Chavez says he will pull Venezuela out of IMF and World Bank

Canadian Press

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would formally pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move since the nation has already cancelled its debts to the lending institutions.

The leftist leader, who has long railed against the Washington-based lenders, said "we will no longer have to go to Washington, neither to the IMF nor the World Bank, not to anyone."

Chavez said he wanted to formalize Venezuela's exit from the IMF and World Bank "tonight and ask them to return what they owe us."

"We have a few bucks there," he said, referring to Venezuela's recent repayments of debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule, which saved the country US$8 million.

Venezuela paid off all its debts to the IMF shortly after Chavez first took office in 1999. The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year.

© The Canadian Press 2007

Chavez asks world to halt alleged planned US attack on Iran

Caracas, March 26: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has called on nations around the world to help stop what he says is a planned US attack on Iran.

Chavez, speaking one day after the UN Security Council voted to tighten sanctions on Iran over Tehran`s refusal to curtail its nuclear programme, cited a Russian press report which purportedly details the time and place of an attack on Iran by the United States, which he has dubbed "The Empire."

"The Empire is moving aircraft carriers and has been moving troops on Iran," said Chavez, speaking on his broadcast programme "Hello, Mr President" yesterday.

Hopefully the world "will halt this imperial craziness of attacking whomever it pleases. Hopefully the Congress of the United States, the United Nations and the most powerful countries of the world can halt this madness of the American empire," said Chavez.

Today it may be Iran, Chavez said, "but tomorrow it could be Belarus, Venezuela, or anyone they dislike."

Chavez is a close ally of Cuba`s Fidel Castro and a vehement critic of US President George W Bush. He hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Caracas in January.

Bureau Report

London Mayor Signs Oil Deal With Chavez

Wednesday February 21, 2007 1:01 AM

By JENNIFER QUINN
Associated Press Writer

LONDON (AP) - London's socialist mayor signed an agreement Tuesday with Venezuela's state-owned oil company to provide discounted oil for the city's iconic red buses, praising the idea as the brainstorm of the country's leftist leader, Hugo Chavez.

Ken Livingstone - a committed socialist known locally as ``Red Ken'' - met with Chavez last year at City Hall to discuss the deal to provide cheap oil to London in exchange for advice on urban planning in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.

Venezuela has signed similar agreements with cities in several other countries, including the United States. Critics call it ``oil diplomacy'' - and say it is designed to embarrass President Bush, whom Chavez has repeatedly mocked.

``This arose out of the suggestion of President Hugo Chavez, and builds on the work he is doing around the world to tackle the problem of poverty,'' Livingstone said.

The savings - which would cut fuel costs by 20 percent for the city and could amount to about $32 million - are to be directed toward cheaper bus travel for up to 250,000 Londoners living on income support. Those who qualify will get a half-price discount on bus fares.

Under the agreement, city officials in Caracas will receive recommendations from British experts for ``the urban reorganization'' of the capital, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicholas Maduro said in an interview broadcast on state-run television.

Conservatives on the London city council said in a statement that London shouldn't be doing business with ``third-rate South American dictators with an appalling human rights and democratic record.''

``Why does London, one of the richest capitals in the world, need to exploit a developing nation?'' asked Richard Barnes, deputy leader of the London Assembly Conservatives. ``This money would be better directed at the poor of Venezuela.''

The U.S. government and Chavez's opponents at home accuse him of undermining Venezuela's democratic institutions since he was first elected in 1998. Chavez, who was widely re-elected to a six-year term in December, says he is trying to remake an unjust system that sidelined the poor majority.

Livingstone, an advocate of green policies, said Venezuela and London were merely exchanging commodities.

Venezuela is the world's eighth-largest oil exporter.

London spends about $195 million a year on fuel for its fleet of 8,000 buses. The savings from the new oil agreement with Venezuela are equivalent to slightly less than 1 percent of the total cost of providing London's bus services, the mayor's office said.

Associated Press Writer Christopher Toothaker in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

Ahmadinejad be damned

While Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has been traipsing around South America hatching energy plots, all is not well on the home front. Ahmadinejad is subject to crossfire from conservatives and reformers alike, with the former particularly upset over his handling of the nuclear dossier and wanting to rein him in. Washington might need to start manufacturing another "new Hitler".

Jan 19, 2007

THE ROVING EYE

By Pepe Escobar

It's all over the Iranian press: President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, self-described "street cleaner of the people", is in deep political trouble at home, subjected to crossfire from conservatives and reformers alike. All the more ironic considering the biblical tsunami of Washington spin portraying Ahmadinejad as the newest "new Hitler" (Saddam Hussein, after all, fell victim to a lynch mob).

As far as geopolitical strategy is concerned, it's as if Ahmadinejad might be as clueless as his US counterpart, President George W Bush. Well, it's not that simple. The conservative Etemad e-Melli newspaper rhetorically asked what exactly the Iranian president was up to in Latin America while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was lobbying dictatorial Arab regimes - from Egypt to Saudi Arabia - to deep-freeze Iran over alleged "interference" in Iraq.

