Chavez' affinity with governments such as those of Cuba, Iran, Belarus, North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Russia is common knowledge. He staunchly defended Omar Hassan al-Bachir after he was condemned by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan's Darfur region. What beat everything was Chavez' invitation to al-Bachir to come to Venezuela despite the fact that there was an international warrant out for his arrest.

Another of the circumstances that compromise the Venezuelan State is the Chavez administration's evidently close ties with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The cherry on that cake was when, in January 2008, Chavez requested the international community, in a nationwide networked broadcast, to lift the FARC's and the ELN's (National Liberation Army) classification as terrorist organizations and that their political and belligerent status be recognized.

More recently, there has been Chavez' barefaced intervention in the internal affairs of Honduras, which has apparently reach such a pitch that, this Thursday, July 16, the provisional government of Roberto Micheletti requested the UN Security Council to intervene and apply Articles 1 and 2 of the UN Charter on the grounds of the "threats" and "violations" of which it has accused the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez.

But one of the most worrisome items of news is the report submitted this week by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the US Congress. The GAO denounces the growing penetration of drug trafficking in Venezuela, which it classifies as a "narco state," and claims that it is one of the major trans-shipment hubs for cocaine en route to countries such as Spain and the United States, with Honduras frequently being used as an air-bridge. The report highlights the lack of cooperation by Chavez and his government in the fight against drug trafficking and blames this situation on "a high level of corruption within the Venezuelan government, military and other law enforcement and security forces [that] contributes to the permissive environment."

• At home, the deterioration of the government is evident in the high crime rates that have led Venezuela to be classified as one of the most violent and corrupt countries in the hemisphere, where crimes such as kidnapping, contract killings, and drug-related murders have increased exponentially.

Even more serious is the fact that ever larger numbers of the state security and police forces are involved in