Oil power to the people is priority for Rodríguez

A long-time friend of Cuba's Fidel Castro, Mr Rodríguez likens the tightening economic noose that is the oil strike with the long-time US-imposed trade embargo on the Caribbean island.

Cane in hand, Alí Rodríguez cuts a valiant but ghostly figure as he steps gingerly into the control room of the Puerto La Cruz oil refinery in eastern Venezuela.

Inside, a dozen visibly exhausted yet determined technicians rise to their feet and applaud, momentarily turning away from monitoring the console that is ensuring Venezuela's only operational refinery continues to distill a trickle of fuel.

As head of state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), Latin America's biggest company, Mr Rodríguez rallies the night shift. "The striking managers thought they were the only ones who can run this industry. But you are showing the world that they have failed. The workers are winning the battle now."

Such fighting talk is characteristic of the frail 65-year-old. He is a former guerrilla fighter, reputedly one of the last to lay down his arms at the end of Venezuela's small-scale leftwing insurgency of the 1960s.

Forty years later, Mr Rodríguez faces perhaps his most challenging struggle: to restart what a month ago was the world's fifth-largest oil exporter but is now a virtually paralysed network of derricks, pipelines and oil terminals.

"Armed guerrilla action is one form of combat I've left behind, but this is a war to save democracy," he says as he reaches up with his cane to tap the pilot's window of the executive jet on the runway of an abandoned airfield near the refinery.

A long-time friend of Cuba's Fidel Castro, Mr Rodríguez likens the tightening economic noose that is the oil strike with the long-time US-imposed trade embargo on the Caribbean island.

An anti-government strike by some 30,000 employees at PDVSA, aimed at pressuring populist President Hugo Chávez into resigning and calling early elections, has almost completely severed oil exports from Venezuela since the beginning of December.

Until then, PDVSA and local joint ventures with multinationals were producing 3.1m barrels a day of crude oil, of which 1.45m went to the US, accounting for 15 per cent of daily US crude imports.

But daily output last week was below 200,000 barrels, a reduction that, combined with expectations of an impending US-led military attack on Iraq, has pushed oil prices above $30 a barrel, a 15-month high.

Output of refined products from Venezuela has also plunged, starving the domestic market of fuel and depriving the US of 10 per cent of its daily gasoline imports. Puerto La Cruz was on Sunday refining 68,000 b/d, a third of the plant's capacity.

So severe is the strike that Venezuela, which sits on the largest oil reserves outside the Arab world and where drivers normally fill up their tanks for about $2, this weekend took the unprecedented step of importing fuel, from Brazil, to help ease the shortage.

Mr Rodríguez is making the domestic market a priority to keep potential civil unrest at bay. But striking managers at PDVSA say importing fuel will only delay a fresh supply crunch by a few days as Mr Rodrguez does not have the personnel at his disposal to restart the industry.

Yet Mr Rodríguez is adamant that he, and loyalist employees and contract workers, will triumph over the striking managers, many of whom took part in a similar but much shorter stoppage, which triggered the coup that ousted Mr Chávez for 48 hours in April.

"It was an error to have trusted these managers after April and not to have taken disciplinary measures," Mr Rodrguez said.

"They are causing huge damage to the economy and it's causing problems beyond our shores. But the managers' defeat will be the defeat of the political opposition. PDVSA will be stronger after this episode." Ninety executives have been dismissed in the past week.

Radiating confidence, Mr Rodríguez says he is preparing to take on tanker crews from abroad, including the US, to replace sailors from Venezuela's merchant navy, who have been among the most disruptive backers of the strike.

He claimed at the weekend that crude oil output had been ramped up to 1.5m b/d, and that PDVSA would return to pre-strike levels by January 15.

However, few observers believe his bold forecast of a quick turnround and he himself had to withdraw his output claims later.

Luis Marn, recently appointed head of PDVSA's eastern division, said restarted oil wells in the region were on Sunday producing 150,000 barrels. Together with a smaller volume from Lake Maracaibo in the west, total daily crude output may now be at 250,000 barrels.

The strikers are firm that they will not return to work until Mr Chávez resigns. The president has emphatically ruled out bowing to pressure from those he describes as nothing but "saboteurs trying to bring down the government".

Oil industry analysts say the days ahead will be a crucial test of Mr Rodríguez's will to pull both PDVSA and the Chávez government back from the brink, and that it will be weeks, or even months, before full PDVSA output resumes.

"There is a growing realisation right now that this is going to last, there is no negotiated solution in sight," said Fareed Mohamedi, chief economist at PFC Energy, a Washington-based consultancy.