Well, he was consolidating what the White House already regards as the new "axis of evil" - the strategic relationship between Iran and Venezuela, sealed last September during Ahmadinejad's first visit to Caracas, right inside what the US historically considered its "back yard".

The ultra-conservative Keyhan newspaper, very close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali al-Khamenei, could not help but consider it "a great victory for the diplomacy of Ahmadinejad's government".

In the lightning-quick Latin America tour that took him to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador, meeting re-elected leftist stalwart Hugo Chavez, the recently elected former guerrillero Daniel Ortega, and US-educated economist Rafael Correa, the key Ahmadinejad stop was in Caracas. A joint Iran-Venezuela US$2 billion fund for myriad projects will also benefit other friendly developing countries in Latin America and Africa that, in Chavez' words, "are making efforts to liberate themselves from the imperialist yoke".

Both Iran and Venezuela are key members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Washington's nemesis Chavez once again was clear: "There's too much crude in the market." So both presidents agreed on Saturday to lobby OPEC for a further cut in production to boost crude-oil prices.

That's not what major OPEC producer Saudi Arabia wants - or what Washington "suggested" Riyadh not to want. OPEC had already reduced production by 1.2 million barrels a day in November and will reduce by another 500,000 barrels a day from February 1.

Both Chavez and Ahmadinejad want more - Chavez to fuel his ambitious domestic social programs, Ahmadinejad at least to start a few. Even if global oil prices fell sharply - an unlikely scenario - Venezuelan analysts project that Chavez would still proceed full speed ahead with oil at $30 a barrel. But for Iran, that would be an economic disaster.

To boost Washington's ire to stratospheric levels, Chavez once again stressed that the Bolivarian and the Islamic revolutions were "sisters" - a link impeccably translated by the official exchange of gifts: Ahmadinejad received a Persian translation of a book on Simon Bolivar, the great South American liberator, while Chavez received a Spanish translation of a book on ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1979 revolution.

Now shut up and work
Ahmadinejad being hailed as a post-modern co-liberator of South America was not enough to placate criticism back in his part of the world. For the conservative Iranian religious newspaper Jomhouri Islami - also very close to Khamenei - in an unusually blunt article, the president's non-stop interference with the nuclear dossier was viewed as ruining Iranian diplomacy (Ahmadinejad expelled experienced diplomats from the Foreign Office in 2005, sprinkling it with his Revolutionary Guard allies).

The article aptly translates the fierce battle going on in the opaque nationalist theocracy's corridors of power. And Ahmadinejad's faction appears to be losing the battle. The Supreme Leader - who is responsible for the nuclear dossier anyway - seems to have had enough, and has in essence ordered the president to shut up.

Khamenei and his supporters - the clerics' faction - believe that Ahmadinejad's explosive tirades have been used as firepower by the US to persuade the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. In addition, Ahmadinejad's faction - via his mentor Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi - lost ground in last month's election to the Council of Experts, the only body that can hold the Supreme Leader to account. Victory went to perennial Machiavellian Hashemi Rafsanjani - who leads a moderate, semi-secular faction hostile to Ahmadinejad's.

There's now ample speculation in Tehran that new, Supreme Leader-appointed faces will shake up Iran's nuclear negotiation team. And in the middle of all this, eyebrows East and West were raised when Keyhan slipped in an editorial last Friday saying that Iran "is only a few steps away from becoming a nuclear power". Was that a fact, a warning, or a figure of speech?

Ahmadinejad anyway will have to shelve his rhetoric - and start delivering. A group of reformist and moderate Parliament members is signing petitions to force him to explain his (non-existent) policies. Jomhouri Islami even issued a prescription: "Speak about the nuclear issue only during important national occasions, stop provoking aggressor powers like the United States, and concentrate more on the daily needs of the people." Not to mention fulfilling electoral promises of fighting inflation, corruption and the oil mafia.

Keeping Ahmadinejad on a leash will be a crucial part of the nationalist theocracy's strategy of doing everything in its power not to incur further US wrath - as the Bush administration escalates its formidable array of acts of provocation. Ahmadinejad is now seen as too much of a loose cannon to be left to his own devices - especially when 45 centuries of accumulated Persian diplomacy can be effectively deployed.

Iran enjoys good political relations with the majority of countries around the world - especially in the South. The glaring exceptions are the US and Israel. Iran is not a backward, repressive regime like Saudi Arabia. The talk in Tehran is that the Supreme Leader and professional diplomats have concluded that the best course of action for Iran is to ride the tempest of provocations - sanctions, illegal raids on consulates, US intelligence infiltrating sensitive Khuzestan province, encirclement by nuclear-equipped aircraft carriers, propaganda over Iranian "networks" killing Americans in Iraq - while advancing Iran's interests in Lebanon, Central Asia, China, Russia and South America.

Washington might need to start manufacturing another "new Hitler".

Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd.

