This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Hugo Chavez

  • Hugo Chavez barking at the moon again

    I see Hugo is now concerned that non-Venzuelans might criticise him while visiting Venezuela according to AP (by way of Fox News);

    President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that foreigners who publicly criticize him or his government while visiting Venezuela will be expelled from the country.

    Chavez ordered officials to closely monitor statements made by international figures during their visits to Venezuela — and deport any outspoken critics.

    “How long are we going to allow a person — from any country in the world — to come to our own house to say there’s a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?” Chavez asked during his weekly television and radio program.

    The Venezuelan leader’s statements came after Manuel Espino, the president of Mexico’s conservative ruling party, criticized Chavez during a recent pro-democracy forum in Caracas.

    That’s odd since Chavez came to the United States last year and said this about our government, according to CNN;

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tore into his U.S. counterpart and his U.N. hosts Wednesday, likening President Bush to the devil and telling the General Assembly that its system is “worthless.”

    “The devil came here yesterday,” Chavez said, referring to Bush, who addressed the world body during its annual meeting Tuesday. “And it smells of sulfur still today.”

    Chavez accused Bush of having spoken “as if he owned the world” and said a psychiatrist could be called to analyze the statement.

    “As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: ‘The Devil’s Recipe.’ ”

    Chavez held up a book by Noam Chomsky on imperialism and said it encapsulated his arguments: “The American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its hegemonistic system of domination, and we cannot allow him to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.”

    Notice he said “the American empire” not “the Bush empire”…so there is an equivalance. Did President Bush react by expelling Chavez? Did he pass free speech “reforms” like Chavez has done?

    So who’s the dictator here? 

    Michael Moynihan recalls Daniel Ortega’s similar behavior more than twenty years ago. 

  • Chavez’ Bolibanana Revolution marches on

    The Bolivarian Revolution in South America continues to drive the region further into Banana Republic status as the Associated Press reports (by way of the Wall Street Journal) that Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez’ own personal Mini-Me, moves to nationalize the Bolivian railroads;

    President Evo Morales announced plans to nationalize Bolivia’s railroads, continuing his administration’s campaign to extend greater state control over key sectors of the Andean nation’s economy.

    Speaking at the inauguration of a restored steam train for tourists outside La Paz, Mr. Morales said Sunday he intends to recover control of former state rail company Empresa Nacional de Ferrocarriles, or ENFE, privatized in 1996.

    “We must begin the rehabilitation of our railways,” Mr. Morales said, after traveling from the Tiwanaku ruins to Lake Titicaca on the new line. “This inspires us, this obligates us, this is the start of the nationalization of ENFE.”

    Yeah, cuz the nationalised industries in the region have been doing so well – take a look at the chart from The Devil’s Excrement in regards to Venezuela’s oil production over the past 17 years. Keep in mind that Chavez has been intervening in oil production since he rose to the Presidency in 1999.

    The Houston Chronicle sees no new money for Venezuela’s production development;

    But many independent experts caution that the pullout of the two U.S. oil giants could further harm the investment climate in Venezuela. They also question whether its state-run energy company, Petróleos de Venezuela, also known as PDVSA, and its new suitors have the expertise, money and technology to exploit the tarlike heavy oil in the Orinoco basin, which may hold upward of 300 billion barrels of petroleum.

    “They’ve got a problem, because new money isn’t coming in,” said David Mares, an expert on Latin American energy issues at the University of California at San Diego. “PDVSA is confident, but I would say it’s based on blind hope.”

    Venezuela, like some other countries, is raising taxes and royalties in a time when the oil producers are looking for different ways to maximize revenues.

    Taiwan’s CPC oil company is seeking to protect it’s rights in Venezuela;

    The state-owned oil company CPC Corporation, Taiwan is going all out to defend its oil exploration rights in Venezuela, CPC Vice General Manager and Spokesman Tsao Ming said Monday.

    Daniel at Venezuela News and Views continues to report food shortages of staples like pasta, beef, chicken, milk and sugar. The good news of course, is that there’s plenty of Corn Flakes – is Jerry Seinfeld in charge of food distribution there?

    From Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra, we learn that one of the games of the Copa Americana in Caracas was cancelled to prevent a reoccurance of the protests in the first tournament game – on international television. can’t let the world see that the Revolution is failing, can we? 

    Chavez’ power grabs continue with his new plan for “community councils” which bypass local governments (which are more than likely opposed to Chavez’ vision of a strong central government);

    The discussion was part of a meeting of one of the country’s several hundred new community councils, President Hugo Chávez’s latest, and one of his more controversial, initiatives on the road to what he calls 21st-century socialism.

