Caracas, Venezuela, Apr 12, 2004 / 22:00 pm
Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, who worked with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican and is now retired and living in his native Venezuela, denounced last Sunday the “dictatorial tendencies” of the government of Hugo Chavez.
The cardinal prayed for a miracle that “God would enlighten Government leaders and that they might repent and understand that grave error they are committing” by preventing a national vote on a recall referendum for the country’s president.
Cardinal Castillo accused President Chavez of governing “like a dictator” and said “the government’s fear of a referendum is the greatest proof that it does not have the sufficient votes, and if that is the case, why this insistence on imposing this regime which is an absurd revolutionary project that is outdated and unsustainable?”
“You cannot hide behind a cloak of apparent legality when you are taking away to right to vote from 3 ½ million people,” he said, underscoring that Venezuela is portrayed today as a country with “a dictatorial and arbitrary government under the will of a single man.”