Immigrants back Chávez

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Miami Herald

SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela -- Colombia native Berta Cecilia sighs at her 10-year-old son Alejandro, who is rubbing his red, infected eyes, which have troubled him since birth. But she's pleased the Venezuelan government picks up the tab for his ongoing medical care.

Seated outside her rented, ramshackle bungalow on a dusty dirt road, Cecilia says she's grateful to President Hugo Chávez, whose government has also paid to educate her vision-impaired son in a nearby special needs school.

Her partner, Luiz Antonio Gómez, 56, also earns better pay than in neighboring Colombia by selling produce in local markets, including peppers he grows on an acre of rented farmland next to their home. It helps the couple and their three children enjoy a better life. ''We were cultivating tobacco in Colombia. It was bad for us there,'' said Cecilia, who hails from the Colombian state of Norte de Santander.

BETTER CONDITIONS

Cecilia and many of her Colombian neighbors here in the farming community of El Llanito, on the outskirts of Tachira's state capital of San Cristobal, are among the estimated three to four million Colombians who crossed into oil-rich Venezuela in recent decades to seek refuge from their home country's civil war or to seek better-paying work.




Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/776290.html

[Jack Rabbit]

1. South Americans vote against neo-liberalism with their feet as well as their votes

[Bacchus39]

3. and those who immigrate to the US are voting for.....??? n/t

d

[Judi Lynn]

5. More money, a way to support their impoverished loved ones. n/t

[Cha]

2. Yeah, Chavez isn't exactly

the big bad boogie man so many would try to paint him for whatever reason.

Try getting a bush or a cheney to help the poor.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Great article on Mission Identity. Excellent idea. Thanks. n/t