Hugo Chavez is ‘Black’ Santa Claus for U.S. Poor

Related

Chavez Landslide Tops All In US History
---

HOLIDAY ISSUE Dec.20 - Jan. 2

True Solidarity in a Cold World: Hugo Chavez is ‘Black’ Santa Claus for U.S. Poor

by BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford

“Hate against me has a lot to do with racism. Because of my big mouth, because of my curly hair. And I’m so proud to have this mouth and this hair, because it’s African.” – Hugo Chavez, Democracy Now, September 20, 2005


For tens of thousands of needy Americans this holiday season, “Saint Nick” arrived in the person of a former paratrooper with straight-from-the-barrio Afro-Indian features, commanding fleets of trucks bearing millions of gallons of heating oil heavily discounted for the poor. Through his year-round policy of international solidarity – which is quite different than seasonal generosity – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the most frequently and fairly elected head of state in the history of the Americas, has revealed the identity of the real Global Grinch: George Bush and the multinational oil companies and fat cats he serves.

It’s a lesson even reality-starved North Americans should comprehend, and one that should find particular resonance among African Americans. Had he been born in Georgia, rather than in the backwater interior of a Spanish-speaking country, Hugo Chavez would certainly have been considered a Black man. The white elites of Venezuela seem to feel the same way – Chavez is routinely referred to as a “monkey” in his homeland’s oligarchic media. Indeed, Chavez’s status as the most popular politician in Latin America has resulted in a kind of perverse North-South hemispheric solidarity among white elites, who collectively tremble at every stirring of Black-brown political power.

--MORE--

Venezuela, Oil Producers Buy Euro as Dollar, Oil Fall

(Update1)

By Agnes Lovasz and Daniel Kruger

Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is directing a growing share of the country's oil profits into euros as the dollar and crude prices fall.

The dollar, down 9.5 percent against the euro this year, may face more pressure in 2007 because Venezuela and oil producers from the United Arab Emirates to Indonesia plan to funnel more money into the single European currency.

``The U.S. dollar has suffered a long process of deterioration,'' Domingo Maza Zavala, one of seven board members at the central bank of Venezuela, said in a Dec. 14 interview. ``The diversification strategy started this year.''

Banco Central de Venezuela has slashed the percentage of its $35.9 billion worth of reserves invested in dollars and gold to 80 percent from 95 percent a year ago, said Maza Zavala. The country, the world's fifth-largest oil supplier, has boosted its euro holdings to 15 percent, from less than 5 percent in the same period.

The dollar has slumped against the European currency in 2006 as growth in the euro region outpaced the U.S. for the first time in five years. The dollar today fell against the euro to $1.3094 as of 6:55 a.m. in New York. The U.S. currency is little changed versus the yen this year, and currently trading at 117.81 yen.

Indonesia Buys Euros

Bank Indonesia is boosting euro holdings, said Senior Deputy Governor Miranda S Goeltom in a Dec. 13 interview in Jakarta. Indonesia has $39.9 billion in reserves. Sultan Bin Nasser al- Suwaidi, the governor of the Central Bank of the UAE, last month said he was considering when to shift as much as 8 percent of the nation's $24.9 billion in reserves into euros.

The central banks are changing policy ``because the oil price has come down a long way and the U.S. dollar has been declining,'' said Michael Derks, chief markets strategist at Arch Financial Products LLP, a London-based hedge fund. ``The euro stands to benefit.''

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces 40 percent of the world's crude oil, said at a Dec. 14 meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, that it would cut output by 500,000 barrels a day to boost prices. Crude oil for January delivery fell 36 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $63.07 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have fallen from a high of $78.40 in mid-July.

Crude is priced in dollars and the U.S. is the biggest consumer, importing around $400 million worth of the fuel a day in 2005, according to data from BP Plc, Europe's second-biggest oil company.

Political Opposition

The share of foreign-exchange deposits held in dollars by OPEC members and Russia, the largest non-OPEC oil exporter, fell to a two-year low of 65 percent during the second quarter, from 67 percent during the previous three months, Bank for International Settlements figures released last week show.

Venezuela may also be motivated by animosity toward the U.S., said Rick Arney, chief currency strategist in San Francisco at Barclays Global Investors, which manages $1.7 trillion in assets.

``There is a political overlay to all of this,'' said Arney. ``Buying the dollar is not politically popular for some of these folks.''

Chavez, re-elected as President for six years on Dec. 3, told the UN General Assembly on Sept. 20 that the U.S. is ``the greatest threat'' to the planet, and has repeatedly described U.S. President George W. Bush as ``the devil.'' He also says Bush's administration is trying to have him killed.

Greenspan Comments

Chavez called on OPEC to sell oil denominated in euros rather than dollars at a meeting of the group in Caracas on June 1, supporting a proposal made by Iran.

Some analysts said the shift by oil-producing nations into euros is unlikely to weaken the dollar. OPEC nations reduced their dollar deposits by $5.3 billion in the second quarter, compared with holdings of $632 billion overall, according to data compiled by the BIS.

``It seems to be inconsequential in the large scheme of things,'' said Marc Chandler, global head of foreign-exchange strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. ``If anything, we should be surprised how small the outflow is.''

The euro climbed as much as 0.5 percent on Dec. 11, the most in a more than a week, when former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said there are signs OPEC nations are switching their reserves out of dollars.

`At the Start'

``A rising euro is a source of capital gain for central banks and a source for offsetting the capital loss created by the dollar'' decline, said Bankim Chadha, Deutsche Bank AG's head of macro foreign-exchange in New York and a former International Monetary Fund official. This gives ``an incentive to buy euros.''

