World Tribune.com

Chavez mounts global anti-U.S. crusade with billions in U.S. petrodollars

See the John Metzler archive
By John Metzler
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, April 7, 2006

UNITED NATIONS — Nationalizing foreign owned oil fields, mobilizing the masses for a hazy vision of the Bolivarian Revolution, and a spending spree supporting regional comrades from Cuba to South America , has all made President Hugo Chavez, a former left wing army colonel, the new poster boy of the Left. His high profile heating fuel giveaways from the Bronx, New York to Maine have brought this Latin American leader into the local limelight. Internationally he has courted leaders in Moscow and Beijing.

Without question a rising tide of left wing politicians are gaining power throughout the hemisphere. Some are democratic such as Michelle Bachelet in Chile, others are throwback caricatures of a failed socialist past such as Evo Morales in Bolivia, and others like Brazil’s Lula da Silva remain entangled in the corruption of their own governments. Now Peru could elect a former left-wing military officer who plays to a combination of local racism and global anti-Americanism. The primary difference is that Venezuela boasts a cash-rich oil economy which is largely fueled by the very country he loves to hate, the USA.

It’s no question that Venezuela remains a key enabler to America’s petroleum addiction and ironically the more we use its oil, the more money we pump into Chavez’s coffers.

A recent New York Times report stated that oil is used in a rivalry with the U.S. for influence in the Americas. The article cited Venezuelan sources saying that since coming to power in 1999, Chavez has spent more than $25 billion, about $3.6 billion annually, in supporting a wide range of populist issues from samba parades in Brazil, to purchasing a chunk of Argentina’s huge debt, and supplying Castro with 100,000 barrels of oil per day. Needless to say that Hugo Chavez has bought many friends in the hemisphere.

Caracas has set up a special political slush fund, financed by petro dollars to promote radical hemispheric agenda. The Fonden fund gains approximately $100 million weekly from the state owned oil company. By the end of the year, Fonden will have nearly $17.5 billion to spread in a “discressionary spending.”

Venezuelan oil gives Chavez both political leverage and cash flow to support an increasingly repressive political regime variously described as populist, leftist, or communist. President Hugo Chavez has enthusiastically emerged as a regional demagogue and hero to some of Venezuela’s poor and hemispheric have-nots. Given his domestic policies he will no doubt create even more have-nots. Venezuela’s once relatively prosperous middle class and democratic system are under assault. A formerly vocal opposition is dangerously divided going into presidential elections this December.

The high octane rhetoric that continues to flow from Caracas, is aimed at the usual suspects—especially the USA, and evokes the 1970’s and such regimes as Cuba and Nicaragua’s Sandinistas.

Though Chavez poses as a 21st century Castro-wannabee, the genuine difference between Hugo and Fidel remains that Venezuela is awash in oil exports and the petro-dollars they generate. Contrary to Castro’s communism which has tragically run down the Cuban economy, Chavez’s left wing vision is subsidized at least for now by lucrative oil exports as well as the realization that his country remains one of the top global players in terms to current supply and long term petroleum reserves.

Still Chavez is no fool. Though he flaunts standoffs with foreign oil companies, and recently seized some assets of France’s Total SA and Italy’s ENI, the Wall Street Journal asserts, “Despite a dramatic gesture, which comes amid a long running battle between Chavez and big oil companies, Venezuela is unlikely to head toward outright nationalization of its oil industry. That is because Mr. Chavez needs foreign oil companies as much as they need access to Venezuela’s giant reserves, the largest outside the Middle East.” Foreign firms pump about a third of the country’s petroleum.

Hugo Chavez’s comrade-in-arms, retired-Lt. Colonel Francisco Arias Cardenas has been proposed as Venezuela's new Ambassador to the United Nations. A few years ago a Venezuela’s U.N. delegate Milos Alcalay shocked the diplomatic community by publicly resigning his position to protest his country’s deteriorating human rights record.

Not surprisingly, Venezuela is lobbying for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Later this year Venezuela and Guatemala will face off for the Latin American seat replacing Argentina. Should Chavez gain this bully pulpit, expect even more grief for Uncle Sam.

Yet his demagogic antics and dreams of Bolivarian Axis of Latin America where left wing regimes confront the “Colossus of the North” begin to take on a very to troubling strategic dimension.

John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.