Adina Bastidas

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Adina Bastidas Castillo (born in 1943) is a Venezuelan economist active in politics. She was appointed Vice President of Venezuela on December 24, 2000 by Hugo Chávez, and served in the post until January 13, 2002, the first woman to hold the job in the country's history. Less than two weeks after she was fired as vice-president, she was appointed Production and Commerce Minister.^[1]

According to the BBC, Bastidas is considered a controversial left winger;^[2] she is also considered a prominent critic of Venezuela's private sector.^[1] Her appointment as Commerce Minister, coming after weeks of protests against President Chávez's economic policies,^[2] was seen as a further radicalization of Chávez's government, according to the BBC.^[2] A professor at Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA - Venezuela's Graduate Institute for Business Administration Studies) referred to her and other Chávez appointments as, "politicians and government ministers who individually and collectively lack the competence, vision, talent, skill, savvy and the proper political and economic orientation to produce the necessary changes to move the country forward."^[1]

At the Latin American and Caribbean Encounter on the Dialogue of Civilizations, held in Caracas on November 8, 2001, Bastidas said:

"The terrorism of the oppressed is a perverse and lamentable byproduct of a WASP dominance that has become unbearable for the most radical and violent of the subjugated peoples ... Supplications and reason will not suffice to impose dialogue on countries of the North. The South must achieve a capacity to unite, resist, and persevere until it attains a new world order that is truly an order, not an immense disorder, under the heavens."^[3]

[edit] Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c Bamrud, Joachim. Investors in Venezuela: Waiting for Change. Latin Business Chronicle (April 4, 2002).
^ ^a ^b ^c Venezuelan church rejects Chavez talks. BBC (January 29, 2002).
^ The WASPs Did It. Foreign Policy, 0015-7228, Jan-Feb 2002 p14.