Pretty soon we are going to learn that the drug trafficers are headquarted in
Venezuela and we need to send military aid there to stamp them out.
Gene Coyle
Louis Proyect wrote:
> New York Times, April 7, 2000
>
> Venezuelan Calls Tune in OPEC's Price Tactics
>
> By LARRY ROHTER
>
> CARACAS, Venezuela, April 6 -- For helping to engineer the spectacular rise
> in oil prices over the last year, fellow members of the Organization of
> Petroleum Exporting Countries have rewarded him with the group's presidency.
>
> Now Alí Rodríguez Araque, Venezuela's minister of energy, faces the
> daunting task of stabilizing prices at a level that both producers and
> consumers will find acceptable.
>
> Mr. Rodríguez's sudden emergence as OPEC's public face is just one sign of
> the higher profile in international energy affairs that Venezuela is
> vigorously seeking. Since President Hugo Chávez took office 14 months ago,
> this nation of 23 million people, the largest exporter of oil outside the
> Middle East and the leading supplier to the United States in recent years,
> has gone from lamb to lion on oil matters.
>
> "Under this government, Venezuela has been tremendously assertive, showing
> that we have our own identity and our own way of doing things," said Alan
> J. Viergutz, a former president of the Venezuelan Oil Chamber, the main
> industry group here. "That stands in complete contrast to the previous
> government, which if not anti-OPEC did not believe in OPEC solidarity."
>
> (clip)
>
> At first glance, Mr. Rodríguez may seem an odd choice to be overseeing the
> calibration of supply and demand for a commodity that is essential to
> modern global capitalism. He was active in a Cuban-inspired guerrilla group
> in the 1960's and is still a member of a party that is on the far left
> fringe of Mr. Chávez's coalition.
>
> Eventually, though, he abandoned armed revolutionary struggle and, equipped
> with a law degree earned in 1961, entered conventional politics. It was
> after being elected to the lower house of the Venezuelan Congress in 1983
> that his interest in oil policy blossomed. He gradually rose to chairman of
> that body's energy committee and became a member of the National Energy
> Council.
>
> "Alí is entirely the contrary of the image or stereotype you would have of
> a guerrilla fighter," said Dr. Viergutz, who is president of an oil
> investment company and helped develop the oil band concept. "He is a very
> flexible, prudent and open-minded person, and though he may have been a
> Communist, he has come to see there are other economic systems besides the
> state-oriented model."
>
> Legislation has been introduced in the United States Congress to punish oil
> producers for driving up gasoline prices, a move interpreted here as
> specifically aimed at Venezuela. OPEC's decision in Vienna to increase
> output by 1.7 million barrels a day appears to have headed off an immediate
> showdown, but even so there are other areas in which conflict between the
> United States and Venezuela may be looming.
>
> As part of the higher profile in world energy policy it has been seeking,
> the Chávez government has sought and been granted an OPEC heads of state
> meeting, scheduled to be held here in September. Mr. Chávez has a tour of
> the Mideast scheduled for June, and he is expected to personally invite two
> of Washington's most bitter enemies, the Libyan leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi,
> and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, to attend the conference.
>
> In addition, the state oil company, acting on Mr. Chávez's orders, has
> expressed interest in investing in the Cuban oil industry. If it does, oil
> analysts here have pointed out, it will almost certainly run afoul of
> United States legislation that calls for sanctions against foreign
> companies that make use of American assets nationalized in Cuba without
> compensation.
>
> "Venezuela has always been a major oil producer and exporter," a foreign
> oil analyst here said. "What has changed is that this government is now
> prepared to use that weight to become a major player on the international
> scene."
>
> Louis Proyect
>
> (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
