent all weeking thinking, what else can be done?
There is a food chain of participants that has grown organically. I see myself as someone who has mostly focused to identify audiences in the US that weren't listening but might (but am very disappointed in my progress) Is there any way that more discussion about approach and coordination can help?
I'm feeling like a grain of sand in a big ocean. Frustrated already, I admire the persistence of others. The Honduras people have no choice but to stay determined.
I'd be interested to discuss in direct messages, I am accessible on youtube.
July 19, 2009 11:20 PM
Aaron Ortiz said...
WOW!
July 19, 2009 11:46 PM
Anonymous said...
Is there any way that Honduras can send these computers to an independent agency to prove that Honduras is not setting up Zeyala?

If I recall right didn't Colombia send the FARC computers to Interpol to verify they were authentic.
July 20, 2009 4:38 AM
Anonymous said...
Your comment headline says "don't be shy". Well, you're all full of it... you quote garbage that has not one element of truth to it. If you really lived in Honduras, you wouldn't be backing the Neo-Nazi regime that kicked out the legitimate president of the country. Nothing, I repeat NOTHING, will change the fact that Evil is now in power in Honduras... so rant all you want rich white folks... support the Devil, you vile creatures.
July 20, 2009 7:01 AM
Anonymous said...
I only left my previous comment as "Anonymous" because I linked in from Digg... and I didn't want to have to go through the third-degree just to post a comment on this evil website. My email is tomhancock@privacyharbor.com.
July 20, 2009 7:02 AM
Anonymous said...
the major news media are standing with obama and chavez. They don't want to embarrass them
July 20, 2009 8:35 AM
Patty said...
This is the body of a letter I sent this morning to the Miami Herald. We have written our politicians about this. Maybe it is time to write our newspapers.

Why are we not seeing articles like this in the Miami Herald? This was printed, with pictures, in La Prensa. If a reliable newspaper like the Herald would publish articles like this, perhaps fewer people would believe the trash put out by CNN abd report the truth. Check out the other articles by this author, whom your Twitter Team already follows. Every word can be verified. It should be required reading by your reporter in Honduras. Maybe then she would start talking to people in Honduras, rather than parrotting the CNN/Telesur reporters.
July 20, 2009 10:36 AM
Dan D. said...
I'm proud of Honduras, for actually enforcing its own constitution, an example my country (the USA) should take to heart - that's my guess as to why our moron-in-chief sided with Zelaya.

Even if the media isn't running the story, the news is getting out, slowly but surely.

One thing though, if someone could provide an accurate, non-computerized translation of the Honduran Constitution, as there is none available, it might help the cause.
July 20, 2009 10:48 AM
kj_culver said...
I live most of the year on Roatan, HN and am currently in the US.....I am so ashamed of the American President...after all he is a lawyer and should look to the Honduran laws and constitution! I, for one, am e-mailing a synopsis of the events to all the US people in my address book!
July 20, 2009 11:21 AM
Anonymous said...
To Mr. Hancock,
I am one of the supporters of this evil blog, as you say. It seems you didn´t even read the post. How do you explain having results for a voting process that never happened?
Please pull your head out of your a$$ for a minute and READ what it says.
As for CNN en Español, just let me remind everyone that they were the ones to kindly bring El Salvador their new leftist president.

Cristina in Guatemala
July 20, 2009 12:10 PM
Anonymous said...
The picture looks like an ordinary school classroom lab. These computers do not appear to be voting machines.
July 21, 2009 11:34 AM
La Gringa said...
Voting machines?! Hah! This comment shows how so many people have the wrong picture because they are comparing Honduras to the US. Voting machines in Honduras? Oh, please. Give me a break.

If you don't read Spanish, you are never going to know the whole story, but you can try one of the translating sites. They aren't always accurate but at least you'll understand a bit more.

These computers were to be used for tabulating the votes and were taken from a school. They were in an office near the Presidential Casa, rented by his Minister of the Presidency...the one who withdrew L.40 million IN CASH two days before the election.
July 21, 2009 11:54 AM
Honduras Sprout said...
I agree that it is so common to assume US standards. Even hard for me sometimes and I've lived in Honduras a few years now.

