Trinidad Express editorialist Selwyn Ryan writes: To his fervent supporters, he's a new Simon Bolivar, the man on the white horse who's come to rescue them from decades of corrupt governments and irreversible poverty. To his detractors, he's Hugo the Horrible, the man who's driving his critics up a wall, at home and abroad, even as he makes a mess of one of the richest countries in South America.

He, of course, is Hugo Chavez, the irrepressible President of Venezuela who last week also virtually let the Caricom cat out of the bag by declaring that he was recognizing Jean-Bertrand Aristide as the lawful President of Haiti.

Just prior to Mr. Chavez' declaration, he had a fleeting visit from Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning who, over dinner at Miraflores ... the presidential palace in the heart of Caracas ... discussed the aftermath of the sudden, though hardly surprising, downfall of Mr. Aristide.

• Caricom is to declare its own position on the new Haiti government this week (even though that government has threatened to pull out of Caricom) but it's very likely that Mr. Chavez has already broadcast that position on his own.

Contrary to what Mr. Aristide has consistently stated since his departure from power, the United States has repeatedly denied that it forced the Haitian President from power, though admitting that it "facilitated" his sudden departure from Haiti.

But Mr. Chavez is not buying that. After himself accusing the United States of being involved in the short-lived coup attempt against him two years ago, Mr. Chavez has been holding up the Aristide affair as an example of what "the country that preaches democracy all over the world" is really capable of doing.

In an interview in the New York Times last week, Mr. Chavez threatened to have oil prices hit US$50 a barrel if the United States dared to try to overthrow him or blockade his government.

• In another recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Chavez was painted as a pro-Castro dictator who has been doing his best to make a ruin of the world's fifth largest oil exporter.

Believe me, when somebody like Mr. Chavez begins to get high-profile publicity in influential American newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, it's not because he's one of the world's most beloved leaders.

There was a time, not that long ago, when the politics of Venezuela mattered very little, if at all, to Trinidad & Tobago and the wider Caribbean ... those times are changing. Mr. Chavez's stance on Mr. Aristide could be the beginning of another and very serious row between Venezuela and Washington ... and it will be interesting to see how far Caricom is prepared to go in backing that fight.

People who think that Mr. Manning might have a problem on his hands with the resignation of his labour minister Larry Achong (whose resignation Mr. Manning says he's not accepting) don't know the half of it.  It was not only his "voice" that Mr. Manning jokingly declared himself as losing recently. The mere threat of a PNM MP walking out of the Cabinet could only have raised the specter of history repeating itself.

It was the diminution of his majority in the House of Representatives that convinced Mr, Manning to declare an early election in 1995-an election which he lost.

• Little wonder that Mr Manning is not exactly in a hurry to accept Mr. Achong's resignation. But that, I insist, is still small fish to fry.

If Washington decides to get even tougher with Mr. Aristide, and his supporters, there's no telling where the dice might fall.

One hint of that also came last week when it was announced that the US was seeking to extradite one Oriel Jean, 39, from Canada. Mr. Jean is a former top security aide to Mr. Aristide who arrived in Canada recently with US$10,000 and apparently on the run from the turn of events in Port-au-Prince.

US officials have also openly accused Mr. Aristide of if not being directly involved in drug-running, at least turning a blind eye while some of his closest associates indulged themselves. You can expect to hear a lot more about that shortly.

If there are signs of a serious and brewing international row over Mr. Aristide's fall from power, the US could respond by getting rougher-and where that will leave Mr. Aristide's backers is another story.

In any event, does Caricom really want to go to the mat with the US?

Mr. Chavez obviously has his own agenda -- and it's hardly just about uplifting the poor and ennobling the disenfranchised. He has promised to remain in office long after his constitutional term limit is up-which, of course, has simply infuriated the opposition even more. The admittedly fractured opposition has been trying to get a referendum going on Mr. Chavez' rule-but their every attempt to do so has been frustrated if not driven to near despondency.

• Supporters and opponents of Mr. Chavez have now taken to occasional confrontations in the streets. And there is likely to be a lot more of that over the next few months.

For the first time since Venezuela's return to democracy in the 1950s, there are hints of a return to the instability and upheaval that characterized Venezuelan politics for decades. Mr. Chavez also obviously takes pleasure ... if not pride ... in attacking the old Goliath to the North -- something that endears him even more to his supporters and makes his opponents even more furious.

But is Caricom seriously prepared to go along with the Chavez agenda?

Are regional governments prepared to risk decades of their own favorable relations with the United States in order to throw their support behind the maverick Mr. Chavez?

Or is Caricom betting heavily that come November, there will be a new tenant in the White House?

Whatever the reality on the ground, we haven't heard the last of either Mr. Aristide or Mr. Chavez.

In fact, their story has most likely just begun.

Mark my word.

This editorial was originally published in
today's editions of the Trinidad Express