HE LIKENS himself to Bolivar, yet to some he is the new Peron. He flirts with the "axis of evil", befriending Iran's Mahmoud Ahma-dinejad, while offering cheap fuel to the American poor. He brands President George Bush the devil incarnate, but is a close friend of Fidel Castro. For many, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is less of an enigma than a threat; for others, he is the product - and future - of an age that is drawing to a close.

When Chavez last week refused to renew the licence of Radio Caracas TV, Venezuela's oldest network, he seemed to confirm the worst fears of his political opponents, and even some of his supporters, that the president was moving to gag the media as he seeks to step up his "Bolivarian" revolution of political and economic reforms.

Student protests raged across the country throughout the week, but Chavez appeared to relish the tussle, accusing another TV network, Globovision, of using footage of the 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul II to incite his own assassination.

The footage was accompanied by a soundtrack with the lyrics "have faith, this won't end like this" from a song by salsa singer Ruben Blades, the implication being, in the government's eyes, that unlike the Pope, Chavez would not necessarily survive an assassination attempt.

"You should watch where you are going," Chavez told Globovision's management. "I suggest you take a tranquilliser and calm down, because if not I will take action."

Warning Venezuelans that the elite were preparing to stage a coup attempt, he urged them to "sound the alarm in the hills, neighbourhoods and towns to defend our revolution from this new fascist attack".

Hitting back, Globovision head Alberto Ravell claimed his company was the only TV network still able to voice opposition to Chavez but warned that it faced an attempt by the government to "chop us up like a sausage, bit by bit, through harassment, because they know that our licence isn't about to expire just yet".

The Chavez government insists that RCTV's licence was withdrawn as a result of its alleged role in a short-lived coup against Chavez in April 2002. But, whatever his motive for taking on the media, Chavez's move against the network was like grist to the mill for his opponents at home and abroad, for here was what they had predicted: typical of all despots the world over, they argued, the president was clamping down on freedom of expression to seize absolute power, which would pave the way for the further "Cubanisation" of Venezuela.

Indeed, the government appeared to be paying a heavy political price both at home and abroad for Chavez's perceived attack on the media. The interior minister, Pedro Carreno, conceded that the affair had provided Chavez's opponents with an "opportunity", but said this was because "President Chavez has become the stumbling block for the free exercise of US imperialist policies in Latin America, and they are trying to saw the political floor from beneath him".

Stoking up the anti-US rhetoric, Chavez accused CNN of connivance in the movement against him by linking him to al-Qaeda, a charge the US network denies.

Rarely has a Latin American leader polarised world opinion - in a confused way - in the manner Chavez has done. His natural enemy is the "northern mafia" (his friend Fidel Castro's old epithet for the United States) yet even there he has friends.

On the left, he has many sceptics, including the Mexican Zapatista leader, Subcomandante Marcos. On Friday, Chavez appeared to fall out with left-leaning Brazilian President Jose Inacio "Lula" Da Silva after a call by Brazilian congressmen for an official repudiation of Chavez's move against RCTV.

Likening the Brazilian congress to a "parrot repeating what Washington says", Chavez said: "There is a greater chance of the Portuguese empire reinstalling itself in Brazil than for the Venezuelan government to go back on its decision to end the concession to the Venezuelan oligarchy."

In London for Friday's football international between England and Brazil, Lula said he was unaware of the context of Chavez's statement but suggested that the Venezuelan leader "take care of Venezuelan matters".

Across Latin America, newspaper editorials broadly reflected the view of the Brazilian congress. The Argentine daily La Nacion, which generally opposes Argentine President Nestor Kirchner's cosy relationship with Chavez, said that other media not aligned with the Venezuelan government yet dependent on it for concessions and advertising were now under threat: "The message is clear: either they say what the government wants them to say, or they know what fate awaits them."

For 53 years RCTV had provided Venezuelans with a mix of news programmes and much-loved soaps but Chavez has replaced it with a new state-run network with a decidedly socialist tilt. As students and actors took to the streets in support of RCTV, he accused soap stars of being "professional sobbers" who shed false tears to turn public opinion against the government.

The foreign minister Nicolas Maduro went further, accusing actors of "practically begging for foreign intervention," urging Venezuelans not to forget that "these people were made famous by the owners of the media".

Underlining the difficulty of trying to suppress the media in the age of the internet, RCTV moved swiftly to stay on air by uploading thrice-daily news broadcasts onto YouTube, while its Colombian affiliate, Radio Caracol, agreed to broadcast RCTV on its international signal, which could reach 800,000 Venezuelans.