Why does information like this not really make the headlines outside of Honduras? Did it? This is the kind of information that can help people (internationally) to understand why Zelaya needed to be removed prior to the poll. And why, when things like this come out, along with the laundry list of charges and evidence against him, it doesn't make Zelaya stand down? Is the man so delusional or is he fearful of the repercussions from Chavez if he was to stand down? It's like he's damned if he does or damned if he doesn't so he figures he might as well go down fighting. Does that make sense?

I'm glad I have you to turn to for info LG, because I have been having a hard time wrapping my brain around this chess game lately. Part of me wants to tune it all out, but I know I shouldn't.
July 22, 2009 12:24 AM
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Posted by ross at July 22, 2009 12:31 PM

BELIZE HAS BEAUTIFUL GIRLS!

* Seven beauties in Belize on Caye Caulker by the Barrier Reef
* Miss Belize

Belize newspapers question Hondurans on the ex-President ZELAYA

A HONDURAN LIVING IN BELIZE EXPLAINS HER ATTITUDE TO ZELAYA'S ACTIONS ( EX - PRESIDENT )



Posted: 17/07/2009 - 10:44 AM
Author: Maria de los Angeles Rosales

Dear Editor,

This is my response to “Hondurans in Belize.”

RESPUESTA A “HONDURENOS BELICE”:

Sugerir que “los hechos ocurridos el 28 de junio son un grave atentado a la vida institucional de los países en América” y “que los hechos ocurridos en Honduras son un claro reflejo de la debilidad de nuestras democracias” son conclusiones extremadamente simplistas y distan tremendamente de la realidad y verdad. Para llegar a una conclusión objetiva sobre los hechos de esta fecha hay que “ver el proceso y cómo Zelaya estaba violando la Constitución” tal y como lo manifestó el Cardenal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga.

Al ser entrevistado por CNN en español y Telemundo, el mismo Cardenal lo explica de la siguiente manera: “El daño empezó el año pasado. Los fondos del FMI (fondo monetario internacional) no llegaron porque no había presupuesto aprobado y lo mismo pasó en 2009 con el BID (banco interamericano del desarrollo) y el BM (banco mundial). El Gobierno de Zelaya se ha sostenido con el dinero de Chávez y ahí está”.

En Honduras no queremos la modalidad “Chavista” de eternizar en el poder, violentando los deseos del pueblo, modificando constituciones a fuerza, de sembrar falsas esperanzas entre los más pobres, haciéndoles creer que el socialismo/comunismo y no el sudor de sus propios esfuerzos es lo que los va a sacar de dicha pobreza.

La “gota que rebalso el vaso de agua” fue precisamente la terquedad de Zelaya de insistir en un referéndum con la finalidad de modificar la constitución para buscar la reelección aún cuando la corte suprema de justicia (CSJ), el fiscal general de la republica y el tribunal supremo de elecciones (TSE) declararon esta intención como ilegal ya que la constitución en uno de sus artículos pétreos, no permite la reelección. Lo cierto es que Zelaya con su actitud anticonstitucional, se convirtió en huérfano político al perder el apoyo del poder legislativo (o sea, el congreso dominado por el mismo partido político que lo llevó al poder), de las iglesias, del comisionado de los derechos humanos, y en realidad del pueblo Hondureño.

Desafortunadamente, en la constitución de Honduras no existe el juicio político llamado Impeachment, nacido en Inglaterra, copiado por Estados Unidos que permite legalmente echar anticipadamente a un gobernante que habiendo sido electo por el pueblo se ha vuelto una amenaza para el Estado y la sociedad. Lo que se hizo no fue lo mejor, pero la Constitución no da una salida como la descrita. Por eso en Honduras se habla de sucesión constitucional y no golpe de estado.

Hoy por hoy en Honduras no hay un tan solo militar ocupando cargos públicos. La Constitución y las leyes de Honduras se continúan aplicando y respetando. En Honduras el Poder Judicial y el Poder Legislativo operan normalmente, sin ninguna interferencia. En Honduras, a los simpatizantes de Zelaya y a la ex primera dama, se les respeta sus derechos constitucionales de manifestarse pacíficamente. Esto es autentica democracia y no la de Zelaya que proponía un modelo político envuelto en petrodólares y cuya envoltura era un atentado contra el estado de derecho.