    The councils are small citizen-run groups that theoretically will eventually take the place of mayors, governors, and other municipal and regional representatives and promote grass-roots democracy. Their money comes from various government institutions that fund their small projects; their power is supposed to come from their local roots.

    ”All power to the community councils,” Chávez said recently. “Power to the people.”

    Not all local officials like that idea, and critics say the Chávez government is trying to use the councils to gain even more power in a country of 27 million people where he already controls the courts, congress, and the military.

    Similar councils are being launched by Chávez leftist ally in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega. Saying they are nothing but a Sandinista Party power-grab, several opposition parties have announced plans to strike down the law that created them.

    “Grassroots democracy”? How did the governors, mayors and other municipal representatives get into their offices? They were elected by the people they serve. Who are these new “Community Councils” beholden to? Chavez. Chavez appointed them and Chavez can fire them. So what’s “grassroots democracy” about the community councils?

    As I predicted months ago, Reuters is now reporting that Venezuelans are seeking exile in the US from Chavez in record numbers (h/t Steve Shickles);

    “I have no doubt that the middle class and those with some stake in the old Venezuela have legitimate concerns regarding their future livelihood and in some cases safety as the regime hardens and the state moves into every sphere of economic and social activity,” said Riordan Roett, director of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University.

    “If you have young children, you want out. If you have assets that have been seized, or may be seized, you want out as quickly as possible,” Roett added. “If you have land that will be expropriated, leave sooner than later. As the alta (upper) bourgeoisie becomes more and more of a target, you want to leave before Hugo Chavez shuts the door.”

    The number of U.S. asylum grants put Venezuela in 11th place, well behind nations such as its neighbor, Colombia, and deeply impoverished Haiti. But more Venezuelans were granted asylum last year than were natives of trouble spots like Iraq, a country reeling from nightmarish levels of violence.

    All the while, the rest of the world turns a blind eye. I guess it’s just easier to complain about George Bush than it is to try and stop the dismantling of Latin American Republics and headoff the impending enslavement of the Venezuelan people.

  • Latin America and the Democrats

    The Gateway Pundit has a great piece today about Democrats playing Russian Roulette with our foreign policy in regards to Latin America entitled FARC You! where he catalogues Democrat hypocrisy towards our allies in that region.

    The reason it caught my eye is some of the rhetoric I’ve been hearing from the Left in regards to the Bush Administration in Latin America that’s not exactly the truth. For example, Barack Obama has a statement on his senate.gov website that claims the Bush Administration isn’t engaged in Latin America;

    I am, however, disappointed that the President has fallen so short in his promise to transform U.S. relations with the Americas. Our regional relationships cannot be properly attended to with one six-day trip, a series of photo opportunities, and some lofty rhetoric on collaboration.

    Neglect? Why, just this week, the Bush Administration has finalized trade agreements with Peru, Columbia and Panama – to absolutely no fanfare in the press. because these trade pacts are all opposed by Big Labor. Oh, and they’re good for the US – can’t see the President getting good press over anything can we? These trade agreements give these country the ecomonic power to keep their residents at home instead sending them here as illegal immigrants. (Not to mention, it might drive the price of sugar down far enough that Coca Cola might put sugar in that drink again and make it tasty again)

    In Miami this week, Obama said, “It’s not sufficient for us to have Latin American policy based on not liking Hugo Chavez and not liking Fidel Castro.” That’s pretty simplistic rhetoric, actually. The Bush administration has pretty much ignored Chavez and Castro – I don’t see any statements coming out of the White House everytime Banana-brains starts yammering paranoid rants about someone wanting to kill his useless ass. I don’t think anyone in the Administration has even acknowledged that Chavez exists. His own people can deal with him – and Castro – phht – he’ll be dead soon enough, so who cares.

    President Bush even travelled around Central and South America in the Fall of 2005 – I left Panama the day before he arrived and it was the talk of the entire country. He’s a very popular figure there, despite the bad press.

    Think maybe our stature in Latin America has suffered because Democrats won’t meet with our greatest ally in the region President Alvaro Uribe has been snubbed by the Congressional Democrats as well as Al Gore. This from a Mary Anatasia O’Grady piece in the Wall Street Journal from April entitled “One Righteous Gringo“;

    Al Gore may not have known that he was taking the side of a former terrorist and ally of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez when he waded into Colombian politics 10 days ago. But that’s not much consolation to 45 million Colombians who watched their country’s already fragile international image suffer another unjust blow, this time at the hands of a former U.S. vice president.

