Op-Ed Commentary
Gustavo
Coronel:
Chavez threatens to intervene militarily in Bolivia
Last
November Venezuelans watched with repulsion as the president of
Petroleos de Venezuela and minister of Energy and Petroleum of
the Chavez regime, Rafael Ramirez, told the employees of the company
that either they voted for Hugo Chavez or would be dismissed,
an abuse of power that in any democratic country would have sent
him directly to prison. But this was not all. He added, at the
end of his speech, that he was going to the presidential palace
to meet with Chavez and others to plan for what he called the
liberation of Bolivia, country threatened by the United States
and its lackeys.
Echoing the petroleum minister turned military strategist, the
Venezuelan Ambassador in Bolivia, Julio Montes, said in Bolivia
that the Venezuelan government was ready to shed Venezuelan blood,
if need be, to support the Evo Morales revolution. Such an outburst
earned him a candidacy for persona non grata from the Bolivian
congress. Now, in Cochabamba, just a few days ago, Hugo Chavez
has gone on record to say: “the [Bolivian] ultra-right would
put the country in flames rather than accepting the changes that
the people want”. And added: “If the U.S. empire,
which is behind these manipulations… attacks the government
of Evo Morales the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan people
will not remain with arms crossed… we will be here with
you resisting the aggression…”
This statement by Hugo Chavez, made in Bolivian territory, constitutes
an open threat against Bolivian citizens who are today resisting
the totalitarian impulses of Evo Morales and his mentor, Hugo
Chavez. In saying this Chavez is intervening openly in the political
process of Bolivia and insults those Bolivians who are exercising
their political rights, accusing them of being stooges of the
U.S. “empire”.
In addition, Chavez accuses a country, the U.S., a member in good
standing of the Organization of American States, of being behind
these free civic expressions by Bolivians. Chavez also tries to
involve the Venezuelan people in a fight which is not ours, a
fight that he has promoted, driven by his ambitions to become
a regional leader. In fact he has only managed to become a regional
troublemaker. By giving the wrong advice to colorless and malleable
Morales he is promoting political turmoil in Latin America.
What is the OAS going to do about Hugo Chavez, if anything? He
is becoming a political headache of the first order in the western
hemisphere. My hopes that Peru could become a counterbalance to
Chavez’s wild political ambitions have disappeared after
seeing Alan Garcia smiling to, and embracing Chavez, after Chavez
called him a thief. Who will dare within the OAS to raise a protest
against the high-handed Chavez?
The threats of Hugo Chavez are not limited to the military arena.
He also declared in Cochabamba that the Andean Community of Nations
was “dead” and that Mercosur was “useless”.
Considering that he took Venezuela out of the Andean Community
to put the country into Mercosur it sounds really surreal that
he should speak out against both economic communities. He now
proposes a new “South American Community of Nations”.
Every six months or so he proposes a new organization of some
sort, proposals that are never serious or well thought out. He
proposed an economic community, ALBA, that has remained a dwarf,
only with the support of Cuba and Bolivia. He has promoted PetroAmerica,
a Latin American petroleum company that has not progressed beyond
the rhetoric. He has promoted a PetroSur, another company for
oil that never took off. Names and more names without substance,
only designed to capture the attention of the press for days or,
at the most, weeks.
Hugo Chavez is a threat to hemispheric security. His strong alignment
with Iran and his sympathy for North Korea, both involved in the
generation of nuclear weaponry and two of the most dangerous totalitarian
states left in the planet, provide the enemies of global democracy
with a dangerous ally in the heart of the western hemisphere,
one that could be described as more dangerous than a child armed
with a machine gun. Hugo Chavez is no statesman. He is the type
of person who feels that restraint on the side of the “enemy”
is a sign of weakness, therefore a green light for him to press
harder. Today he seems to feel that he is surrounded by Latin
versions of Neville Chamberlain. And as Hitler did in the late
1930’s, he will be emboldened by the smiles, embraces and
offerings of support from weak, needy or invertebrate Latin American
political leaders.
He is a strong candidate for Time’s Man of the year, but
for all the wrong reasons.
Gustavo
Coronel
is a 28 years oil industry veteran, a member of the first board
of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), author
of several books. At the present Coronel is Petroleumworld associate
editor and advisor on the opinion and editorial content of Petroleumworld.
Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.
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Petroleumworld
News 12/18/06
Copyright©
2006 Gustavo Coronel. All rights reserved.
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