Aún si en teoría, aceptáramos lo ocurrido como un golpe de estado y por lo tanto erróneo, imponer, como el mundo pretende, a un presidente que claramente ya no cuenta con el apoyo ni la confianza de la mayoría de la sociedad Hondureña no es la solución. Indudablemente, esto seria un error ya que los pilares de la democracia exigen el respeto a la voluntad de la mayoría y el derecho a la autodeterminación. ¡Dos errores no hacen un acierto!

Exigir que Honduras reintegre al ex presidente Zelaya para garantizar a nivel mundial nuestro compromiso con la democracia, es no querer entender la gallardía de un pueblo, que tuvo la valentía de decir basta. Ya no vamos a tolerar a un presidente que no respeta los poderes independientes del estado y que con su demagogia y retórica abusa del nombre del “pobre pueblo” para fines dictatoriales y de continuidad.

Honduras ha aplicado el sistema de peso y contrapesos, demostrando que la teoría de Montesquieu sigue siendo válida, que ningún poder está por encima de otro y que ningún presidente puede violar la constitución impunemente.

RESPONSE TO “HONDURANS IN BELIZE”

To suggest that “the acts that happened on the day of Sunday, 28 of June, are a serious attack to the institutional life of the countries in (Central) America” and that “the things that happened in Honduras are a clear reflection of the weakness of our democracy” are extremely simplistic conclusions that couldn’t be further from reality and the truth. To make objective conclusions with regards to the events of that date you have to “see the entire process and how Zelaya was violating the constitution” as expressed by the Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga.

In interviews with CNN in Spanish and Telemundo, the Cardinal explained it as follows: “The damage began last year. The moneys from IMF were not sent because there was no approved budget and the same thing happened in 2009 with IDB and the World Bank. Zelaya’s government had been maintained with Chavez’ money, and there it is.”

In Honduras we do not want the Chavez style of seeking perpetual power, violating the wishes of the people, modifying constitutions by force, sowing unrealistic hopes among the very poor, making them believe that socialism/communism and not their hard work is what is going to pull them out of such poverty.

The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was precisely Zelaya’s stubborn insistence on carrying out a referendum with the final objective of modifying the constitution so that he could seek reelection even when the supreme court of justice, the attorney general, the supreme elections tribunal, had declared such an act illegal as the constitution, in one of its petrous articles, does not allow for reelection.

The fact of the matter is that Zelaya, with his anti-constitutional attitude, became a political orphan when he lost the support of the legislative body (i.e., the congress in which his political party holds the majority of votes), the churches, the ombudsman and in reality, the great majority of Hondurans.

Unfortunately, the Honduran constitution does not address impeachment procedures which originated in England and were subsequently adopted by the U.S., which legally allow for a president to be removed when, even after having been elected by the people, he becomes a threat to the state and society. What was done was not the best of situations, but the constitution does not allow for a solution as described above. That is why in Honduras the term constitutional succession is used instead of coup d’etat.

Today in Honduras, not a single military officer holds public office. The constitution and laws of Honduras are being applied and respected. In Honduras, the judiciary and legislative are functioning normally without outside interference. In Honduras, Zelaya’s sympathizers’ and the ex first lady’s constitutional rights to protest peacefully are respected. This is authentic democracy as opposed to Zelaya’s version, which proposed a political model sugar-coated with petro dollars and which was a threat against the rule of law.

Furthermore, even if hypothetically we were to accept the facts as a coup d’etat, and hence as a “wrong”, to impose, as the world pretends, a president who clearly no longer has the support of the majority of the Honduran society, is not the solution. Undoubtedly, this would be a “wrong” as the pillars of democracy demand respect for the will of the people and the right to self determination. Two wrongs do not make a right!

