- The Bush administration, which has demonstrated
an appalling disregard for the rule of law and the welfare of its own people,
is viciously attacking Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, a populist
leader who is using his nation's immense oil wealth to improve the lives
of his people and his neighbors including many Americans.
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- ISLA MARGARITA, Venezuela The ongoing war of words being waged between
the Bush administration and Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez was
in full swing as I traveled from Miami to Caracas, the capital of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela.
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- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
made the outrageous comparison of Hugo Chávez with Adolf Hitler
in the beginning of what The Washington Post reported as having been "an
especially ugly week in the hostile relationship" between the Bush
administration and the increasingly popular Chávez.
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- The week started with Venezuela expelling
a U.S. naval attaché on charges of spying, which led to the expulsion
of a senior Venezuelan diplomat from Washington, and ended with the U.S.
blocking a deal in which Venezuela was to buy coastal patrol boats from
Spain. While Spain had initially said it would replace the U.S.-made components
on the boats with French-made parts, by the end of the week Spain had suddenly
cancelled the lucrative contract with no explanation provided.
-
- Rumsfeld, who serves under a president
who was, in fact, not elected by the people, made a rather odd comment
comparing two legally elected leaders: "Chávez was elected
legally, just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally," Rumsfeld said,
"And then consolidated his power." The "populist leadership"
of Chávez, which appeals to "masses of people," Rumsfeld
said,
- is "worrisome" to the Bush
administration.
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- After a week in Venezuela, however, I
have yet to meet a Venezuelan who has expressed any worries or concerns
about the populist reforms initiated by Chávez. The Venezuelans
and foreigners I have met have nothing but praise for the wide-ranging
improvements Chávez has brought to the people. They talk frequently
of the improved public hospitals and schools where medical treatment and
education are now provided free of charge.
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- Venezuelans often ask if I am American.
When I tell them that I am from Chicago they seem pleased and go out of
their way to be helpful. I am writing from Playa El Yaque on the south
coast of Isla Margarita, where American windsurfers in 1984 first discovered
ideal sailing conditions with consistent strong winds and smooth seas.
Since then it has become an international haven attracting windsurfers
and kite-surfers from all over the world.
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- Driving through Caracas in a large American-made
car from the 1980's, the taxi driver told me that Venezuela's cheap gasoline
was "a gift" from Chávez. A gallon of gas costs less than
280 Bolivars, the equivalent of about 12 U.S. cents, and it costs less
than $2 to fill the tank. Likewise, Venezuela provides subsidized oil and
gas to dozens of nations throughout the Caribbean Basin and Latin America.
-
- "Chávez is making friends
while Bush is earning enmity," was the title of Andres Oppenheimer's
article in The Miami Herald on February 9. "You don't have to be a
genius to figure out why Washington is losing influence in Latin America,"
Oppenheimer wrote. "While Chávez is making headlines with vows
to give about $3.7 billion a year to his neighbors, the Bush administration
wants to cut back its estimated $1.2 billion in U.S. foreign aid to the
region."
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- Hundreds of thousands of poor Americans
in five Northeastern states have been on the receiving end of Venezuela's
generosity. This winter alone, hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans
from Pennsylvania and New York to Maine and Vermont have received more
than 25 million gallons of subsidized heating oil for their homes.
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- "LYNCHING" CHÁVEZ
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- Late last year as oil prices spiked,
a dozen U.S. senators asked 10 major oil companies to donate a portion
of their record profits to help the poor. As USA Today reported, "Only
Citgo [a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company] responded,
dispatching tankers to housing projects in New York and Massachusetts in
what Felix Rodriguez, the company president and chief executive, called
a purely 'humanitarian' gesture.
-
- "Rodriguez said that Chávez
had ordered the giveaway so poor Americans wouldn't have to choose between
food and heat."
-
- But rather than showing appreciation,
the USA Today article by David J. Lynch carried a photo of motorists pumping
gas at a Citgo gas station with the alarming caption, "Chávez
could destroy the U.S. economy in 90 days, an energy banker said."
