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Chavez lavishes oil, cooperation on impoverished Haiti
Reuters/Eduardo Munoz
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez (C) stretches hands with Haiti's President Rene Preval (L) and a Cuba's representative during a news conference at the National palace in Port-au-Prince March 12, 2007.
AFP
PORT-AU-PRINCE
Petroleumworld.com 03 14 07
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, on a visit to Haiti, lavished oil on the poorest country in the Americas before heading home Tuesday after a regional tour cast as an alternative to the one made by US President George W. Bush.
Haiti signed a deal under which it will receive 14,000 barrels of crude a day as a beneficiary of Venezuela's PetroCaribe initiative, which offers regional government discounted oil supplies, officials said.
In a joint press conference President Rene Preval said Monday that Haiti and close allies Venezuela and Cuba had signed a three-way cooperation agreement on health care, energy and oil.
Preval said that ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who Havana has said is on the mend from intestinal surgery, phoned Haiti several times to get in on talks about the agreement.
Venezuela also said it would build three power plants in Haiti including one in the capital totalling a 100 Mw output, Chavez said.
"An essential part of this strategy is getting Haiti to join the ALBA," said Chavez referring to a left-leaning economic cooperation accord that groups Cuba and Venezuela, and which may be joined by Nicaragua and Ecuador. It is meant to counter Bush's proposed pan-American free trade deal, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Flying into Port-au-Prince for a 24-hour visit, Chavez was greeted by a crowd waving banners "Down with Bush" and "Viva Chavez," with some also calling for the return of exiled leader Jean Bertrand Aristide, ousted with US backing in a 2004 uprising.
It was the last stop on a tour designed to rival Bush's own concurrent trip through the region, with both leaders seeking to limit the other's influence.
In Jamaica Chavez criticized Bush's desire, voiced last Thursday in Brazil, to expand the region's production of ethanol from food crops.
Bush Tuesday was on the last stop of his five-stop tour of Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.
While Bush has steadfastly refused to speak directly about Chavez, his trip was widely seen as an effort to combat the Venezuelan leader's petrodollar-funded anti-US campaign in Latin America.
Chavez, meanwhile, has appeared determined to shore up his own support against the US diplomatic push, both through scalding anti-Bush rhetoric and generous offers of aid.
When Bush was in Uruguay Friday, Chavez held a massive anti-American rally in neighboring Argentina, and popped up in Bolivia when Bush flew to Colombia.
"I am warning: the US embassies are continuing to launch plans for assassinations and coups in our countries. I accuse the US government of being behind these plans," Chavez said at a military base near La Paz.
As Bush arrived in Guatemala on Sunday, Chavez went on to Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega joined him in criticizing US policies, saying US funds that finance the Iraq war would be put to better use if they were invested in Latin America.
Chavez, meanwhile, announced a 2.5-billion-dollar project to build an oil refinery in Nicaragua.
In Jamaica he signed an agreement with Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller on cooperation on natural gas industry.
AFP 13 1611 GMT 03 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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