    The event was a climate-change conference in Miami, where Mr. Gore and Colombian President Álvaro Uribe were set to share the stage. At the last minute, Mr. Gore notified the conference organizers that he refused to appear with Mr. Uribe because of “deeply troubling” allegations of human- rights violations swirling around the Colombian government.

    It is not clear whether the ex-veep knows that making unsubstantiated claims of human-rights violations has been a key guerrilla weapon for more than a decade, along with the more traditional practices of murdering, maiming and kidnapping civilians. Nor is it clear whether Mr. Gore knew that the recycled charges that caught his attention are being hyped by Colombian Sen. Gustavo Petro, a close friend of Mr. Chávez and former member of the pro-Cuban M-19 terrorist group. What we do know is that Mr. Gore’s line of reasoning — that Colombia is not good enough to rub shoulders with the righteous gringos — is also being peddled by some Democrats in Congress, the AFL-CIO and other forces of anti-globalization. The endgame is all about killing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

    When Mr. Uribe got wind of Mr. Gore’s decision to stand him up, he rightly interpreted its significance: Colombia is the victim of an international smear campaign that, if left unchecked, could undermine congressional support for the pending trade deal. Rather than let the whispering go on, Mr. Uribe elevated the matter, calling two press conferences over two days to refute the charges, which he says are damaging the country’s interests. He also asked Mr. Gore to look “at Colombia closely” so he could see the progress that has been made.

    By the way, President Uribe’s father was killed by terrorists – tough for them if he’s a little harsh in dealing with them. Since when is Al Gore willing to trade our friends down the river because he heard an unsubstantiated rumor somewhere?  

    So how exactly is Bush damaging our relations in Latin America? He’s got Democrats undermining his efforts with their petty politics, Democrats winging their way to Venezuela to gladhand with blood-soaked tyrants while they turn their backs on the people who are helping fight our enemies.

    Just like in the Middle East where Democrats have tea with our enemies and snub our allies. Maybe we have all of these problems because we present a fickle foreign policy – towards all of our allies and our enemies. Our foreign policy is ambiguous because we have 525 ambassadors in Congress – not to mention the ancillary ambassadors who are former presidents and vice-presidents. 

    I’m pretty certain that the founding fathers intended that the president be the sole voice of our nation to other nations. Maybe we need to impeach all of these extraneous diplomats floating around the world operating under a false flag.

  • Venezuelan soccer fans protest Chavez at Copa

    Despite Chavez best efforts to keep protesters away from the Copa America soccer tournament, Associated Press reports about half of the 40,000 fans broke into anti-Chavez chants;

    MARACAIBO, Venezuela (AP) – Thousands of Venezuelan soccer fans used an international tournament to show opposition to President Hugo Chavez, rising to their feet with chants of “Freedom!” The chants, which included “This government is going to fall,” began shortly into the second half of Thursday’s match between the United States and Argentina in the western city of Maracaibo, a stronghold of opposition to Chavez. 

    Chavez opponents are hoping the arrival of thousands of tourists for the Copa America tournament will draw attention to their protests against the president’s refusal to renew the licence of a popular opposition-aligned television channel.

    “We want the world to know we’re not all with Chavez,” said Gabriel Gonzalez, a business student at the University of Zulia, who attended Thursday’s match.

    About half the crowd of 40,000 appeared to join in the chants, which filled the stadium for about three minutes.

    Chavez, who was re-elected by a wide margin in December, has gone to great lengths to keep Venezuela’s bitter political divide from spilling into the tournament, banning protests in and near stadiums and ordering state security forces to crack down on any that do arise.

    Only one match in the three-week-long tournament is being held in the protest-prone capital of Caracas.

    But opposition activists seem determined to voice their criticisms about Chavez to the world.

    “I don’t really know whether it’s spontaneous, semi-spontaneous or directed from above” by the political opposition, said Steve Ellner, a political science professor at Venezuela’s University of the East. “This could be part of a strategy to erode support and create uncertainty.”

    The chants on Thursday followed a heckling incident two days earlier, when a small number of fans booed Chavez as he attended a ceremony.

    All this despite Chavez best laid plans to make the Copa about him, according to Daniel at Venezuela News and Views;

    As expected Chavez could not resist to make the Copa America his. From “ahora es de todos” the Soccer tournament went to “ahora es de Chavez“. How come the Conmebol allowed 1) the silly and stupid speech of Chavez, something which was never allowed in previous editions of the Copa? and 2) this picture below (from EFE through Tal Cual)?

