"...Hugo, your stupidity is beyond compare...."

I think we expect too much from our bud Chavez.

There's no reason to expect a dictator to be rational. He will act for self-preservation first, and that includes keeping all others as poor as possible, to stifle any chance of competition. He has absolutely no interest in the "poor guys living in the bush". Look at the way Qaddafi has run his official army into the ground - specifically so he would not suffer a coup from army leaders (which was how he took power). He instead armed and overpaid an elite personal guard, like Saddam did in Iraq. He has also recruited mercenaries from other countries, essentially as paid assassinss to shoot into the crowds of protestors, in part so he can blame the bloodsshed on others.

There is never a reason to believe a dictator will act rationally. Keeping everyone else off-balance allows him to make the rules up as he goes along, and ensures that large groups of the population rely on him for their "daily bread". He can't afford to have it any other way.

He is only interested in what is able to fill his personal bank account now (oil), not development of some future industry.

Inevitably, paranoia takes over, as almost every autocrat begins seeing enemies everywhere. That's when the bloodshed starts, and the reign begins to crumble. That happened to most of the communist leaders, from Stalin on downn uintil 1989.