Thursday, August 18, 2005
First Venezuelan oil shipment to Uruguay
Venezuela is to provide low-cost crude oil for refining at Uruguayan refineries for 25 years. The processed oil will be used to meet Uruguay's energy needs with the rest to be exported to South American countries.In return, Uruguay will export a large amount of agricultural, telecommunications and service products to Venezuela.
Other joint efforts in the works include plans for an alcohol distillation project with Uruguay near its northeastern border with Brazil and a cement plant which will export from Uruguay to Venezuela 10 million US dollars worth of cement annually.
In the political field, the two presidents agreed to strengthen consultation and cooperation to help promote the process of South America's integration.
Chavez wasted no time in implementing the agreement. Cuba's Prensa Latina reports that almost a million barrels of crude were delivered today.
The Cuban report also mentions Venezuelan interest in direct investment in Uruguay—
During Chavez´s recent visit to Uruguay on August 10, both parties announced the agreement might envisage future Venezuelan investment in Uruguay´s oil refineries.
Washington is concerned that Chavez is using some of Venezuela's oil money "to exercise influence or gain influence over some of its neighbours." It is always a worry for Washington when democratically elected governments, as opposed to multinational oil companies, gain influence.
The U.S., of course, eschews such methods. Direct invasion is now considered superior to diplomacy—or even bribery.
Footnote
1According to Eva Golinger of Venezuelanalysis.com,
Porter Goss, the Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) named Venezuela as the leading Latin American nation to be alarmed about in 2005. In testimony before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding “Global Intelligence Challenges 2005: Meeting Long-Term Challenges with a Long-Term Strategy”, Goss classified Venezuela as a “potential area for instability” for this year. Considering Venezuela as a “flashpoint” in 2005, the CIA Director alleged that President Chávez “is consolidating his power by using technically legal tactics to target his opponents and meddling in the region.” Goss also raised alarm that Chávez is “supported by [Fidel] Castro.”As so frequently happens in the Bush administration, there is a semantic crisis. The CIA, Pentagon and State Department have rushed to their dictionaries to find the mot juste—
Venezuela is the only country referred to in this list of five as a cause of concern because of actions the Government is pursuing. Goss’s choice of the wording “technically legal tactics” evidences the U.S. administration’s push to label Venezuela as an “authoritarian democracy” or an “elected dictatorship.” Various State Department officials and communications media have been fiddling with implementing this change in semantics regarding Venezuela’s “peculiar situation” over the past year. Recently, Miami Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer began referring to Venezuela as an “authoritarian democracy” a term contradictory in itself.[back]Furthermore, the use of the term “technically legal tactics” demonstrates the Bush Administration’s conundrum with Venezuela. While the U.S. Government has on numerous occasions publicly acknowledged that President Chávez has been democratically elected twice and won a transparent recall referendum by a landslide in August 2004, it has also launched a well coordinated campaign to isolate Venezuela internationally, labeling Chávez as a “negative force to the region” and a “threat to democracy.” The “technically legal” also shows that the CIA is struggling to find a way to justify regime change in Venezuela: “technically” Chávez’s actions are “legal”, but... [fill in the blanks].
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