Vice-President José Rangel, whose comments are often interpreted by local political analysts as an accurate indication of the opposite, said the situation in the country and the oil industry was "excessively normal".

Nonetheless, despite the guerrilla-hardened efforts of Mr Rodríguez, a paralysed oil industry may indeed be "normal" for some time to come.

Venezuela's Chavez courts OPEC chief for the top job at PDVSA....Rodriguez became OPEC's secretary-general in January 2001. A former leftist guerrilla, he has a long record of service in Venezuelan politics but has no obvious experience in running a commercial enterprise.....Chavez has rallied for greater unity among OPEC's 11 member nations. Under his leadership, Venezuela has evolved into one of the group's most hawkish members, advocating restraint in crude output with the aim of keeping oil prices high. Chavez has exploited Venezuela's membership in OPEC to try to enhance his own image as statesman, hosting a meeting of the group's heads of state in Caracas in September 2000.***

April 2002 - Rodriguez sorry to leave OPEC, but helping Venezuela a higher call ***CARACAS - Only after being heavily pressured by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was Ali Rodriguez prepared to step down as Secretary General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and return to Caracas to preside over state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela SA…………. Although the removal of Parra and the previous board is seen as crucial to appease dissident staff, PdVSA's strategy under Rodriguez's presidency won't differ much from Parra's. Rodriguez's mantra also will be to increase government revenues through hefty taxes, reduce operating and labor costs and comply strictly to oil output policy set by his now former colleagues at OPEC.

"The guidelines are set by the government and the company is owned by the government," Rodriguez said. "It's crucial that the role of the state and of the company should be made absolutely clear to everyone. PdVSA should extract, produce and export oil and the ministry should set policy," said Rodriguez, who will become the fifth company president in just over three years. Rodriguez, who's expected to head back to Vienna Tuesday or Wednesday, will begin consultations with ministers on who will be his interim replacement at OPEC headquarters.

Rodriguez suggested that his deputy OPEC's head of research Adnan Shihab-eldin could take over as secretary general for an interim period. "The president has authorized me to keep the Vienna post as long there is no replacement. But it's better to have one as soon as possible and Shihab-eldin could do it," Rodriguez said. OPEC has an extraordinary ministers meeting June 26. Rodriguez has served 16 months of his three-year term of office. OPEC sources said finding a replacement for Rodriguez could prove difficult. The choice of secretary general must be unanimous and has in the past been fraught with political maneuvering.***

July 2002 - Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba resuming in August - Libya studying Cuba's oil refinery [Full Text] CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela will resume oil shipments to Cuba on Aug. 1, the president of Venezuela's state-owned oil monopoly confirmed Wednesday. Petroleos de Venezuela SA plans to renew shipments of 53,000 barrels of crude per day to Cuba, said Ali Rodriguez, a former secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The pact, under which Cuba buys Venezuelan oil at preferential financing terms, was suspended when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was ousted in an April 12-14 coup.

During Chavez's brief ouster, PDVSA officials vowed not to deliver more oil to Cuba, claiming Venezuela was giving it away. Chavez's government insists the deal is similar to others in which Venezuela helps struggling Caribbean nations. According to PDVSA, Cuba owed dlrs 142 million when the cutoff occurred. When Chavez returned, Venezuela urged Cuba to pay, and Rodriguez said Wednesday the issue had been resolved. PDVSA supplies a third of Cuba's oil. Rodriguez added that Cuba and Venezuela had studied the possibility of modernizing Cuba's Cienfuegos refinery but decided the project isn't feasible. He said OPEC member Libya is conducting a similar study and that Venezuela is sharing information on Cienfuegos with Libya.[End]

Sept. 30, 2001- Petroleum World - Chavez's New Situation For President Chávez, the decision is awfully difficult. He is of the conviction that he is one of the main political players of the world. That he's recognized as a leader called upon to promote the universal struggle against globalization and neoliberalism.

No one ignores that his efforts helped in the rebuilding of OPEC, whose head, Alí Rodríguez, -a man of his trust- was his choice for the position. To bring OPEC back to life he went to Baghdad to talk to Saddan Hussein andto condemn the embargo against Irak. He went to Libya to meet with Gaddafi at the residential ruins because of U. S. missiles in 1989 and to offer his fraternal solidarity. He brought Mohammed Khatami to Caracas and later visited him in Teheran, in the process of reaching concrete and strong agreements with Iran. The most important was the making of the axis of a powerful alliance to turn oil into a strategic element against globalization.