To demand that Honduras reinstate Zelaya to guarantee internationally, our commitment with democracy, is to not understand the gallantry of a people who were brave enough to say enough is enough. We will no longer tolerate a president who does not respect the independent powers of a democratic state and who, with his demagogic rhetoric, abuses the name of the “poor people” to achieve dictatorial continuity.

Honduras has applied the check and balance mechanism, proving that Montesquieu’s theory is still valid in that no power (legislative, judiciary, executive) is above the other and that no president has the right to violate the constitution with impunity.

Maria de los Angeles Rosales

1600 foot Falls of the Belize Alps. ( one of them )

* This is the viewing balcony looking over the falls. You can actually see only the first few hundred feet, as the slope of the hill and gorge goes down so steeply, it cuts off a view of the immediate drop and bottom. Entrance fee was $1 usa.
This is called the Thousand Foot Falls, though it has been measured over 1600 feet in height and drops into Roaring Creek Gorge on a Belize Alps day tour trip.

MEDICAL TREATMENT IN WESTERN BELIZE

* La Loma Luz Adventist private hospital in Santa Elena Town, Western Cayo district of Belize
* Private La Loma Luz Hospital owned by ADVENTISTS
* Government hospital worker.
* San Ignacio government hospital
* San Ignacio street scene
* lot of babies born here.


MEDICAL TREATMENT IN TWIN TOWNS OF WESTERN BELIZE

I shudder to think of going back to medical treatment in the USA. The wife was talking about buying a house back in the USA, ( we are retired ) and I asked, her what about medical treatment? It is atrocious in the USA. The service is lousy and you cannot get things done, even when you have insurance. If you are old like us and have no insurance, our assets, a home and bank account and savings would get wiped out. We can't afford to live in the USA, or go back, because of the ROBBER BARON medical system up there. First thing you know they stick you in a hospital and you have a medical bill for a million dollars. Also, if you have no insurance, they are going to file and record a lien on your house and bank account overnight, the very first night, to make sure they get paid. You would be broke and homeless after just one hospital visit.

Here in Cayo District Western Belize, we have two hospitals, one government socialized medicine and mostly free, but they have no tests to speak of, to narrow down diagnosis. There is also a hospital that is private, but they are very limited also in diagnostics. Both hospitals prescribe antibiotics they have, not necessarily the kinds you might want. That said, for the usual type of normal accidents and illnesses they are fairly good. The private hospital you have to pay quite a bit. The best medical treatment in the Western Twin Towns in our experience is currently a Dr. Sanchez. He has an office, prompt service ( $20 usa a visit ) He has a diagnostic testing clinic across the street he owns. Mostly he refers you there, for a few more dollars. I've checked his urinalysis diagnostics on the internet and it is darned good. Which narrows down the drug, and antibiotic choices. Then he has an ultra sound clinic a block away, for injuries and pregnancies sort of thing. Down from his office a few doors he owns a pharmacy and usually he has the antibiotics you need, and cannot find at the two local hospitals. It's hard to go in and get out for less than $150 usa, but you get prompt, very fast treatment. The equivalent in the USA using the specialist referral system, would consume several weeks of visiting and appointments. Whereas with Sanchez you get in and out, for everything done in less than 3 hours, same day. Can't beat that for service. Nothing at all like that in Miami for sure. The hospitals do good with fevers, cuts, broken bones and that sort of thing. General emergency medicine. The government hospital is a lot cheaper or FREE even. Service is prompt enough during the day.

THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION TURNS OUT TO BE AN OLD FASHIONED TYRANTS TOTALITARIAN STATE RULING THROUGH FEAR AND TERROR.