    Gateway Pundit has a link to the video on YouTube and another wire service story. But the Venezuelan blogs seem silent on it.

    And Chavez is making deals with Russia to build four new refineries. No wonder he slammed the US missile defense plans for Europe. I wonder if he’ll be using Cuban slave labor for his refineries, too.

    RCTV’s Observador Online reports that Chavez is in negotiations with Belarussia to buy Venezuela a modern air defense system including missiles, radar and a command system;

    29 de junio de 2007.-
    El presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, llegó este viernes a Minsk, la capital de Bielorrusia, para concretar la adquisición de un moderno sistema de defensa aérea. Según medios rusos y bielorrusos, se trata de un sistema de defensa aérea a partir de baterías de misiles rusos S-300 PMU-2 y Tor M-1, dotadas de radares, para el que Bielorrusia ha ofrecido crear un sistema de mando automático.

    Paranoia writ large.

  • Chavez needs submarines to find his popularity rating

    (Photo from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra)

    There was another march against Chavez yesterday not that you’d read about it from any US news organization. But Tank at Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra has photos and videos. Pretty impressive crowd, actually. For the story, El Universal;

    On the National Journalists’ Day, on June 27, Venezuelan journalists are not celebrating. Rather, they are staging a march in Caracas streets to demand President Hugo Chávez to order resumption of private television station RCTV’s broadcast on its original open signal and to advocate freedom of expression.

    The march -organized by Periodistas Unidos por la Libertad de Expresión (Journalists United for Freedom of Expression)- is departing from Plaza Venezuela at 10:00 a.m. to the headquarters of RCTV in Quinta Crespo, west Caracas.

    The student movement, actors, and workers and trade unions of news media, professional associations, political parties, and non-governmental associations will join reporters.  

    Gateway Pundit has more photos and news.

    Chavez missed the protests, though – he was submarine shopping in Russia. According to Daniel at Venezuela News and Views;

    Thus as it is usual with Chavez, when the going gets rough, the rough start traveling overseas. First a trip to Russia to see if the submarines, 9 of them, will be bought or not. Venezuela as just gadget to go and rescue people that will be taken by the frequent floods of our starting raining season. Even there ridicule pursues Chavez.

    And then he will move on to Tehran.

    And while Chavez was in Russia, he couldn’t help but inject himself into another dispute that doesn’t involve him (how would a missile shield in Europe possibly affect the people of Venezuela) so he could cozy-up to Vlad Putin and get some verbal shots in against the US;

    Venezuela supports Russia’s opposition to the deployment of a US missile shield in Europe, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela said here Thursday.

    […]

    “We support Russia (in its stance), we need Russia, which is becoming stronger day by day,” he said, adding that Venezuela intended to continue cooperating closely with Moscow, including in the military sphere.

    Russia has repeatedly stated that it would actively participate in the modernization of the Venezuelan armed forces until 2013.

    In 2005-2006, Venezuela ordered weaponry from Russia worth $3.4 billion, including 24 Su-30MK2V Flanker fighters, Tor-M1 air defense missile systems, Mi-17B multi-role helicopters, Mi-35 Hind E attack helicopters and Mi-26 Halo heavy transport helicopters.

    The country also purchased 100,000 AK-103 Kalashnikov assault rifles from Russia in 2005 and sent its fighter and helicopter pilots for training in Russia.

    The South American country has been vigorously pursuing the modernization of its armed forces to counter a possible US blockade of its oil fields and to prepare for a direct military confrontation with Washington.

    Comforting, isn’t it? Except we know that the Venezuelans would never directly engage in a war with the US – it’s not in our mutual interest. Neither country has anything the other would want – the only possible exception is that it would increase Chavez’ power to engage us in a shooting war – at least the perception of his power, in the region if not among his own people.

    Chavez also said;

    “If the United States attacks Venezuela, we are ready to die defending our sacred land,” Chavez said Thursday.

    Who is “we”, little fella? First of all, the US has no intention of ever invading the peaceful Venezuelan people. Secondly, I’m pretty sure you’d have trouble summoning anyone to help you if we did. And that’s probably why Chavez is pushing for a defense pact with his new Left neighbors – to use them against his people like Mugabe planned on using Angolan troops to quell his own people in Zimbabwe.

    So, as I said the other day, Chavez is building up his army to protect himself from his own people. Either to stir up something with the US to build a false sense of patriotism, or, failing that, a direct action against the people of Venezuela when their sense of patriotism tells them that Chavez is bad for Venezuela.

