story that we need to be careful about. six months or so ago, if i had known that the americans were going to go and ask maduro for a favour and that maduro would respond by considering doing them a favour, i would have thought that was just fantasy. one of the crucial elements of this political movement that has been in powerfor 22 years in venuzuela is anti—imperialism — the idea that the united states is a bad influence for the region. chavez suffered a coup d'etat in 2002 and he thought that the united states was behind that. since then, he got very close to castro, to cuba, to russia, in fact. and his whole idea of anti—imperialism became a crucial element of his political movement.