Chavez should praise the Lord for death call BRIAN WILSON
IF PAT Robertson, the bellicose evangelist who broadcasts for God and Bush, did not exist, Hugo Chavez would have been very glad to invent him. Robertson's call for Chavez to be assassinated by the United States on the grounds that it is cheaper than having a war, should help to keep the president of Venezuela both alive and in power for a few more years. The relationship between the US and Venezuela deserves a lot more attention than it normally gets, because it acts as a litmus test on so many wider issues. How comprehensive, even now, is US opposition to terrorism as an instrument of regime change? What lengths will Washington go to in order to safeguard oil supplies? Who offers the more attractive vision for his impoverished neighbours - George Bush or Hugo Chavez? Similar questions could have been asked in Latin America and the Caribbean over many decades, and there would not have been much doubt about the answers. The Robertson line would have prevailed with little regard for the consequences - least of all for the impoverished people. Nowadays the problem for Washington is that there are many in the world who are on the lookout for double standards - not only to justify criticising the US (as was always the case) but for attacking it, which is rather different. The US is already facing a diplomatic pickle over the case of Luis Posada, one of its favourite terrorists, who is accused of blowing up a Cuban aircraft in 1976 with 73 people on board - many of them Venezuelan. Posada has turned up inconveniently in the US, and they now have to decide whether or not to hand him over to the Venezuelan authorities, who are seeking to extradite him. One would have thought that Washington has an overwhelming vested interest in sending out an unambiguous message that it will bring terrorists who blow up planes to justice. However, there are plenty in Washington who basically agree with Robertson. Latin America is their backyard. Different standards apply. Robertson's unique stupidity did not lie in thinking about "taking out" Chavez but in articulating it. There is already every reason to suppose that Washington was deeply involved in the failed attempt to oust Chavez in the bungled 2002 coup, which led to the elected president being restored with greater popular support. The particular difficulty for the US in relation to Venezuela is that it needs the oil. Venezuela is the fifth biggest producer in the world, and the major exporter outside the Middle East. At present Chavez is hedging his bets by negotiating with other markets, including China, to reduce dependence on the US as a customer. He is also threatening to stop supplying the US for overtly political reasons - retaliation for exactly the kind of activities Robertson has obligingly advocated. Chavez is himself an ambiguous and erratic figure. Venezuela, for all its past corruption and poverty, has had elected governments for almost half a century and Chavez tried to overthrow one of them in his own 1992 coup. Many remain suspicious of his authoritarian tendencies. But the fact remains that he was not only elected but had his presidency overwhelmingly confirmed in a referendum that his enemies forced in order to get rid of him. It is very easy to understand why. Chavez's relationship with Cuba is central to his strategy, and the two countries have cut a deal that is difficult to fault. Cuba gets cheap oil and the peasants in remote Venezuelan villages find themselves receiving the services of Cuban doctors and teachers. In the centre of Havana, the biggest hotel is reserved for poor Venezuelans flown over daily for hospital treatment. When the blind see and the lame walk, they know who to vote for. Chavez has now expanded this approach. On the very day when Robertson was calling for him to be killed, Chavez was in Montego Bay finalising an agreement with the Jamaican prime minister, PJ Patterson, to supply oil on favourable terms, thereby saving the country half a million dollars a day in imports. The Dominican Republic, which had been brought to the verge of collapse by high oil prices, has been rescued by the same kind of arrangement. Amidst all the self-satisfied hype that surrounded the G8 meeting at Gleneagles, a crucial reality was virtually ignored. It is that the most pressing cause of impoverishment to developing countries is the massive increase in oil prices. Probably the reason for ignoring it was that, unlike other deep-rooted problems, it was entirely possible to do something about it in the short term if the political will existed. But it didn't. Chavez is doing for his poor neighbours what the G8 declined to do for theirs. There is a test in all of this for British foreign policy. When the coup occurred in 2002, the immediate response of the Foreign Office was to rush out a statement welcoming the overthrow of an elected government. Before the ink was dry, Chavez was back in power. In other words, we made complete fools of ourselves by being too pathetically hasty to welcome what was assumed to be a success for Washington. Did that make us any better than Pat Robertson? Will we do better in future? http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1855952005 Serbian News Network - SNN [email protected] http://www.antic.org/
