Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Chavez proposes envoy names to U.S.
From The Hindu
After weeks of diplomatic standoff between Venezuela and the United States, during which both countries rejected the appointment of the other’s Ambassador, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez showed a way out of the stalemate by proposing that the U.S. appoint either former President Bill Clinton, a Hollywood celebrity such as Sean Penn or Oliver Stone, or liberal intellectual Noam Chomsky as Venezuelan Ambassador.
Washington’s fracas with Caracas began when U.S. Ambassador-designate to Venezuela, Larry Palmer, made critical comments to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about low morale in the Venezuelan military and concerns regarding Colombian FARC rebels finding refuge on Venezuelan soil.
In August Mr. Chavez announced that he would not be willing accept Mr. Palmer’s appointment, describing his Senate remarks about Venezuela as “blatantly disrespectful.” In retaliatory action at the end of last month the U.S. revoked the visa of the Venezuelan Ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez.
Yet media reported on Tuesday that Mr. Chavez said in a televised speech that he had come up with a solution, hinting, “I hope they name Oliver Stone. I'll suggest a candidate ... Sean Penn or [Noam] Chomsky. We have a lot of friends there. Bill Clinton.”
Reports also indicated that Mr. Chavez interacted with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during the inauguration of Brazil’s new President, Dilma Rouseff, on New Years’ Day.
He described his conversation with Ms. Clinton to media, saying, “I said to Señora Clinton 'How is your husband?' But I made a mistake because I speak very bad English and I said 'How is your wife?' She laughed, then I said husband.”
The U.S. has been wary of President Chavez’s rise, since 1999, as a major leader in Latin America, especially given his unabashed criticism U.S. foreign policy.
However Washington’s dependence on oil imports from Venezuela, close to a million barrels of crude per day, is a key factor in preserving longer-term stability in the relationship between the two nations.
Labels: U.S.-Venezuela row, United States, Venezuela
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Venezuela-Colombia spat intensifies
From The Hindu
What started out as a war of words between President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia, even as far back as 2007, has now become an open diplomatic conflict in a multilateral forum and threatens to escalate into something worse.
The most recent round of hostilities between the two countries was sparked off at a meeting of the Organisation of American States in Washington earlier this week, when Colombian Ambassador Luis Hoyos, produced what he alleged was documentary evidence that Venezuela was housing camps of the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on its soil.
In an immediate response, President Chávez severed ties with Colombia describing the Colombian accusations as a “United States-inspired aggression”. Speaking on state television Mr. Chávez said, “We have no other choice but, out of dignity, to totally break our relations with our brother nation of Colombia,” he said on state television.
In a sharp response to the cut-off in diplomatic ties, Mr. Hoyos, called it a “historic mistake”, adding that Venezuela should instead be breaking relations with the “gangs that kidnap and kill and traffic drugs”.
Hinting that there could be a deeper subtext, Mr. Chávez went on to argue that Colombia could be trying to provoke a war, indeed that American officials were “using Colombia to portray him as a supporter of terrorist groups to justify a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela”. He also reportedly said that the photographs that Mr. Hoyos procured at the OAS meet were not authentic and noted that Venezuela had done everything possible to prevent Colombian rebels from crossing into its territory.
Washington, which has traditionally been critical of the Chávez regime, attacked the Venezuelan President’s actions. State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley described them as “unfortunate” and a “petulant response by Venezuela to cut off relations with Colombia”. He added that if Venezuela failed to cooperate in whatever follow-on steps are made, “the U.S. and other countries will obviously take account of that”.
Mr. Crowley further said, Venezuela had “very clear responsibilities” to combat terrorism in the region and to support efforts by the OAS and the United Nations to fight terrorism especially given the U.S.’ “concerns about the links between Venezuela and the FARC” and the fact that Washington had not certified Venezuela in recent years as fully cooperating its antiterrorism efforts.
Indicating the U.S.’ support of President Uribe’s accusations he added, “These were serious fact-based charges that Colombia made yesterday at the OAS and they deserve to be fully investigated.”
Labels: Álvaro Uribe, Colombia, Hugo Chavez, State Department, U.S., Venezuela
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Hillary in Latin-America: uphill all the way
From The Hindu
Hillary Clinton is midway through a week-long tour of Latin America, as she seeks to rescue the United States’ flagging image in the region.
The Secretary of State will wrestle with a host of thorny issues during her trip, most of which offer but a slim chance of success.
