THE COMPARISON of democratically elected Hugo Chavez to Hitler in The Journal’s Sept. 5 lead editorial, “Hugo Chavez forever,” was an insult to the 60 percent of the Venezuelan electorate who voted for him again for president in December 2006.

To add insult to injury, the editorial says that the people of Venezuela were “hoodwinked” by being given “social justice for the poor.”

In my interfaith study tour to Venezuela in April 2006, we saw the fruits of Chavez’s programs of social justice, which were not “smoke and mirrors” but real benefits for the disenfranchised: vastly improved health care in medical centers around the countryside, college-education opportunities opened up for poor youth that were previously only available to the elite, neighborhood groups that are given resources and voice to improve their surroundings.

Of course, the voters overwhelmingly supported Chavez for re-election to the presidency after they saw their lives improve. They weren’t “hoodwinked” but were voting out of enlightened self-interest, which every electorate does. When we traveled throughout Venezuela, guided by our very knowledgeable hosts, we talked with nuns, parish priests, Protestant lay people, students, farmers, the elderly, youths and many others, we were amazed at the freedom and hope many people expressed.

A key interview was with an independent human-rights fact-finding organization, whose leader told us that there were neither political prisoners in Venezuela nor torture. The respected polling organization Latinobarómetro of Chile records almost 80 percent of Venezuelans who were polled saying that their country is “totally democratic,” top among all Latin American countries. The editorial writer sought to clinch the argument that there is political oppression in Venezuela by charging the Chavez government with curbing freedom of the press by “silencing” a TV station that opposed the president.

The facts are that RCTV (Radio Caracas TV) instigated, urged and collaborated in April 2002 with top military brass and opposition groups, many of which had been funded by U.S. government money, to remove Hugo Chavez by force. When this coup took over the National Palace after the president had been arrested and taken to an unknown location, leaders of RCTV joined in the celebration of the opposition groups, and pledged their support of the self-installed dictatorial regime, which in its first act abolished by decree the national assembly, supreme court, the constitution and the attorney general’s office.

The “coup” only lasted two days because the people in the “barrios” took to the streets nonviolently and lower- rank military officers refused to cooperate with the takeover. When the license of RCTV came up for renewal five years later, it was not renewed for obvious reasons.

A question: What would the U.S. government do to The Providence Journal if it collaborated in the forcible overthrow of the president of the United States? I would like to urge The Journal to send a reporter to Venezuela to investigate what is really happening there, and not to use rumor, innuendo and Bush administration propaganda about that country. I would be glad to use my contacts in Venezuela to set up meetings for the reporter with every segment of society there: opposition groups, churches, government, community-based organizations, and other elements of society, so that she or he can get a broad and in-depth view of the Venezuelan reality. I await your response.

The Rev. James Keller, of Jamestown, is a retired Presbyterian minister.

Editor’s note: The editorial said: “As Adolf Hitler so amply demonstrated in 1933, the machinery of democracy can be manipulated to advance the cause of tyranny. . . . Mr. Chavez has hoodwinked his people — and helped mute international criticism — in the rhetoric of seeking social justice for the poor.”