OPEC members and Russia increased the percentage of their foreign-exchange deposits held in euros to 22 percent in the second quarter from 20 percent, the BIS said. By contrast, the global average is about a third, according to the Basel, Switzerland-based bank.

Oil states will probably buy the European currency at a faster rate to bring their reserves closer in line with other nations, according to David Durrant at Julius Baer Investment Management in New York.

``They've done very little diversification in the past,'' said Durrant, an investment strategist at Julius Baer, which oversees about $40 billion. ``We're at the start.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Agnes Lovasz in London at alovasz@bloomberg.net ; Daniel Kruger in New York at dkruger1@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: December 18, 2006 06:59 EST

Chavez uses petro-dollars to help the poor - in America

Sheldon Alberts
CanWest News Service

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

CARACAS, Venezuela - Hugo Chavez coasted to another six-year term as Venezuela's president on the strength of petro-dollars and promises to spread more of his country's oil wealth to the poor.

But as Chavez struggles to alleviate poverty for eight million of his own citizens, the 52-year-old leftist leader is using his oil riches in an unlikely way - by paying the winter heating bills for hundreds of thousands of underprivileged Americans.

Even as Chavez demonized the United States as an evil imperialist empire during campaign events leading to his re-election Sunday, Venezuela's state-owned oil company renewed a deal to provide 40 per cent discounts on furnace oil to 400,000 people in 15 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

The act of generosity is dismissed by Chavez's critics as pure propaganda - an attempt to embarrass the Bush administration - and it is drawing mixed reaction among Venezuelans.

''I think he is just giving the money away,'' huffs Carmen Herrara, a retiree who lives in a suburb of east Caracas. ''There is a lot of poverty in this country that needs to be solved first.''

The heating-oil program offered by Venezuelan-owned Citgo is but one element of an incredibly complex, carrot-and-stick relationship Chavez and the U.S. have with each other, one revolving predominantly around the politics and economics of oil.

Chavez won Sunday with 61 per cent of the vote.

In Washington, the Bush administration expressed hope the U.S. could improve relations with Venezuela even though Chavez called his victory another "defeat for the devil."

Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said "we hope that we could have a positive constructive relationship" with Chavez in the future.

"There are, of course, well-reported frictions on some issues. From our standpoint, there don't have to be any frictions," said McCormack, who added the U.S. was awaiting reports from international election observers before passing final judgement on the election.

Chavez had rankled President George W. Bush in August 2005 when he offered to ship emergency fuel supplies to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

He followed up by personally endorsing a plan by Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., to offer the heating oil discounts through a non-profit Massachusetts-based group called Citizen's Energy Corp.

The latest public-relations bonanza from that venture was a splashy press conference two weeks ago at the home of 75-year-old widow Matilda Winslow in Dorchester, a hardscrabble neighbourhood of Boston.

With Venezuelan officials present, Winslow took delivery of a winter's worth of heating oil.

''No matter the differences we might have, there is always room for co-operation,'' said Bernardo Alvarez, the Venezuelan ambassador to the U.S.

In a telephone interview Monday, Winslow said she had no qualms about accepting discounted oil from a country whose leader called Bush ''Mr. Danger'' following Sunday's elections.

''Bush bothers me, not Chavez,'' said Winslow, who has survived on Social Security since the death of her husband five years ago. ''I figure that Bush should wake up and think about the elderly and low-income people out here.''

American critics of Chavez are not as impressed.

In an editorial last week, the Wall Street Journal questioned Chavez's motives. The Venezuelan leader ''is trying to shape U.S. public opinion in the hope that more gringos will come to see the Chavez government as benevolent,'' the newspapers said.

But Brian O'Connor, a spokesman for Citizens Energy, said the Venezuelan oil is vital to low-income families because funds for a U.S. government heating-fuel assistance program have failed to grow in line with rising energy costs.

''It's about need, not politics,'' said O'Connor, who said Citgo was the only major company to respond to appeals for assistance to poor U.S. families.

Despite the political differences between governments in Washington and Caracas, Venezuela and the U.S. have a mutually dependent relationship.

Venezuela exported almost 560-million barrels of oil and petroleum products to America last year - not only from Citgo but from U.S. companies such as Chevron and Exxon, which have major operations here.

''What Citgo is doing is providing 2.4-million barrels, which is one half of one per cent of all the oil products sold into the U.S. from Venezuela,'' said O'Connor. ''So how do you criticize that tiny fraction that is used to help the poor?''

Chavez's anti-U.S. rhetoric, however, is threatening to damage his nation's oil industry.

After the Venezuelan president called Bush ''the devil'' at the United Nations in September, the 7-Eleven convenience store chain announced it was dropping Citgo as the gasoline supplier to more than 2,000 stations across the U.S.

''Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concerns over the derogatory comments about our country and its leadership,'' 7-Eleven said in a statement.

Citgo's heating-oil subsidies in the U.S. are modeled after Chavez's PetroCaribe program, which provides oil to a dozen Caribbean nations, including Cuba. The program, which allows countries to defer payments for 25 years on low interest, has helped Chavez gain influence over the U.S. in Latin America.

