Times have changed in U.S.-Venezuela relations

[To get an idea of why the U.S. foreign policy establishment despises the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez, it helps to understand the geopolitical role that U.S. national security managers had in mind for Venezuela prior to Chavez's rise.]

Times have changed in U.S.-Venezuela relations

January 8, 2008, by Justin Delacour - Latin America News Review

To get an idea of why the U.S. foreign policy establishment despises the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez, it helps to understand the geopolitical role that U.S. national security managers had in mind for Venezuela prior to Chavez's rise.

In the lead-up to the first Gulf War of 1991, the elder President Bush praised the Venezuelan government of Carlos Andrés Pérez for deciding to increase its oil production in the face of an oil cutoff from Iraq and Kuwait.

On December 8, 1990, ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings aired a telling quote from Melvin Conant, a leading analyst of the geopolitics of energy:

"We can change the geopolitics of oil by sending a signal to the Middle East that in the great oil reserves of Venezuela there are simply enormous sources of oil which could significantly reduce our own dependence upon the Middle East."

Of course, the rise of Chavez would throw a wrench in the plans of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

(click here to view entire article)

Financing Venezuela’s Communal Councils

[The survival of the community councils depends on their ability to implement meaningful development projects and thereby inspire participation. The embedding of funding in law independent of hydrocarbons revenues is therefore made especially important given declining oil money, which make further ad hoc transfers less likely and shrink existing council income.]

Financing Venezuela’s Communal Councils

December 29th 2008, by George Gabriel

Peering through the metal gate she asks me again, "Why do you want a Community Council? What is the reason?" The simplest response, that we want to improve our community has twice already failed to convince. The truth is I never expected to be really questioned as to "why", and though reasons race through my head, each appears less likely than the last to persuade such a staunch supporter of the Venezuelan opposition.

The truth is that alongside the thousands of councils[1] there already exist all sorts of neighbourhood organisations that do function; ours has arranged security, maintenance, and some infrastructure improvements like a back up water supply.

I tell her that with a Community Council we would receive government money with which we could undertake major projects without having to self-fund - my apartment paid the equivalent of one month's wages as our contribution to the water storage facility. This is an appeal to the lowest common denominator and it works. She wants a council for the exact same reason and will now help us construct one. She is an important member of the community and can help us hugely, but if this is such a success why do I feel uncomfortable?

David Velásquez, Minister of Popular Power for Participation and Social Development, declared in 2007, "We have the enormous responsibility of going beyond those who want to convert the Community Councils into instances for receiving and administering resources, or instances that fail to realize that they (the councils) are a new form of state, of government, a new form of society in construction."[2] In a country where corruption and incompetence are serious problems, participation is seen as a potential antidote, sidelining and replacing ineffective, inefficient, or corrupt parts of the state. With the financial crisis only temporarily contained by Venezuela's foreign reserves, the prospect of reduced government revenues makes these concerns urgent. Yet if the logic is clear, how do I know this argument will fail to convince?

(click here to view entire article)

Obama May Use Chavez as Test for Talking With Foes

[Venezuela may provide a useful first test for Obama’s pledge to engage rather than isolate antagonists. While President Hugo Chavez is one of Washington’s noisiest critics, frayed relations would likely be easier to mend than those with nations such as Iran and Cuba, whose leaders are even more hostile toward the U.S.]

Obama May Use Chavez as Test for Talking With Foes

January 6th, 2009, by Indira A.R. Lakshmana - Bloomberg

In a mirrored office tower overlooking Caracas, a top Venezuelan official says his government is ready to accept Barack Obama’s offer to talk with U.S. adversaries -- if the president-elect scraps George W. Bush’s division of the world into friends and foes.

Such categories are “simplistic,” says Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s former envoy to Washington. “Why do nations have to be friends? What we have to do is sit down and discuss issues.”

Venezuela may provide a useful first test for Obama’s pledge to engage rather than isolate antagonists. While President Hugo Chavez is one of Washington’s noisiest critics, frayed relations would likely be easier to mend than those with nations such as Iran and Cuba, whose leaders are even more hostile toward the U.S.

Still, “Obama needs to be cautious” given Chavez’s inconsistent record on democracy, says Elsa Cardozo, an international-relations scholar at the Metropolitan University of Caracas. The 54-year-old former lieutenant colonel has allowed open elections and an opposition press while consolidating power over the government and selectively persecuting political rivals.
“Expect an indirect and gradual approach” that might serve as a template for normalizing relations with other countries run by long-serving charismatic leaders who’ve consolidated power, she says.

Mutual Interest

Some Obama advisers privately suggest the president-elect might reach out to Chavez, proposing cooperation on a few issues of mutual interest -- drug enforcement, energy, poverty -- while asking Brazil and other neighbors to encourage the Venezuelan leader to negotiate in good faith in the interest of regional harmony.

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Then and now, Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

[ Watching Hugo Chavez orate on Venezuelan television rings old memory bells. “Socialism. Revolution, Patria.” Words I heard in 1960-61 in Cuba.]

Then and now, Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

December 24th 2008, by Saul Landau - CounterPunch

Watching Hugo Chavez orate on Venezuelan television rings old memory bells. "Socialism. Revolution, Patria." Words I heard in 1960-61 in Cuba.

Now, almost half a century later, in Venezuela's 5 million plus capital, I watched the local residents cheering and waving flags, a scene that looked almost identical to what I remembered in Havana when Fidel Castro launched his marathon exercises in exciting rhetoric.