Chavez, who has supplied the poor of Harlem with cheap Venezuelan fuel, has riled Washington for years, but this time official criticism was fairly muted. Nancy Pelosi, the US House speaker, urged the Venezuelan leader to reconsider: "President Chavez should know that efforts to suppress the media will not only ultimately fail, but are also a detriment to one of the pillars of democracy: freedom of expression."

In the pro-Chavez camp, Bart Jones, a US journalist who covered Venezuela for eight years as a correspondent for the Associated Press, wrote in the Los Angeles Times that RCTV was controlled by members of Venezuela's "fabulously wealthy oligarchy who saw Chavez and his Bolivarian revolution on behalf of Venezuela's majority poor as a threat".

During the April 11, 2002 coup attempt, wrote Jones, RCTV suspended regular programming "and ran wall-to-wall coverage of a general strike aimed at ousting Chavez".

"A stream of commentators spewed non-stop vitriolic attacks against him while permitting no response from the government. Would a network that aided and abetted a coup against the government be allowed to operate in the United States?" asked Jones. "Chavez's government allowed it to continue operating for five years."

The network's closure was seen as a threat to democracy in some liberal quarters. The Carter Center, think-tank of former US President Jimmy Carter, issued a statement stressing that "if alleged crimes such as support for a military coup are the reason for rejecting a broadcast concession, these should be tried through the justice system before a decision is taken".

In Britain, the RCTV affair prompted a letter to The Guardian signed by former MP Tony Benn, journalists John Pilger and Hugh O'Shaughnessy, Labour deputy leadership hopeful Jon Cruddas and others pointing out that "in Venezuela, as in Britain, TV stations must adhere to laws and regulations governing what they can broadcast". "Imagine the consequences if the BBC or ITV were found to be part of a coup against the government. Venezuela deserves the same consideration," it added.

A statement from NGO Media Without Borders said Chavez was clearly paranoid, and predicted that "media that criticise the government will be snuffed out one by one until only the pro- government media are left".

The media war Chavez has become embroiled in comes amid concern even among supporters that his reform programme is moving too fast and too haphazardly. Some critics say his economic programme and populist rhetoric smacks more of the style of former Argentine president Juan Domingo Peron in the 1940s and 1950s than of the socialism of purists such as Che Guevara.

Last month the president nationalised four oil projects in the Orinoco Belt - the state oil firm PDVSA now controls at least 60% of the Orinoco projects, which were ceded by BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Statoil and Total, but he insists Venezuela will continue to welcome foreign investment.

At the same time, Chavez says he will pull Venezuela out of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, but the "Bank of the South" he envisages, which he says would be backed by Venezuela's oil revenue, has received a lukewarm response from Lula's Brazil, which is on the cusp of first world development status and cannot afford to jeopardise its future with risky moves that might alienate it from the US and Europe.

At grassroots level Chavez still enjoys great popularity, which stems largely from his successful drive to bring healthcare to the most remote and deprived areas of society, often with Cuban help. Yet his community councils programme, designed to hand decision-making power on local issues to ordinary Venezuelans, has stalled, with councils breaking up into rival factions in disputes over how money should be spent, amid charges of corruption. Rising crime is a problem and food shortages are rife.

Change, says Chavez, shrugging off these difficulties and his row with the media, "is always tumultuous". For now his rapport with Venezuela's poor remains intact, his background as an impoverished half-Indian endowing him with the ability to communicate with them as an equal, a man of the people. His speeches are filled with colourful references to his childhood and the wisdom of his grandmother. This strikes a chord with millions of Latin Americans of Indian descent, but it is not something understood by his enemies, like the Americans who have swamped the websites of British newspapers with anti-Chavez venom.

Yet Latin America's desire for change is an ancient one, reflected in Argentine singer Leon Gieco's haunting folk song, Cinco Siglos Igual: Solitude haunts the ruins, there is blood on the wheat, red on yellow, a poisoned spring, shields and wounds.

It has been thus for five centuries In this part of Earth history fell like a stone Loyalty to tombs, sacred stones; God couldn't bring himself to cry A long dream of evil Nobody's children It has been thus for five centuries For his supporters, Chavez is trying to redress the balance of history, which has always tilted towards the wealthy elite and against the poor of Latin America. His increasingly heavy-handed approach in dealing with RCTV and dissent in general, however, may consign his Bolivarian revolution to failure.