Venezuelans benefit too - gasoline here sells at about 17 cents a gallon thanks to government price controls.

But some domestic opponents say Chavez's penchant for peddling discount oil comes at the expense of Venezuelans.

An estimated 33 per cent of the country's 25 million residents live in poverty.

Chavez has also used oil revenues to pay for infrastructure in countries such as Bolivia and Uruguay.

''He has been using very audaciously money from oil to buy support, in the same imperial way of the United States,'' says Teodoro Petkoff, editor of Caracas' Tal Cual newspaper and a senior opposition party strategist.

''This country can afford to be generous. But if you give money for a hospital in Uruguay when the majority of Venezuelan hospitals are worth nothing, then people resent that.''

But not everyone.

In Caracas neighbourhoods such as Petare, a sprawling hillside barrio, many residents approve of Chavez selling low-cost oil, even to the richest nation in the world.

''He is not giving it to the government of the United States,'' says Manuel Jose Petate, 46. ''He is giving it to poor people who need it, who live in poor neighbourhoods like this. If it is necessary, then I think it is good that some of these Americans have it.''

CanWest News Service

EDs: Updated with U.S. reaction to Chavez win in firstoptional cut

© CanWest News Service 2006

Bush, OPEC and Chavez of Arabia

The "Bolivarian revolution" of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, recently re-elected in a landslide, is all about building an egalitarian society - and snubbing a nose at the US. No wonder Washington is apprehensive: Chavez is seducing the global South with his attempt to prove another world system is possible.

Dec 7,2006
THE ROVING EYE

By Pepe Escobar

Dig that red VW Beetle showing up this past Sunday morning at a Caracas barrio. Behind the wheel is none other than president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (as it has been officially designated since 1999), global South working-class hero and scourge of the Washington Consensus, on his way to one more red-Ferrari-style landslide electoral victory.

The historical metaphor came with a Bob Dylan blowing-in-the-wind swing: while Chavez - who is seducing the global South with his attempt to prove another world system is possible - was having his mandate renewed by an overwhelming majority of voters in a free, fair, transparent election, in Santiago the aging former US-backed Chilean tyrant Augusto Pinochet - the ultimate, sinister Latin American dictator from central casting - was suffering a heart attack.

In the absence of credible, untainted opposition, Chavez was actually, once again, running against George W Bush. "Against the devil [George W Bush], against the Empire, vote for Hugo Chavez," proclaimed red flags scattered all over Caracas. While Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentina's Nestor Kirchner, the top two powers in Mercosur alongside Venezuela, celebrated Chavez' victory, no tears were shed for for Pinochet (Evita Peron was much cooler).

As for Bush's twin daughters - who were having a ball in Buenos Aires, even with Barbara's wallet and mobile phone pocketed by a dangerous "terrorist" whose quick hand managed to floor all the defense systems of the most sophisticated Secret Service on the planet - they didn't stay for the celebration: they left Argentina last Thursday.

As they were unable to dissolve the Venezuelan people and elect a new, more pliable president, the discredited opposition - a motley collection of racist, corrupt oligarchs and plutocrats - was meekly forced to shelve the threat of launching a plan B, a "Great Avalanche against Fraud" scheduled for this Tuesday to protest against alleged electoral shenanigans.

This was despite a heavily built-up public relations campaign accusing Chavistas of being "Nazis" and empty promises of unleashing a Ukraine-style Orange Revolution to counter the so-called "fraud". Once again Chavez won fair and square, under the eyes of hundreds of international monitors. The non-dissolved Venezuelan people preempted a foretold coup d'etat.

OPEC matters
Behind all the smoke-and-mirrors "debate" around the variable "stay the course" scenarios, the only strategic factor that really matters for the Bush-Cheney system in Iraq is control of oil resources, which in theory would allow Washington to knock out the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

According to the original Bush-Cheney system plan, it would be crucial to increase Iraq's oil production, make sure that a barrel of oil does not cost more than US$30, and prevent any moves (by Russia and/or Iran, for instance) from the petrodollar toward the petro-euro. To allow Iraq to produce 3.5 million barrels of oil a day (nowadays it can be pumping as low as 1.8 million, if that), the US would have to invest at least $5 billion before the end of Bush's term - and count on no sabotage by the Sunni Arab resistance.

OPEC, for its part, wants a barrel of oil at $60 minimum. In the forefront of this policy we find none other than Hugo Chavez. This "minimum price" and the contours of a redistribution of production will be decided in an extraordinary OPEC meeting in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, on December 14. Chavez - and not the Bush-Cheney system - will definitely get what he, and other OPEC member states, want.

Chavez of Arabia
King-of-polemicists Chavez is set to remain the most popular political leader in the global South for years. It's not hard to see why. In Venezuela, as in Colombia, Ecuador or Paraguay, most of the population is mestizo - a mix of Spanish colonizers and indigenous people. The key issue in these countries is race mixed with class (as in struggle). The overwhelming majority of mestizos, not by accident, happen to be poor. Chavez is Venezuela incarnated because he is an absolute mestizo - Indian, Spanish and black. He had to be popular: he's one of "them" - the ones who had been excluded for centuries.