* Mac Margolis, writer.
THE MIDDLE CLASS CONTINUE TO FLEE VENEZUELA, BOLIVIA AND ECUADOR AS THE COLD WAR IRON CURTAIN DROPS OVER SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA
The Bolivarian Revolution was supposed to be about helping the poor, but what is happening is loss of FREEDOM of the MEDIA in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Both Ecuador and Venezuela are now without opposition viewpoints of opinions. Bolivia is getting there. The TOTALITARIAN POLICE STATE is tightening controls over all facets of life in these countries. Any idea of democracy is crushed. Like Cuba where teenagers who express a curiousity, or independent mind and can be jailed for not being socialist enough. You get three years in jail for what the state thinks you are thinking. Like all DICTATORS and Presidents For Life, Tyranny claims to be to help the poor. In Russia, they killed over a 100 million Russians for so-called helping the poor. It was the poor who suffered. Under MAO in China, they killed more than 500 million, POL POT murdered and enslaved first 4 1/2 million. In China it wasn't until the Communist Party turned to capitalism they started to succeed and turned the state into a ONE PARTY government. Still it is all about POWER, ABSOLUTE POWER. EGO of course, you need the EGO of a tyrant. Helping the poor what a cruel joke the BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION turned out to be.
The following article was recently in Newsweek Magazine by Mac Margolis. Even if you take the democratic attitude out of the articles, the repeating cycles of Latin American rule through FEAR and TERROR can be felt for us older generations.
-----------------------------------


QUOTE FROM NEWSWEEK ON THE WEB COMMENTARY PAGES, AND WRITTEN BY MAC MARGOLIS ( at least that is what it says where I read it on the internet.)

For just a moment, in the early days of his presidency, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez looked almost like a healer. "Let's ask for God's help to accept our differences and come together in dialogue," he implored his conflicted compatriots in 2002. Instead, what Venezuelans got was an avenger. The government is seizing privately owned companies and farms. Labor unions have been crushed. Political opponents are routinely harassed or else prosecuted by Chavista-controlled courts. And now, after a decade of the so-called Bolivarian revolution, tens of thousands of disillusioned Venezuelan professionals have had enough. Artists, lawyers, physicians, managers, and engineers are leaving the country in droves, while those already abroad are scrapping plans to return. The wealthiest among them are buying condos in Miami and Panama City. Cashiered oil engineers are working rigs in the North Sea and sifting the tar sands of western Canada. Those of European descent have applied for passports from their native lands. Academic scholarships are lifeboats. An estimated 1 million Venezuelans have moved abroad in the decade since Chávez took power.

This exodus is splitting families and interrupting careers, but also sabotaging the country's future. Just as nations across the developing world are managing to lure their scattered expatriates back home to fuel recovering economies and join vibrant democracies, the outrush of Venezuelan brainpower is gutting universities and think tanks, crippling industries, and hastening the economic disarray that threatens to destroy one of the richest countries in the hemisphere. Forget minerals, oil, and natural gas; the biggest export of the Bolivarian revolution is talent.

The Bolivarian diaspora is a reversal of fortune on a massive scale. Through most of the last century, Venezuela was a haven for immigrants fleeing Old World repression. Refugees from totalitarianism and religious intolerance in Spain, Italy, Germany, and Eastern Europe flocked to this country nestled between the Caribbean and the Andean cordillera and helped forge one of the most vibrant societies in the New World. Like most developing nations, the country was split between the burgeoning poor and an encastled elite. But in the 1970s and 1980s, Venezuelans were the envy of Latin America. Oil-rich, educated, with a solid democratic tradition, they lived a tier above the chronically unstable societies in the region. "We had a relatively rich country that offered opportunities, with no insecurity. No one thought about leaving," says Diego Arria, a former Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations who lives in New York. "Now we have rampant crime, a repressive political system that borders on apartheid, and reverse migration. Venezuela is now a country of emigrants."
Click here to find out more!

It's much the same all over the Axis of Hugo, the constellation of nine states in the Andes, Central America, and the Caribbean that have followed Chávez in lockstep in the march toward what he calls 21st-century socialism. In the name of power, justice, and plenty for the downtrodden, the leaders of the "Bolivarian alternative" in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua are rewriting their constitutions, intimidating the media, and stoking class and ethnic conflicts that occasionally explode in hate and violence. The overthrow on June 28 of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, a key Chávez ally, is the latest example of the blowback from the Bolivarian revolution.