Like his Cuban mentor, Chavez offered examples of how "imperialism" -- his word for the United States -- had violated sovereignty, by backing the unsuccessful 2002 military coup against him and how Washington interfered in the internal affairs of smaller countries.

What a difference the decades make! In the early 1960s, the CIA (using Cuban exiles) assassinated Cuban teachers and militia members, and sabotaged Cuban installations. I remember hearing explosions, shots, and screams from the street.

From May through October 1960, I heard Fidel speak frequently to large crowds. He had become what Lee Lockwood called "Cuba's living newspaper." (Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel, 1967)

Almost fifty years later, Fidel's ideological son attempts to apply some of his mentor's rhetoric towards similar goals: to build a socialist society in a nation where oil has helped produce a capitalist mode of thinking and doing (shopping), a large wealthy class and a much larger mass of poor people.

(click here to view entire article; click here to view article in Spanish)

More Than 100 Latin America Experts Question Human Rights Watch's Venezuela Report

[ In an open letter to the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, over 100 experts on Latin America criticized the organization's recent report on Venezuela, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela, saying that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility." The signers include leading academic specialists from universities in the United States, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and a number of state universities, and academic institutions in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, México, the U.K., Venezuela and other countries.]

More Than 100 Latin America Experts Question Human Rights Watch’s Venezuela Report

December 17th 2008, by Various Authors - Venezuelanalysis

December 16, 2008

Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor
New York, NY 10118-3299 USA

To the Board of Directors,

We write to call your attention to a report published by Human Rights Watch that does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility. The document, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela, appears to be a politically motivated essay rather than a human rights report. Indeed, the lead author of the report, Jose Miguel Vivanco, stated as much when he told the press just a few days after its publication, "We did the report because we wanted to demonstrate to the world that Venezuela is not a model for anyone..."[2]

Clearly Mr. Vivanco is entitled to his views about Venezuela, but such statements run counter to the mission of Human Rights Watch and indeed any organization dedicated to the defense of human rights. By publishing such a grossly flawed report, and acknowledging a political motivation in doing so, Mr. Vivanco has undermined the credibility of an important human rights organization.

We do not make these charges lightly and we hope you will understand the seriousness of such grave errors in judgment. As scholars who specialize in Latin America, we rely on what are supposed to be independent, non-partisan organizations such as Human Rights Watch for factual information about human right abuses committed by governments and sometimes non-governmental actors. So do many other constituencies, including the press, government officials, and the public. It is a great loss to civil society when we can no longer trust a source such as Human Rights Watch to conduct an impartial investigation and draw conclusions based on verifiable facts.

(click here to view entire letter; click here to view letter in Spanish)

Hugo Chavez, the FARC Laptops, and the Non-Existent Emails

[While UK and US government officials, NGOs and media outlets rushed to comment on alleged emails showing extensive collaboration between the leadership of the FARC rebel group and representatives of the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, they have shown a reluctance to comment on the the fact that according to the Colombian government-appointed investigator, Captain Ronald Coy, no emails ever existed.]

Hugo Chavez, the FARC Laptops, and the Non-Existent Emails

December 23rd 2008, by Calvin Tucker - 21st Century Socialism

Remember the laptop computer that, according to the Colombian government, miraculously survived the bombing of the Farc guerrilla camp in Ecuador? Yes, that one. The one that allegedly contained thousands of emails showing the extensive collaboration between the leadership of the rebel group and representatives of the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez.

The alleged contents of the laptop were exploited without delay by US officials seeking to increase pressure on the Venezuelan government. US Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon said that this was "the first time that we've stumbled across something coming from the Farc drawing such a straight line" between the rebels and Chavez.

Amidst the acres of news coverage generated by the ‘discovery’ of the laptop, the Economist provided a helpful summary:

"Interpol has now concluded that the huge cache of e-mails and other documents recovered from the computers of Raúl Reyes, a senior leader of the Farc guerrillas killed in a Colombian bombing raid on his camp in Ecuador on March 1st, are authentic and undoctored."

The Guardian’s self-styled Caracas correspondent, Rory Carroll, even managed to intercept some of the emails:

"In one leaked email dated January 2007 the Farc's military leader, Jorge Briceño, also known as Mono Jojoy, told the rebels' governing secretariat that he planned to ask Chávez for a loan of $250m, 'to be repaid when we take power'."

Carroll continued:

"In another coded email from April 2005 a rebel identified as Iván wrote that 'Tino', who was said to be responsible for Venezuela 's Popular Defence Units, a civilian militia, wanted help from Farc in teaching guerrilla tactics."

Ben Whitford, a writer for the Guardian's 'Comment is free' website, declared with undisguised glee:

(click here to view entire article)

Oil Prices and Venezuela's Economy

[This paper looks at Venezuela’s export revenue, imports, and trade and current account balances under a range of oil price outcomes for the next two years. It finds that Venezuela would run large current account surpluses for prices between $60-90 per barrel, and would even run a small surplus with prices at $50 per barrel. (Most oil industry estimates for the next two years are in the range of $80-90 per barrel). The authors conclude that Venezuela is unlikely to run into foreign exchange constraints in the foreseeable future, and can pursue expansionary fiscal policies to counter any economic downturn.]

Oil Prices and Venezuela's Economy

November 2008, by Mark Weisbrot and Rebecca Ray - CEPR

(click here to view entire report; click here to view entire report in Spanish)