Posted on 10/17/2002 11:42:21 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS, Venezuela -- When U.S. officials seemed to welcome a coup here in April, it was a clear sign of strained relations between Washington and President Hugo Chavez, a self-styled revolutionary with a fondness for Fidel Castro.
The coup was short-lived, but six months later the Bush administration appears to have made its peace with Chavez.
So much so that U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro is getting fewer invitations to local opposition cocktail parties these days. In fact, anti-Chavez leaders who once considered U.S. diplomats their allies now say the Americans have abandoned democratic principles in order to cozy up to the ranting and autocratic Chavez.
The reasons for this rather startling turn-around are not hard to find. As the United States gears up for war with Iraq, which may seriously disrupt the global oil market, it cannot afford to ignore the fact that Venezuela is sitting on the largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere. After bungling the April coup, the opposition is also suffering a loss of credibility in Washington.
U.S. officials say Venezuela, which provides about 30 percent of U.S. oil imports, has recently offered to guarantee its oil supplies in case of war. In return Chavez has made it clear he expects Washington to stay out of his internal affairs.
"If the U.S. government is interested in Venezuelan oil," Chavez told Chilean communist journalist Marta Harnecker a few months ago, "the best way to keep getting it would be to support our government."
To press home the point, Venezuela has named Deputy Energy Minister Bernardo Alvarez as its next ambassador to Washington. Venezuelan officials note the convergence of the interests of both countries: the United States' need for oil and refined products, and Venezuela's need to sell them.
"Hunger and a desire to eat coincided," said Ali Rodriguez, the chairman of the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, in an interview last week with a Caracas newspaper. Rodriguez, a leftist guerrilla in the 1960s, was until recently secretary-general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Washington is under no illusion that Chavez has suddenly become a genuine ally. On a whole series of issues, including the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, which Chavez opposes, the two countries are at odds.
"This is not an embrace of Chavez," said Michael Shifter, at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. "But there is clearly a distancing from the opposition."
Shifter said he has received several visits from angry opposition leaders, upset over what they perceive as Washington's betrayal.
The key to the new relationship lies in the disastrous way the events of April 11 played out.
With Chavez ousted from the palace, interim President Pedro Carmona shocked his supporters by a series of antidemocratic moves, including shutting down Congress and dissolving the Supreme Court. Poor barrios and loyal military officers then rose up in defense of Chavez to retake the palace.
"The U.S. played the opposition card, and it failed miserably," Shifter said. "The U.S. got burned. So now they are pulling back and projecting their full neutrality."
The experience may also have taught Washington that the opposition was less democratic -- and Chavez more popular -- than it had believed. The United States was also rattled by the scolding it got from within Latin America.
"It's fair to say there's been an effort to get a little bit closer to the (Chavez) government," since the events of April, said a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Caracas. The two sides had grown dangerously apart last year after Chavez criticized the war in Afghanistan, describing it as "fighting terror with terror."
In response to recent rumors of another coup in the works, the U.S. Embassy issued a statement warning that Washington would use "all actions permitted under U.S. law against any persons who engage in illegal and/or violent actions with the purpose of overthrowing or preserving the present government of Venezuela."
The highly publicized statement sent a shudder of disbelief through the opposition camp.
Although it only reflected long-standing U.S. policy to defend democratic rule, the statement was more emphatic than those issued in the past. It prompted a flurry of verbal attacks against Ambassador Shapiro. "The opposition sees Shapiro as an ally of Chavez," says Venezuelan political scientist Anibal Romero.
The U.S. is now following the lead of other regional governments in pressuring the opposition to reconcile its differences with Chavez through democratic dialogue. But opposition leaders say dialogue with Chavez is a fool's game.
Chavez has also lately appeared to soften his outspoken criticism of U.S. military aid for the drug war in Colombia. It is strongly rumored that he is close to signing an agreement to allow U.S. counter-drug flights to cross Venezuelan air space, something he has refused in the past.
Neither government will comment publicly on the issue, although officials confirm there have been discussions.
That would be seen as a major breakthrough by Washington as it broadens its mission in Colombia as part of the Bush administration's "war on terrorism." Colombia's rival guerrillas and paramilitary forces, both deeply implicated in drug trafficking, are on the U.S. government's list of terrorist organizations.