On top of it, Chavez is spectacularly popular from Mexico to India and especially in Gaza, Ramallah, south Beirut - not to mention Baghdad and Tehran. His portrait is now brandished all over alongside that of iconic Che Guevara. A torrent of editorials in the Arab press have nailed it: the dispossessed masses have clearly identified how cowardly, corrupt Arab rulers a la Hosni Mubarak, Saudi King Abdullah or the emir of Kuwait have not dared to do what a non-Arab, non-Muslim Latin American has done: to confront head-on the Empire's way of regulating the world.

What could Chavez teach, for instance, Hamas and Hezbollah? A lot: first of all, that it is possible for a clear alternative to emerge respecting the rules of parliamentary democracy. Chavez has not emerged protected by a religious movement; he is a democratically elected (and re-elected) president and a committed anti-imperialist socialist. He reaches way beyond national or communal division. He insists on continental unity (in the Middle East, that would translate into pan-Arabism). And his socio-economic policies are absolutely egalitarian, with an emphasis on redistribution of wealth.

As far as the Middle East is concerned, it also helps that Chavez dedicates a lot of thinking to the Iraq war, totally supports the Iraqi resistance and defines himself as a Nasserist (while in Beirut and south Lebanon he has become as popular as Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah). He appeals to Sunnis and Shi'ites alike - in fact echoing large swaths of public opinion all over Latin America who do not regard the Middle East in sectarian terms and clearly support the Palestinian struggle, the Iraqi resistance, the Lebanese Shi'ites, the Arab nation as a whole, and also Iran's right to a peaceful nuclear program.

The Bolivar swing
Assorted neo-cons and the Washington establishment cannot but be horrified by the steady progression of a Bolivarian movement bent on uniting South America against imperialist practices and the Washington Consensus. They now look south of the Rio Grande and see a solidified ALBA (Alternativa Bolivariana para las Americas, or Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) alliance - Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia - not to mention the return of Daniel "Sandinista" Ortega in Nicaragua and the ascension of Rafael Correa in Ecuador, plus a solidified Mercosur where Brazil-Argentina-Venezuela are deeply committed to an indigenous trade mechanism that has nothing to do with the US-promoted Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) or bilateral free-trade agreements (FTAs).

Chavez enjoys ample to total support from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba and now Ecuador. Correa's recent electoral victory in Ecuador rang the same themes: against corrupt elites; against US-imposed FTAs; in favor of "socialism for the 21st century" (a key Chavez theme); and crucially a desire for Ecuador - the fifth-largest oil producer in Latin America, and major exporter of crude to the US - to get back into OPEC, which the Andean country had quit in 1992. This would mean, of course, more support for Chavez within OPEC.

The only US military (air) base in South America happens to be in Manta, Ecuador. It's part of Plan Colombia and is supposed to be active in the "war on drugs" (Plan Colombia is actually more worried about Chavismo than drugs). The lease expires in 2009. Correa - a sharp, US-educated economist - said, "We won't close the base in 2009, but the United States would have to allow us to have an Ecuadorian base in Miami in return."

It's the water, stupid
Meanwhile, Lula's strategic advisers have recommended Brazil to propose in 2007 a South American version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - as a dissuasive shield against, what else, US designs especially on water. No wonder: South America holds the largest fresh-water reserves on the planet, a lot of oil, and an extremely rich biodiversity. Chavez had already proposed a similar plan last July, but only including the five Mercosur member countries. South America's NATO would inevitably be on a collision course with the US national-security doctrine.

To help implement its agenda, the US still relies on the School of the Americas - an assassins' den that since 1946 has trained more than 61,000 Latin American soldiers in everything from counterinsurgency to, yes, torture techniques. Everyone in South America remembers the infamous Operation Condor, which was in essence a Pinochet-controlled assassination machine of intellectuals and leftists.

In 2001 the Pentagon decided to re-christen the assassins' den as a Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, but this is the same old counterinsurgency university. Brazil and Venezuela, years ago, and later Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia, stopped sending "students", but scores of tiny Central American states still do.

As much as all over Latin America people have not forgotten the rape-and-pillage US strategy of supporting the Pinochets of the world, the Arab nation as a whole won't forget what interests lie behind Bush's Greater Middle East.

It's easy to see why a Sunni Arab Iraqi or a Lebanese Shi'ite is seduced by Chavez of Arabia. It's a question of true sovereignty and self-determination - and of course it has to do with oil. Venezuela has become a tremendous "threat" to US strategic interests in essence because Chavez nationalized oil giant PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela SA).

The logic of getting a better deal for the key national resource and as a direct consequence improving the quality of living of the most deprived sectors of the population by investing in health and education is simply anathema to the Washington Consensus: a few years ago this was a "communist" thing, now it's branded by cowed corporate media as "populism", a "destabilizing influence" or, even worse, "totalitarianism".

Meet 'totalitarianism'
For an alleged communist hell on Earth, Venezuela is quite well behaved. Economic fundamentals and the right to private property remain intact. Chavez knows he needs taxes to finance social projects. In 2005, Venezuelan gross domestic product grew a whopping 9.4% - and the same may happen in 2006. Bilateral trade with the US was $40 billion in 2005 and growing. The - white, plutocratic, "I love Miami" - elite represents less than 5% of the population. They don't have many reasons to complain. So it's back to racism: after all, Chavez is a mestizo.