Starting out in Uruguay, where Ms. Clinton attended the inauguration of President José Mujica, she may well have bumped into co-attendee and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, one of the most vocal critics of U.S. foreign policy in all of the Southern Cone.
However any formal interactions with Chavez or Evo Morales of Bolivia were earlier ruled out by Assistant Secretary Arturo Valenzuela who said in Washington that “the only bilateral that is on the books is with Cristina Kirchner, the president of Argentina”.
With Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador precluded from Ms. Clinton’s itinerary the pressure is on the Secretary to make the most of her interactions with the relatively moderate leaders of Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala and Costa Rica.
Yet even within that group her mission is daunting, none more so than the U.S.’s ambition to persuade President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to back its efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions. While the U.S. is pushing for tougher sanctions against Iran through the United Nations Security Council, Brazil, a non-permanent member of the Council, has indicated its opposition to this.
“The visit also comes as Brazil gears up for general elections in October, with President Lula’s chief of cabinet Dilma Rousseff and governor of São Paulo José Serra the likely rivals in the race for president.”, according to Peter DeShazo of the Centre for International and Strategic Studies.
Argentina may prove to be yet another disappointment. With the Secretary meeting Ms. Kirchner at the peak of a dispute with Britain over sea-routes access to the Falkland Islands, her unexplained cancellation of a visit to Buenos Aires is likely to have bruised egos further.
In Chile, where Ms Clinton will again meet a newly elected leader, President-elect Sebastián Piñera, post-earthquake recovery is likely to crowd out any prior agenda. Trade may especially be marginalised, a likely concern for the U.S. given China’s growing dominance in this area.
The recent creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, a rival to the Organisation of American States marks some of the frustrations with American hegemonic tendencies. The Community is “a regional organization, whose only clear feature so far is that it will exclude the U.S. and Canada”, according to Kevin Casas-Zamora of Brookings.
If there were any hopes here that things would be different under President Obama, they were belied by U.S. hostility towards Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, an ally of leaders like Chavez and Kirchner. The persistent embargo against all things Cuban has not won them any points for popularity either.
If Ms. Clinton is to win hearts and minds in the Lat-Am region, she will have to convince her audiences over the rest of the week that substantive changes in U.S. foreign policy engagement in the region will follow her earnest interlocutory efforts.
Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Narayan Lakshman, President, Secretary of State, thorny issues, Uruguay, Venezuela
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Toppling the Boligarchy
From The Hindu
Hugo Chavez’s government has once again demonstrated its willingness to halt the march of untrammelled capitalist growth in Venezuela. On November 30, his government shut down four medium-sized banks facing financial insolvency; three more followed suit by the end of the week. In an industry-wide crackdown aimed at protecting ordinary deposit-holders, 27 arrest warrants were issued including several for financiers behind the failed banks. These individuals belong to a group of politically connected big businessmen known as “Boligarchs,” after their close ties to President Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution. The arrest that made headlines was that of Arné Chacón, president of the failed Banco Real and brother of Jesse Chacón, Venezuela’s Science and Technology Minister. Minister Chacón soon handed in his resignation, which Mr. Chavez accepted last week, saying: “We are demonstrating that there are no untouchables here.” The arrest of Boligarch Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco further signalled the President’s intention to purge the economy of those who prospered at the expense of the masses. Mr. Barrueco became a billionaire supplying corn and transport services to government-subsidised supermarkets.
The crackdown flies in the face of allegations by the United States and its allies that the Chavez regime is corrupt, populist, and dangerous to mainstream market institutions. In part, western insecurity has been fuelled by Venezuela’s bold approach towards the global oil economy. For example, in 2008, it took on Exxon Mobil — the world’s largest private company — and won against it in British courts in a dispute over oilfields in the Orinoco basin. The U.S. is also hostile to Mr. Chavez’s pursuit of an alternative paradigm in global politics, one in which resource-rich countries like Venezuela, Iran, China, and Russia forge close links based on trade in oil, weapons technology, and agricultural products. Yet the western bloc must concede that the toppling of the Boligarchs is testimony to the Venezuelan leader’s willingness to tackle corruption in high office. While Washington’s hostility towards the Chavez administration peaked during the Bush years, President Obama has an opportunity to repair and normalise the relationship. This would be politically expedient, especially since the people of Venezuela voted overwhelmingly, in a referendum in February, in favour of allowing Mr. Chavez to run for office again in 2012. Mending fences with this charismatic leader from Latin America would have positive effects and implications going beyond the region.
Labels: Boligarchs, capitalist growth, Hugo Chavez, Latin America, Venezuela
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