-
- "What if Chávez closed Citgo's
refineries?" the CIA-linked newspaper asked?
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- "He'd only have to do that for 90
days, and he'd destroy our economy," Matthew Simmons, "a prominent
energy investment banker," told Lynch. "He actually has our livelihood
in his hands," Simmons said.
-
- "At the high point of oil and gas
prices, a dozen U.S. senators of both parties appealed to oil companies'
'sense of corporate citizenship' to help less fortunate Americans get through
the winter in the face of cuts in federal assistance," Fadi Kabboul
of the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington wrote to USA Today in response
to the Lynch article. "Citgo did its part. No other oil company has
done so. It makes the criticism in the article seem petty."
-
- So why is the Bush administration so
hostile to Chávez? Why is a government that shares its oil wealth
with its people and neighbors considered a threat? Why is the foreign leader
who was first to offer help to the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast viewed
as harboring evil intentions by the controlled media and the federal government
whose own response to the dire plight of its citizens has been called "late,
uncertain and ineffective," by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine)?
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- The answer to these questions is obvious.
Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter with the largest proven
reserves outside of the Mideast, has long been considered by the "big
oil" companies as America's own privately-run gas station. Chávez,
however, has put an end to foreign control and plundering of Venezuela's
oil resources and the immense profits they generate. One does not have
to look far to see that, over the decades, very little of this nation's
oil wealth has trickled down to the average Venezuelan.
-
- Venezuela is particularly strong in refining
capacity. As I rode past the sprawling refinery outside of Puerto de la
Cruz, I was amazed at the size of Venezuela's second largest refinery,
which covers thousands of acres. Venezuela's largest refinery, the Paraguana
Refining Center is five times larger with a capacity of nearly 1 million
barrels per day.
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- Venezuela also owns a 50 percent equity
interest in the Hovensa refinery on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands,
which has a capacity of 500,000 barrels per day, and it leases the huge
Emmastad refinery on the nearby island of Curacao. Over decades, most of
the products produced at these refineries have been exported to the U.S.
-
- The Bush administration and the "big
oil" money behind it are clearly displeased with the change in ownership,
the nationalization of Venezuela's oil fields, which Chávez brought
about. These plutocrats are now engaged in an international political and
propaganda campaign to malign the popular leader who has stood up to their
global tyranny.
-
- New Year's Day 2006 saw the return of
Venezuelan state control over 32 privately operated oil fields. Venezuelan
oil minister Rafael Ramirez said the state successfully completed "the
recovery" of the 32 fields whose control had been ceded to private
hands in the 1990s under concessions allowing companies to independently
pump oil under contract.
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- In 2001, Venezuela passed a law requiring
oil production to be carried out by companies majority-owned by the government.
The deadline for converting the privately-owned operating agreements into
joint ventures in which the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA
(PDVSA), would hold the controlling stake was Dec. 31.
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- While other oil companies went along
with the conversions, Exxon Mobil Corp. of Irving, Texas, resisted the
contract changes, the Associated Press reported on Jan. 4. The conversions
to joint ventures with PDVSA "will significantly reduce the oil companies'
share of profits and control over operations and could also undermine the
value of their Venezuelan assets," AP reported.
-
- Venezuela's stake could be as much as
90 percent in the new ventures. The amount of investment made by the private
companies in the fields will determine the amount of control they have,
Ramirez said.
-
- Finis
-
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- With hundreds of thousands of low-income
Americans unable to heat their homes, President Hugo Chávez ordered
CITGO to send subsidized heating oil to New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
and other Northeastern states so that poor Americans wouldn't have to choose
between food and heat.
-
- When the U.S. Congress asked the oil
companies, who have had record profits during the past few years, to help
the poorest Americans in their hour of need ONLY one company answered the
call: CITGO.
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- You might think about that next time
you fill up your car.
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- Photo courtesy of Brandon Stone at www.brandonstone.com
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