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Chavez Vows To Fight "First World" Poverty
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has vowed to help fight "crippling poverty in the First World" if he were to be re-elected for a third term in today's Venezuelan elections.
The charismatic socialist leader is ahead in the polls and looks set to extend his seven years in power.
Since 1999, Chavez has helped turn his own country's fortunes around by expropriating much of its oil industry, implementing a free state-funded healthcare system, doing the same for education up to the university level and significantly lowering infant mortality rates.
But the humble humanitarian Chavez is now gravely concerned about the plight of peasants in North America.
"Everyday, I watch with great sorrow the crippling poverty suffered by so many people in the First World," he said at a rally in Caracus.
"I watch as all of those poor Americans die of heart disease, so fat that they can't get out of bed."
Chavez is the first South American leader to pledge financial aid to help fight North American poverty. However, some critics of Chavez have stated that corrupt US politicians would use foreign aid to line their own pockets.
The Venezuelan President allayed these fears at the rally by promising not to give any aid money to the "evil dictatorship" of George W. Bush and his neo-conservative administration, instead handing it directly to the working class people of North America.
"Here in Venezuela, we sometimes take our own prosperity for granted," Chavez added.
One man admitted after the Caracus rally that he had been moved to tears. "I never realised until now how good we have it here in the Third World," he said. "But hearing Chavez speak of the overwhelming poverty suffered by those poor North Americans, about how they live in fear of gun crime and hurricanes, and about how they have to work 12 hours every day just to make ends meet - I was really emotional."
Chavez blamed capitalism for causing the humanitarian crisis in the US and said: "Did you know that in America the working-class are forced to pay for their own healthcare? Most of them can't afford the operations they need to unblock their arteries."
Concluding the well-received speech, Chavez called on other Third World countries in South America to do all they could to help fight First World poverty in the United States.
"Here in South America, life is great. We have thriving democracies, stable economies; and our governments take care of their citizens," he said.
"In North America the system is corrupt, the working-class are exploited, crime is rife, public services almost non-existent. We must do what we can to help those countries who are not as fortunate as ourselves."