    Why? Well, how about economic reasons;

    Venezuela’s bolivar weakened in unregulated trading and dollar-denominated bonds tumbled after Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips abandoned operations in the country, raising doubts about future oil output in the world’s fifth-largest crude-oil exporter.

    […]

    “[Exxon conceding control of it’s facilities in Venezuela] sparks additional anxiety regarding the future of oil investment in Venezuela,” said Enrique Alvarez, a Latin America economist at the research firm Ideaglobal in New York. “Investors are going to the dollar as a safe haven.”

    The bolivar weakened to 4,180 per dollar in the unofficial dollar market from 4,050 yesterday, traders said. People and businesses turn to the parallel market when they are unable to acquire the limited number of dollars the government sells at the official exchange rate of 2,150 bolivars per dollar.

    All of the oil in the world can’t do you any good if you don’t have cash. Investors rushing to buy dollars will only compound Chavez problems. Daniel at Venezuela News and Views   has already reported food shortages in parts of Venezuela;

    Gas shortages too , and winter is starting. And all due, as in Venezuela, to unreasonable price controls which are kept up for political reasons. Price control, the eternal soft drug of populist regimes…. and with always the same consequences: higher inflation than the neighboring countries.

    While Hugo cavorts and glad hands with all the tyrants he can find.

    Cartoon from Noticias 24 (h/t Kate)

  • Chavez’ brain-drain (Updated)

    Yesterday I posted this article from CNN Money that Chavez decided to let some oil companies leave Venezuela since they weren’t interested renegotiating with the Chavez government for the operation of their oilfields. At the time no one was sure which companies planned on leaving. Today we find out that it was Exxon and ConocoPhillips;

    Two US oil companies have moved a step closer to pulling out of Venezuela. Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips are both reported to have rejected an offer from the government of President Hugo Chavez to continue their operations in the OPEC-member nation’s most promising oil reserve. Venezuela has set a deadline for foreign companies to accept its terms for keeping them in the massive Orinoco reserve projects as it moves to nationalise the country’s oil industry. Observers say another American company, Chevron, as well as Norway’s Statoil, Britain’s BP and France’s Total are expected to sign a deal.

    An article from the Wall Street Journal (requires subscription) tells about the deal that the oil companies were forced to walk away from;

    Earlier this year, Venezuela said the companies had until June 26 to turn over at least 60% ownership of the projects, including four large heavy-oil fields with a combined output of nearly 600,000 barrels a day. The projects’ estimated value is some $31 billion.

    Attempts to meet the Venezuelan government halfway were unsuccessful, said the person familiar with the matter, so ConocoPhillips decided to end talks and preserve its right to seek international arbitration. Venezuela has assets in the U.S., including refineries owned by PDVSA’s Citgo Petroleum Corp. Western oil companies have discussed swapping stakes in Venezuelan oil fields for Citgo refineries in Illinois, Louisiana and Texas. A Citgo spokesman declined to comment.

    Another interesting story from the Wall Street Journal (requires subscription) tells about Venezuelan oilfield workers who are moving to Alberta, Canada to find work – away from Chavez (and explains my traffic from Alberta);

    Frigid, remote Alberta has become one of the world’s fastest growing enclaves of Venezuelans, rivaling such warm-weather spots as Weston, Fla., outside Miami; and Sugar Land, Texas, near Houston. There are now 3,000 Venezuelan-Albertan families, up from 800 or so last year. Some Albertans now call Evergreen, a Calgary housing development, “Vene-green” because of the 100 families who have bought split-level homes there, and dangle Venezuelan flags from car rearview mirrors.

    The loss of so many skilled oil workers has hit PdVSA hard. Since Mr. Chávez took power in 1999, Venezuela’s oil production — according to U.S. government statistics — is down to 2.4 million barrels a day, from 3.1 million barrels a day, despite high prices. (Venezuela has consistently accused the U.S. of undercounting PdVSA’s production in recent years.)

    So already Chavez is in trouble. I feel sorry for the people who believed that Chavez was the answer to their poverty.

    UPDATED: Conoco, according to a new story from the Wall Street Journal, may cost Venezuela some money in the short-term;

    Conoco isn’t washing its hands of its assets in Venezuela, though it says it will take a $4.5 billion impairment charge in its second-quarter earnings. The company’s assets there represent about 5% of its oil-and-gas equivalent production last year. Exxon’s Venezuelan assets are about 1% of its overall output for 2006.