The middle classes and the young are taking the brunt. A study just released by the Latin American Economic System, an intergovernmental economic-research institute, reports that the outflow of highly skilled workers, ages 25 and older, from Venezuela to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries rose 216 percent between 1990 and 2007. A recent study by Vanderbilt University in Nashville showed that more than one in three Bolivians under 30 had plans to emigrate, up from 12 percent a decade ago, while 47 percent of 18-year-olds said they planned to leave. Many established professionals have already made up their minds. "I ask myself if I'm not patriotic enough," says Giovanna Rivero, an acclaimed Bolivian novelist who is leaving for a teaching job at the University of Florida and has no plans to come back. But "Bolivia is coming apart. There are people who've known each other all their lives who don't talk to one another anymore."

In Venezuela, Chávez has pushed hard against anyone who refuses to accept his party line. Daniel Benaim was one of Venezuela's top independent television producers, turning out prime-time entertainment and game shows for national channels with Canal Uno, a leading production house. "We had 160 employees and a 24/7 operation," he says. But after the failed coup against Chávez in 2002, the government cracked down on independent media, and programming budgets dried up. In a month, Canal Uno was down to four employees and heading for bankruptcy. Benaim redirected his business to serve the international advertising market and raked in prestigious international awards, including multiple Latin Emmys. But opportunities for non-Chávistas in Venezuela had withered. One by one, he watched the people he trained over the years leave the country. "I used to give angry speeches about the brain drain. Now I have to bite my tongue," says Benaim, who is also moving to the U.S. "We had the best minds in the business, and now there's nothing for them here."

One of Benaim's associates was Gonzalo Bernal Ibarra. He, too, had soared up the career ladder in broadcast television and until recently ran a campus network that reached 100,000 students. Everything changed in late 2007, when Chávez lost a referendum to rewrite the Constitution and began to crack down on his media critics, including Bernal. Strangers in jackets with weighted pockets—dress code for Chávez's military-intelligence police—began to follow him day and night. Then Congress was set to pass a bill obliging schools to teach 21st-century socialism. "I didn't want my kid learning that crap," says Bernal. Even shopping became a trial as spiking inflation and government price controls emptied the supermarkets of basic goods like milk, eggs, and meat. One day in late 2008, Bernal opened a bottle of whisky and held a yard sale. "I got drunk and watched my life get carted away," he says. He now lives in the Washington, D.C., area, with his wife and 6-year-old daughter, and is trying to adapt. "I was living in the most beautiful, wonderful, funny country in the world. Now a third of my friends are gone. In another 10 years, Venezuela is going to be a crippled country."

No industry has been harder hit by the flight of talent than Venezuela's oil sector. A decade ago, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) ranked as one of the top five energy companies in the world. Everything changed under Chávez, who named a Marxist university professor with no experience in the industry to head the company. PDVSA's top staff immediately went on strike and paralyzed the country. Chávez responded by firing 22,000 people practically overnight, including the country's leading oil experts. As many as 4,000 of PDVSA's elite staff are now working overseas. "The company is a shambles," says Gustavo Coronel, a former member of the PDVSA board who now works in Washington, D.C., as an oil consultant. Until 2003, researchers at the company's Center for Technological Research and Development generated 20 to 30 patents a year. Last year it produced none, even though its staff had doubled. PDVSA produced 3.2 million barrels of crude oil a day when Chávez took control. Now it pumps 2.4 million, according to independent estimates.

The decline has spread across Venezuelan society, heightened by cronyism, corruption, and censorship. In May, on the pretext that scientists were pursuing "obscure" research projects such as "whether there is life on Venus," Chávez began to slash budgets at the university science centers, where the country's cutting-edge public-health research was carried out. Instead he poured petrodollars into official misiones científicas (scientific missions), where the purse strings are controlled by Chávez allies. Now the country's most respected research institutes are falling behind. Earlier this year Jaime Requena, a Cambridge University–trained biologist at the Institute of Advanced Studies, was forced into retirement and stripped of his pension after publishing a paper charging that scientific research in Venezuela was "at a 30-year low." The number of papers published by Venezuelans in international scientific journals has fallen from 958 to 831, a nearly 15 percent drop, in just the past three years. At 62, with an aging mother, Requena has few options: "It's not easy to get another job at my age. I would leave Venezuela if I could. My friends and colleagues all have."