Wealth redistribution is working. The minimum wage rose no less than 327% under Chavez, and is now about $250 a month (Brazil's, for instance, when readjusted in 2007, will be less than $180). When Chavez came to power in 1999, 55.4% of Venezuelans were considered poor; now they are 39.7%. More people are working in the formal economy than in the informal. And in human-development terms, according to the United Nations Development Program, Venezuela is climbing the charts and is now in 72nd place.

One of the key - and very complex - objectives of the Bolivarian Revolution is to organize an alternative production model. Chavez started by solidifying some state enterprises in strategic areas - in oil, electricity, telecom, transportation, food distribution. At the same time he has been turbocharging so-called "basic enterprises", cooperatives and the so-called "social production enterprises". The Bolivarian Revolution is all about the building up of a more egalitarian society.

We gotta take him out
Late last month, respected Venezuelan-American lawyer Eva Golinger published a remarkable book - Bush vs Chavez: La guerra de Washington contra Venezuela, ie "Washington's War Against Venezuela" (Monte Avila Editores, Caracas) - detailing the extent of the "strategic threat" posed to the US by the Bolivarian Revolution. For the moment the book has not yet been translated into English.

Golinger tells how the US is financing no fewer than 132 Venezuelan opposition groups; how the US is exercising "diplomatic terrorism" - via threat of sanctions - for non-cooperation in the "war on drugs", for instance, which is not true; and for non-cooperation in the "war on terror", which has led to Venezuela being forbidden to buy weapons made in the US or incorporating any US-made parts.

Surrealistically, Venezuela has been lumped with other "terrorist" nations (according to Washington thinking) even though it was never officially depicted as a state sponsoring terrorism. According to Golinger, "They did that because they wouldn't be able to get away with classifying Venezuela as a terrorist nation within the world community - just yet."

Harassment is non-stop. The current Republican-dominated US Congress has issued a report charging that Chavez smuggles Islamic terrorists from the Middle East to Margarita Island, trains them in Spanish, gives them a new ID and sends them to Mexico, where they cross the border and enter the US presumably to concoct a new version of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

And most of all there's the extensive military front. Evidence of US Central Intelligence Agency involvement in the April 2002 coup against Chavez can be found on the Internet. Nowadays, Golinger details what the US military base in Curacao is up to: the relentless pressure on the Curacao government for a strategic refinery leased to Venezuela to be sold to the US, the possibility of a US missile attack on Venezuela staged from Curacao, the secret US base being built in Colombia near the Venezuelan border for conducting espionage, the nefarious underground activities of a heady mix of Colombian paramilitaries and US Special Forces, attempts to push FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) into Venezuela so the mix can wreak havoc inside the country, and a detailed analysis of Plan Balboa, which is in fact the Pentagon invasion-of-Venezuela plan.

According to Golinger, "More than having an invasion, they're going to try and assassinate Chavez. And that's where the paramilitaries come in, because that's what their mission is. A paramilitary leader I spoke to told me that. They're already here. There are more than 3,000 in the region of Caracas alone."

No wonder Washington is so furious. South America is now the only region in the world where progressive ideas shine - and have a chance to multiply. The United States, the European Union and East Asia are narcotized by neo-liberalism - and immersed in an intellectual void. Russia offers Gazprom plus truculence. The Middle East is being devastated by the Bush-Cheney system. Afghanistan is a black void sucking Pakistan once again. And the "international community" still does not give a damn about Africa.

South America is bristling with hope - with ideas of unity in diversity, a collective "Enough!" to foreign exploitation, a belief that another world system is possible. Plutocracies are weary. The Pentagon may be proceeding "full speed ahead" with plans of militarization and all-out intervention in South America. But Chavez of Arabia won't go quietly - and sooner rather than later other kindred spirits are inevitably bound to rise all over the global South.

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.

Chavez wins re-election by a wide margin

By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press WriterMon Dec 4, 6:55 AM ET

Emboldened by a resounding re-election, President Hugo Chavez pledged to shake up Venezuela with a more radical version of socialism and forge a wider front against the United States in Latin America.

Opposition contender Manuel Rosales accepted defeat Sunday night, but promised to continue countering a leader whom he accuses of becoming increasingly authoritarian.

Touting his victory in a speech to thousands, Chavez said Venezuelans should expect an "expansion of the revolution" aimed at redistributing the country's oil wealth among the poor.

"Long live the revolution!" Chavez shouted from the balcony of the presidential palace. "Venezuela is demonstrating that a new and better world is possible, and we are building it."

With 78 percent of voting stations reporting, Chavez had 61 percent of the vote, to 38 percent for Rosales.

Chavez has won a loyal following among the poor through multibillion-dollar social programs including subsidized food, free university education and cash benefits for single mothers.

Chavez, who says he sees Fidel Castro as a father, dedicated his victory to the ailing 80-year-old Cuban leader, and called it a blow against President Bush.