    […]

    However, even if a Conoco arbitration claim is successful, it could be years before the company gets any money. Still, Venezuela has considerable international assets that Conoco could attach. These include PdVSA’s ownership of Citgo Petroleum Corp. — which has several valuable refineries in the U.S. — and of tankers full of crude oil landing in ports along the Gulf Coast and elsewhere. A Citgo spokesman declined to comment.

    […]

    BP won an arbitration case against Libya in the 1970s after the North African nation nationalized, and chased tankers of Libyan crude around the world to seize them as payment. Within the past year, Western companies that purchased debt for unpaid for construction work in the Congo have tried to seize tankers of Congolese oil to satisfy arbitration awards.

    Of course, this won’t hurt Chavez, only the Venezuelan people. And Chavez can blame the big oil companies – or it’ll serve as his excuse to seize more private assets.

  • Chavez warns of US guerilla war (Updated)

     

    (Photo from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra)

    Well, Chavez is acting like he plans on blaming the student protests against his dictatorship on the US. According to the AP;

    President Hugo Chavez urged soldiers on Sunday to prepare for a guerrilla-style war against the United States, saying that Washington is using psychological and economic warfare as part of an unconventional campaign aimed at derailing his government.

    Dressed in olive green fatigues and a red beret, Chavez spoke inside Tiuna Fort—Venezuela’s military nerve-center—before hundreds of uniformed soldiers standing alongside armored vehicles and tanks decorated with banners reading: “Fatherland, Socialism, or Death! We will triumph!”

    “We must continue developing the resistance war, that’s the anti- imperialist weapon. We must think and prepare for the resistance war everyday,” said Chavez, who has repeatedly warned that American soldiers could invade Venezuela to seize control of the South American nation’s immense oil reserves.

    Como no? The US is the boogeyman that hides in every dictator’s closet – especially in Latin America. No matter who is President, he is evil incarnate to those who rape and pillage their own communities for personal gain.

    I guess it couldn’t have anything to do with Chavez tossing out oil companies this weekend could it? I linked to this earlier from Reuters (by way of CNNMoney):

    Some major oil companies have rejected Venezuela’s terms for the takeover of their multi-billion dollar projects and can leave the OPEC nation, President Hugo Chavez said Friday, days before a deadline for them to strike nationalization deals.

    Exxon Mobil , ConocoPhillips , Chevron Corp . , Norway’s Statoil , Britain’s BP Plc and France’s Total are the targeted companies in projects valued above $30 billion and capable of producing 600,000 barrels per day.

    “It seems there are some transnational companies that do not want to accept (the terms),” said Chavez, who met his energy minister to review the progress in negotiations earlier Friday.

    “Well if they do not want (to accept the terms), I told the minister to tell them they can go, that they should leave, that we, in truth, do not need them,” he added during a political speech to swear in the government’s new “central planning committee.”

    Chavez, who calls Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor and is on a drive to nationalize swathes of the economy this year, did not say which companies rejected the government’s terms.

    Or it couldn’t have anything to do with his anticipated purchase of Russian Subs, which I also mentioned earlier from Bloomberg;

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said his government may buy a fleet of Russian-made submarines when he visits Moscow next week, continuing an arms buildup that has cost his nation more than $4.3 billion since 2005.

    “The only way Venezuela could totally discard the idea of not buying submarines is if we didn’t have a sea,” Chavez told cabinet members at a televised ceremony tonight in Caracas. “We have to protect that sea.”

    Chavez said he also is looking to strengthen the nation’s short-range air-defense system to counter supersonic and “invisible” radar-evading aircraft he claimed Venezuela would face in the event of a U.S. invasion. Most U.S. analysts deem such an offensive unlikely.

    And the LATimes is, of course, impressed with Chavez’ socialist tendencies;

    Last year, public spending leapt to one-third of Venezuela’s economic output of about $180 billion, up from the average of one-quarter of output in the 1990s, said Jose Manuel Puente, an economist with the Institute for Advanced Administrative Studies in Caracas.

    Chavez’s social engineering has taken his predecessors’ plans a step further in giving worker groups a piece of the enterprises and letting them manage the businesses in concert with networks of “community councils” that are local governing modules.

    But, the thing is; it all depends on the world maintaining the status quo. When Chavez’ business sense finally shows no result, the world finds its oil elsewhere  – or finds it doesn’t need his oil at all, Venezuela collapses and Chavez needs to blame someone – of course the best people to blame are Americans. 