A momentous choice is before him. As President he has journeyed the entire planet blaming globalization and neoliberalism as the root of the pain of peoples. In all scenarios he has said that savage capitalism breeds on the power of an empire who practices it and imposes it on others. A new balance in world power is indispensable to humanize globalization and slow down neoliberalism. He believes to have conquered universal admiration in the frontal, daily battle against unipolarity. Does the empire hope to have us bring down the flags?

In the 48 hours following the terrorist attack he vanishes from sight. He would later say that he was in meditation. How can he forget that Fidel has delivered to him the relay symbols, ushering him as the rising leader in the battle against the empire? How can it be forgotten that Ghadaffi has pointed to him as the head of a new movement to conquer the dignity of imperialism's oppressed peoples? How not to recall that wondrous day in Malaysia, when rulers of 77 countries asked him to lead Southern nations in their renewed efforts towards justice and equity? Or the mail exchange with famous fellow Venezuelan Carlos Ilich Ramírez -"EL Chacal"- for whose extradiction so much has been done by the Ambassador to Paris? In his lonely reflection he turns his sight onto a magazine on his desk: The New Yorker with the 22 page report written by Jon Lee Anderson. The President has read it several times. He reads again the final paragraphs.

"Chávez acknowledged that there is still misunderstanding and confusion in the U. S. over his policies. On this he said: "Until recently, what was under discussion, here and abroad, was to appease Chávez." Let's be nice to him to see if we can tame him" easily.

But it seems this beast is not too easy to tame." He lowered his voice and, this time, he did not smile. "This is an ideological conviction of mine and nothing will change that."***

Fidel, Saddam and Hugo --An improbable but growing friendship of three military revolutionaries*** Mr. Chávez is the most intriguing new leader to emerge in Latin America since Mr. Castro - and he is the lynchpin between Mr. Castro and Mr. Saddam. Although Cuba had been sending doctors and health workers to Iraq for years, there had not been any major contacts between the two countries until Mr. Chávez appeared on the scene. This fall, Mr. Chávez became the first democratically elected foreign head of state to visit Iraq since the Gulf War, ostensibly to invite Mr. Saddam to a summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. But it also was an in-your face gesture toward the United States.***

Grass-roots support for Chávez feeds his resolve - "He cares about us."

Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

Fidel Castro - Cuba

Crude oil prices decline, but worries remain*** The threat of simultaneous supply disruptions pulled world oil prices to two-year highs on Monday, but news that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was ready to raise output sparked a selloff that some analysts said was to be expected. "You have war and Venezuela premiums of $6 to $8 dollars built in," said analyst Bill O'Grady with AG Edwards. "Eventually, someone is going to take their money off the table." After markets closed, the American Petroleum Institute reported that crude inventories and imports fell sharply last week, sending a strong signal about the impact of the nationwide strike in oil-rich Venezuela.***

9/11: Chavez financed Al Qaeda, details of $1M donation emerge***The day after the attack, September 12, Chavez supporters publicly burned the Stars and Stripes in the main square of Caracas in an outburst of gleeful satisfaction over the attacks. The organizer of the Plaza Bolivar protest, Lina Ron (a.k.a. "Rosa", born 9/23/59 in Anaco, Anzoátegui state), received public praise from Chavez. Unknown to the press, Lina Ninette Ron Pereira had been on the payroll of Caracas governor Hernan Gruber Odreman, ever since Chavez appointed him head of the Distrito Federal in 1999. She is still employed by Chavez, today working for Caracas borough mayor Freddy Bernal of Chavez's MVR party. There, she is in charge of a "cultural center" which mobilizes masses for pro-Chavez demonstrations and is active in breaking up opposition events.

$1M for Al Qaeda to fight against the United States

But Chavez did not stop at merely praising the attacks and having his support groups burn the American flag. He wanted to do more. He wanted to help Al Qaeda and the Taliban in their coming war against the United States. Juan Diaz Castillo from Venezuela's Air Force, was given that job. The private pilot of Hugo Chavez, Major Diaz Castillo has since defected and has started to talk. As the trusted insider who flew the president's Airbus, he was an eye-witness to secret meetings between Chavez and some of the top dictators in the world. He was also in charge of organizing one million dollars worth of assistance from Chavez to Al Qaeda.

" - Chavez trusted me completely. So right after 9/11, when he decided to help Al Qaeda, he turned to Jorge Oropeza and to me. Jorge was my boss in the presidential air support unit, but he is just a political appointee, so I did all the actual work." The work, as ordered by Chavez, was to help Al Qaeda but to make it look like he was helping the Taliban, using humanitarian grounds as the excuse.***

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