Portrait of a liberator

Venezuela's charismatic President Hugo Chavez, so often vilified in the US press, recently threw open his doors to a delegation of newspaper editors from that country. Milton Coleman, deputy managing editor of The Washington Post, reports.

He worked the crowd like a master politician, shaking hands, gazing into women's eyes, glad-handing the American visitors who'd just heard him fulminate against his enemies du jour.

He'd been venomous, long-winded, dismissive just like the caricature the United States knows so well.

And yet here was President Hugo Chavez working a crowd of foreign journalists as if we were his old friends.

Something about me caught his attention.

He looked me up and down, taking full measure of this tall, dark-skinned American before him.

He squared his shoulders.

Then, a sheepish grin spread across his face as if he weren't sure he could get away with the greeting he wanted to give me.

But he did it anyway, saying "Black power" and extending his hand for a shake.

It took me aback. Not at all what I expected from the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

"Black power," I said, almost reflexively.

I grinned back at the amused president and chuckled softly at this strange and unexpected encounter.

That's Chavez. You never know which character you're going to get.

The lectern-pounding revolutionary? The petro-populist? The crooning romantic? Mr Chavez was a mystery to me.

What was he really all about? How much substance, how much style, how much, even, sheer stupidity? No easy call, I was learning.

And even after watching his performance at a three-hour news conference (short by Chavez standards) as part of my visit with a delegation from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, he seemed more complicated than even I had presumed.

A country boy whose rough edges were never smoothed, Mr Chavez, 53, is a career army commander who catapulted into Venezuela's power elite.

He relishes his outsider status.

Though his critics paint him as a buffoon, he is seriously and unapologetically trying to change his country's ruptured society from the bottom up.

Hugo Chavez may be many things - and the United States believes he's a danger to stability in Latin America.

But one thing he is not: a joke.

The label Mr Chavez detests most is "dictator." That is how his critics portray him: He controls all three branches of government; he's amended the constitution to impose his will; he muzzles his critics in the media; he harasses the business establishment.

What's more, they say, he pretends to be a man of the people but is a big spender who tolerates corruption.

He lavishes the nation's windfall petrobucks on revolution abroad and patronage at home.

He is a sometimes foul-mouthed egomaniac on a power trip, and an acknowledged disciple of Fidel Castro of communist Cuba.

Mr Chavez's retort? Get over it! Who's winning the elections? Who has the mandate? To the victor go the spoils.

Mr Chavez first tried to become president in 1992 by masterminding a military coup d'état. But he blew it. The coup failed.

He spent two years in prison, basking at times in his new heroic image.

Four years out of jail, he was elected president then re-elected twice.

In 2002, he survived a coup attempt by opponents in the military and in business.

And in 2004, an attempt to recall him came up far short.

Our 19-member delegation spent nine hours in Miraflores, the presidential palace, caught in Mr Chavez's peculiar world - waiting for him for hours, witnessing his strange news conference performance art, and having a coffee break that stretched from a planned 15 minutes to nearly two hours.

As I said: The man changes but does not tire, not least when he has a captive audience.

Reporters and editors snapped to their feet, news cameras rolled and still cameras flashed as Mr Chavez entered the room, wearing a red T-shirt and olive-coloured jacket in proper populist-chic fashion.

He took his seat behind a bulky black desk.

Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, peered over his shoulder from a large portrait, as if to say, "Don't worry. I got your back".

And Mr Chavez would need it, for he was under siege.

Reports that day out of Colombia confirmed the authenticity of computer files linking Mr Chavez to the Farc (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).

The data were seized from a camp of the communist insurgents who are seeking to oust Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe.

The files were voluminous: 37,000 written documents, 8000 email addresses, 210,000 images and more.

"No one can ever question whether or not the Colombian Government tampered with the seized Farc computers," proclaimed Ronald Noble, the Interpol secretary general.

No one, that is, except Mr Chavez.

In some other place, with some other president, one might expect officials to counter with their own technical data, expert opinions or even political spin.