    Afterall, we’re the ones that caused Cuba’s economy to collapse, right? Even though Cuba trades with the 160+ other countries in the world, because we refuse to trade with them, they’re destitute – according to the Left. And everything bad that happens in Cuba is blamed either on our policies or the Cuban “ex-patriots”.

    So that’s really all Chavez is doing – setting us up to take the blame for his anticipated failures. from the AP article;

    “It’s not just armed warfare,” said Chavez, a former army officer who is leading what he calls the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a socialist movement named after 19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar. “I’m also referring to psychological warfare, media warfare, political warfare, economic warfare.”

    Yeah, we’re going to be attacking them, but no one can tell because we’re so sneaky. Typical Latin American paranoia. probably more disturbing is;

    Under Chavez, Venezuela has recently purchased some $3 billion worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets.

    All the stuff needed to quell his own rebellions and control the inevitable “counter-revolution”. Bloomberg reports that Chavez is also aware of the fact that the military is the final arbiter in Latin American politics. He urged his troops to support his socialism;

    “The armed forces are an institution of the people, meant to promote our constitutionally mandated national project, and the national project we have is socialism,” Chavez told 3,000 troops gathered at a military ceremony in Caracas. “You can’t separate military thinking from political thinking.”

    “When a soldier says `Country, Socialism or Death,’ he’s giving the essence of the project we’re now involved in, and don’t be fooled, socialism is the road to nationhood,” he said at the event….

    It’s a pretty well known fact that if a Latin American leader can’t convince the military that what he’s doing is in the best interest of the country, they’re doomed. The military acts in the interests of the country and the people, not an ideology – that’s why there have already been attempts at a military coup against Chavez. His slogan “Fatherland (the article says ‘country’, but I know he used ‘patria‘ – which means ‘Fatherland’), Socialism or Death” doesn’t mention the pueblo – that means that Chavez wants his soldiers to defend socialism against their own people if they must.

    Ed Morrisey at Captain’s Quarters writes that Chavez is building his military might to use against US interests, but I think it’s to use against his own people when war with the US doesn’t overtly materialize in the form of a shooting war. Then he can blame the Compania and start shooting his own folks as agents of the imperialist US. That seems more plausible. The chavistas appear willing to swallow any red meat Hugo throws them-kind of like Noreiga’s Dignity Battalions.

    Meanwhile, as I also mentioned earlier this weekend, Evo Morales, Chavez’ “Mini-Me” is having his own problems with a few thousand protesters according to The Lima Bean (by way of Gateway Pundit);

    Locals of an ecological reserve in Bolivia have held protests demanding that they be annexed by Peru. Waving Peruvian flags, as many as 4,000 people filled the local square and called on the mayor to extend an invitation to Peru to occupy the region.

    The small town of Apolo, located just 6 hours’ walk from the Peruvian border, marks the entrance to the Madidi National Park, an Amazon wildlife refuge that includes around 1.8 million hectares (4.5 million acres) of pristine rainforest.

    Officials opposing the protest claimed that the people were angered that the protected nature of the area prevents them from being legally allowed to log the forest or take advantage of oil reserves thought to exist in the region.

    Speaking from La Paz 200km away, Bolivian President Evo Morales referred to the protesters as “drug traffickers and wood smugglers”.

    Well, at least it’s only wood smugglers. A couple thousand of them.

    Oddly enough, the protest happened just after the documentary “Cocalero”, Morales’ political biography opened at the Sundance Film Festival according to Bloomberg;

    “Cocalero,” the directorial debut of 26-year-old Alejandro Landes, chronicles Morales’s rise to power with the backing of the coca growers, or cocaleros, who fought U.S.- supported efforts to cut Bolivian drug production. Coca leaves, chewed for religious and cultural purposes across the Andes, are the main ingredient in cocaine.

    “The cocaleros are the sons and daughters of the U.S. war on drugs,” the Brazilian-born Landes said. “Their defense of the coca leaf detonated a nationalist wave that drove Evo to power.”

    The evil US makes such a convenient foil for Latin American dictators. Because we’re interested in criminals who poison our people in our own country, somehow we’re responsible for the rise of socialist governments. Suddenly, “defense of the coca leaf” is noble. 

    If you want to read about what’s happening inside Venezuela, on recommendation of my new friend Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective, I’ve been rereading much of the posts by Julia at The end of Venezuela as I know it – an English language blog written by a student in the middle of the White Hands movement. Last week, she wrote about the class-struggle inuendos that being flung at the students from Chavistas as if “rich kids are not people“ 

    I’ve noticed an increase in my traffic from Venezuela, Chile and Peru everytime I type Chavez’ name, so I have to guess that the internet is becoming an important information pipeline in that direction. So if I repeat myself and links, I apologize. 