"It's another defeat for the devil, who tries to dominate the world," Chavez told the crowd of red-shirted supporters, who listened to him under pouring rain. "Down with imperialism. We need a new world."

Even before polls closed, Chavez supporters celebrated in the streets, setting off fireworks and cruising Caracas honking horns and shouting "Chavez isn't going anywhere!"

Since he first won office in 1998, Chavez has increasingly dominated all branches of government, and his allies now control congress, state offices and the judiciary. Current law prevents him from running again in 2012 but he has said he plans to seek constitutional reforms that would include an end to presidential term limits.

Chavez has posed a growing challenge to the United States while leading a widening bloc of Latin American leftists, influencing elections across the region, and allying himself with U.S. opponents like Iran and Syria.

The United States remains the top buyer of Venezuelan oil, but Chavez has sought to gradually diversify to new clients in Latin America and as far away as China.

Partial results from Sunday's vote showed Chavez had nearly 6 million votes versus 3.7 million for Rosales. Final turnout figures among the 15.9 million eligible voters weren't available but an official bulletin of partial results showed turnout at more than 70 percent.

"We recognize that today they defeated us," Rosales told cheering supporters at his campaign headquarters. "We will continue in this struggle."

Some aides wept. Others were angry.

"We have to do something," said 36-year-old Dona Bavaro. "My country is being stolen. This is the last chance we have. Communism is coming here."

Rosales, a cattle rancher who is now expected to return to his post of governor of the western state of Zulia, called the election a choice between freedom and increasing state control of people's lives. He also decried rampant crime and corruption, widely seen as Chavez's main vulnerabilities.

Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and soaring oil prices have made it the continent's fastest-growing economy — a fact that some voters said helped tilt them toward Chavez.

Many who voted for the president said they think the leader's oil-funded social programs are making a difference.

"We're here to support our president, who has helped us so much," said Jose Domingo Izaguirre, a factory worker who lined up to vote and whose family recently moved into new government housing.

Some Venezuelans had predicted street protests and possibly violence after the vote, but Rosales' quick concession appeared to defuse tensions. Venezuelan society remains sharply divided along class lines, with many middle- and upper-class Chavez opponents saying they fear what may be next in the president's play book.

Conflict and ambition have marked the rise of Chavez, 52, from a boy selling homemade sweets in a dusty backwater to a failed coup commander in 1992, and now a leader who could set the tone of Latin American politics for years to come.

Constitutional reforms he oversaw in 1999 triggered new elections the following year that he easily won. Loyalists helped him survive a 2002 coup, a subsequent general strike and a 2004 recall referendum.

The president insists he is a democrat and will continue to respect private property — though he has boosted state control over the oil industry and has said he might nationalize utilities.

From the Venezuelan Heart to the U.S. Hearths

Last update: November 24, 2006 – 10:11 PM

Chippewa Tribe accepts free heating oil from Citgo
The tribe said it would be foolish to refuse the offer from the Venezuelan-owned firm despite political controversy.
Archie Ingersoll, Associated Press


When the Venezuelan-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp. approached the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe with a gift of about $1.7 million in heating assistance, members of the tribe's six bands raised a collective eyebrow.

"There are a lot of people who offer things to Indians," said Winona LaDuke, a member of the White Earth Band and director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project. "I see a lot of snake oil salesmen coming to Indian country."

But the deal proved genuine: Texas-based Citgo dispensed millions of gallons of heating oil last year to roughly 181,000 American households in need in the Northeast and is expanding the program this winter, according to the company's website. LaDuke now is a facilitator for Citgo's program in Minnesota.

Still, there were the political connotations of accepting fuel from a firm owned by Venezuela's state oil company. The firm has a direct link to President Hugo Chavez, who famously called President Bush "the devil" in September during a speech at the United Nations.

Citgo's program, called "From the Venezuelan Heart to the U.S. Hearths," has been widely viewed as an effort by Chavez to embarrass the U.S. government. A few native villages in Alaska recently rejected Citgo's offer.

Wayne Bohn, an attorney for the Leech Lake Band, said the politics of the deal were "hotly debated," but the tribe didn't see the point in rejecting the offer.

"To us, it would be a foolish move. We're not a wealthy tribe," Bohn said. "We could make a political statement, but making a political statement while your people freeze is not very wise."

Citgo will donate a lump sum to each of the six bands based on how many members are eligible for state heating assistance. Those band members will receive direct credits on their heating bills through Citgo's program, said Gary Frazer, the tribe's executive director.

Citgo has allotted 250 gallons of heating oil or the equivalent for each household. With Citgo figuring that each gallon is worth $2.25, the donation is $562.50 per household, about a 40 percent discount on most winter heating bills for homes on Chippewa reservations. The program runs from Nov. 15 until March 15.

Based on last year's state heating-assistance rolls, the tribe estimates that more than 2,700 households will be eligible for aid. Tribal day-care facilities for children and the elderly will also get a discount on heating fuel.

The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe -- an umbrella group that includes Bois Forte, Fond du Lac, Grand Portage, Leech Lake, Mille Lacs and White Earth bands -- plans to distribute money to the bands in the coming weeks.

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/833632.html