Colombia says as many as 20 illegal flights a week cross the border from Venezuela, bringing arms and money and returning with shipments of drugs.
But analysts say it is still unclear how deep the Chavez government's willingness to please Washington runs.
"They want to show Washington there is cooperation," Shifter said. "But I'm not sure how much there will be.'
Indeed, Chavez continues to play with fire -- at least rhetorically. In the same interview with Harnecker, the Venezuelan president warned that his removal, even by "institutional" means, could set the country -- and in particular the oil fields -- alight.
"The country would become a powder keg," he said. "If in Colombia there is sabotage against the oil pipelines, what would happen here, where a whole people and an army see Chavez as the incarnation of hope?"
Other government figures have made the same threat in recent months, one going so far -- in a private meeting with university administrators -- as to say the country would be turned into "another Kuwait" (a reference to Saddam Hussein's torching of the Kuwaiti oil fields after the Gulf War).
How serious is the threat? "It's a bluff," says Romero, the political scientist. The U.S. Embassy is more cautious. "I don't think any of us knows," the spokesman said. There are many reasons why Washington would not want to see Venezuela descend into chaos. But few doubt that political turmoil -- with or without sabotage -- could disrupt the flow of oil.
And that alone is a good enough reason for the United States to seek to reject any violent attempt to remove Chavez.
-- Phil Gunson is a Times correspondent based in Caracas; David Adams is the Times' Latin America correspondent.
"The foreign and multinational companies in our institution take no political positions in Venezuela. However, they are committed to democratic values and freedoms because they are based in nations where those values are firmly defended," VenAmCham said. The chamber has criticized 49 laws, including a land reform law, it said threaten property rights. It also denounced the existence of "mobs" and "irregular" labor movements that are "harassing" executives at large companies and attacking the local news media.
In the first half of 2002 political instability and the mismanagement of resources were blamed for a 7.1 percent contraction in GDP. According to government statistics, unemployment is 16.2 percent. Fedecamaras, Venezuela's largest business chamber, and the Venezuelan Workers Confederation have called a 12-hour general strike for Monday to demand early presidential elections.
Chavez has rejected demands that he resign or call early elections to resolve Venezuela's political crisis. He says the opposition can call a referendum on his rule next August or wait until the next presidential election in December 2006. [End]
There simply isn't a tradition in Venezuela, or Latin America in general, of classic liberal government. There is democracy, but it is being planted into populist or leftist soil.
The average people firmly believe, because this is their history, that if you have money, you did not come by it honestly. By now most people are disenchanted with Chavez, but what they believe is not heartening. They believe that he loves his country, and that he sincerely wants to help the poor, and the only reason it hasn't happened is that the bankers and the rich people who still supposedly run the country won't let him do what he wants to do.
So, as the country unravels, the fault is not Chavez', it is the fault of some cabal of rich folks who, in secret league with the US, have conspired to keep Venezuela poor.
If Chavez goes down by our hand, there is a certain percentage that would follow him into the bush to link up with the FARC. Mind you, I don't think he will go there, I think he is a big phony. But his true-believers will.
So when he goes down, we must be careful that it is the Venezuelan people themselves who do it. It is better to wait until the election and to either do it at the ballot box, if possible, or if the voting is demonstrably fraudulent, then a coup can be defended publicly.
He is incompetent, thank goodness, and every day he stays in office he alienates more Venezuelans. It is important that we are not the ones to take him out, or to keep him in. Venezuelans are populists, and they have their populist philosopher king, and it is important that this plays out all the way to its logical and tragic end. Venezuelans have often said that the answer to their problems was military rule. They have it, and its sad that at this late date they need this lesson, but they need it.
During the first coup, when Bush Sr made some vague remarks supporting democracy (and by implication the sitting president, who Chavez tried to overthrow) a friend told me, "I love Americans, but if Bush sends the Marines, I will fight". He was serious. I told him nobody cares what happens in Venezuela enough to send Marines, don't be silly. I should point out that, while the professionals I dealt with were deeply shocked and hurt by the coup, by the fact that it could happen in their country, the great mass of people supported it. Chavez was an instant hero.
The people wanted him, they got him, and we should not do anything about it, until the Venezuelans themselves are prepared to reject not merely him, but what he stands for. I don't think that day has come yet.
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