    UPDATE: Apparently there was more to this speech to the army than was reported by the press (unsurprisingly) and the truth about what the event was supposed to represent and how it was staged from Daniel at Venezuela News and Views;

    Yesterday was yet another anniversary of the battle of Carabobo, our Yorktown (our Austerlitz?, our Waterloo?), that battle that made the independence of Venezuela irreversible.

    Usually at that date the armed forces hold a nice rally on the Carabobo field, in all regalia. The background is not bad, graced with the famous Carabobo arch, with lots of space for crowds to attend the festivities, a large tribune for officials, speeches and what not.

    Well, under Chavez things have started to change. First the governor of Carabobo was barred to attend the festivities…

    […]

    This year, Chavez is hurt by the student dissenting protest, a general animosity as per the closing of RCTV, and duly scalded by the failure of the intended pump and circumstances of the bridge reopening when crowds of neighboring shantytowns crashed the party. Thus Chavez did not take chances: Carabobo now was held in Caracas, as a private ceremony between Chavez and HIS army, the one he will use to stop the invasion of the Empire.

    There is much more at Daniel’s blog including screenshots Daniel took from his television. It appears that Chavez is getting a bit paranoid and not the guy he used to be among his “pueblo“. It appears more and more that yesterday’s speech was a plea to the military that they not toss his butt out of Venezuela.

    Daniel also tells of food and fuel shortages here.

  • So who’s going to step up?

    Since January 20th, 2001, I’ve heard and read countless times that the US is misusing it’s superpower status. Even before the attacks on us on September 11th that year, the knuckleheads at ANSWER and the various communist organizations were planning a protest against US imperialism and racist policy in Washington DC in October – luckily, for them, the President gave them a war against the Taliban so they didn’t look quite so silly.

    We all remember watching NATO, the EU and the UN twiddle their thumbs while Bosnia was torn to pieces by the Serbs in the 90s. The same group wrung their gnarled Old Europe hands over the attempted genocide in Kosovo and stood by impotently while Rwanda was drenched in the blood of millions macheted in droves.

    After Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose at UN and inspectors, fired at aircraft enforcing UN-mandated no-fly zones and paid off UN officials and their families to sidestep sanctions for 12 years, the US went ahead and decapitated the government with the tacit approval of UN resolutions when it was apparent that the UN couldn’t assemble the intestinal fortitude among its members to take action or make a decision – to the cries of imperialism. Critics charged that we can’t be the world’s police force. The US can’t just unilaterally enforce policy.

    OK, fine. Whatever.

    So we’re busy doing Old Europe’s dirty work killing terrorists by the thousands every month or so – it’s pretty much a full time job. So who’s going to step up to take care of the rest of the world’s business?

    The Gateway Pundit points out that Zimbabweans are wrestling with 4530% inflation – people are starving to death while communist icon President Robert Mugabe fiddles. Folks in Darfur have been dying in herds for more than ten years while Christian missionaries warned the world – and there’s no solution in sight, but at least Hollywood has noticed it now. Kosovo is still in limbo – and the Russians are blocking any meaningful solution because of their nationaistic pride – something frowned upon when it’s the US being nationalistic or prideful.

    The Bloodthirsty Liberal reports that the UN is busy compromising amongst themselves for purely bureaucratic reasons using human lives as barter while UN inspectors, who are unable, according to The Redhunter, to get Iran to stop their nuclear activities without the US apparently, are still looking for WMDs in Iraq.

    Hugo Chavez has negotiated the major oil companies right out of the market in Venezuela (while the LATimes fauns over his socialism) while contemplating buying some Russian subs – can the economc collapse of Venezuela be far away? Gateway Pundit also reports that thousands of Bolivians protested Chavez’ “Mini-Me” Evo Morales today. There’s so much more happening in South America and Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective does a much better job than I could summarizing it all.

    These are problems that affect real people – thousands, if not millions, are suffering everyday while bureaucrats seek compromises instead of acting as if real lives hang in the balance. Every day is agony – while fat cat politicians form commissions and discuss solutions while never accomplishing anything.

    Ronald Reagan once rhetorically asked, in reference to fighting the Evil Empire, “If not us, who? If not now, when?” I think it’s pretty much time for the rest of the world to put up or shut up and ask that question of themselves. If they don’t want the US to police the world, they’d better get off of their ample behinds and do something before they let all of this stuff get out of hand – again – so that the only solution is our unilateral application of military power.