Nikolas Kozloff

With the Venezuelan presidential election fast approaching on December 3, political tensions have reached a new high. Recently, the Venezuelan Attorney General initiated an investigation to determine whether a right-wing organization called Rumbo Propio ("Our Own Path"), which has placed banners in Zulia state advocating for regional separatism, is guilty of treason. Zulia, located in the westernmost area of the country, is home to much of the country's oil industry. Maracaibo, the Zulia state capital, is the second largest city in Venezuela.

 

President Hugo Chavez has accused his opponent in the presidential election, Manuel Rosales, the Zulia governor, of fostering a separatist movement, "together with Mr. Danger"—a reference to US President George W. Bush. Ever since Chavez returned to power after a brief coup in 2002, the United States has channeled millions of dollars to Venezuelan organizations, many of which are highly critical of the regime.

 

The United States, according to Chavez, is encouraging such unrest so as to benefit from the state's significant oil resources; Rosales denies the allegations. The Attorney General has stated that he has no evidence linking the US to a secessionist plot. However, he claims that the US Ambassador, William Brownfield, had a close relationship to Rosales and has frequently traveled to Zulia.

 

In light of the fiery accusations, it is instructive to revisit some of the murky history of US involvement in the region—and the long legacy of shadowy machinations by US oil companies in Zulia.

 

The United States and Zulia Secessionism in World War I

 

In 1908, the US helped to support a military coup d'etat in Venezuela launched by Juan Vicente Gomez. Gomez's primary goal was to establish a strong, centralized state. To achieve this, he would have to head off secessionist sentiment in Zulia. Shortly after Gomez's seizure of power, in fact, a former senator and diplomat from Zulia declared that his native state should have the right to select its own people for state government.

 

Initially, Gomez was cautious, preferring to appoint "sons of the soil" to Zulia's government. Gomez could ill afford political problems in the west. Measuring 63,100 square kilometers, with 178,388 inhabitants in 1908, Zulia was not only large in terms of sheer land mass, but also economically important. When Gomez took power, Zulia had the most substantial budget of any Venezuelan state. The largest city, Maracaibo, had a population of about 39,000 at the turn of the century.

 

During the First World War, the petroleum industry was just getting underway in Lake Maracaibo. Zulianos, who had long clamored for greater autonomy, now used Gomez's sympathy for Germany in World War I to justify greater independence from state control. The regime acted promptly to repress prominent citizens in Maracaibo who sought to rid themselves of military rule.

 

As the war in Europe degenerated into endless stalemate on the western front, Gomez chose to sympathize with Germany. "As a military man," writes Stephen Rabe in The Road To OPEC, United States Relations With Venezuela, 1919-1976, "Gomez respected Germany's military efficiency and prowess and approved of the position that its army achieved in German political life." Gomez openly displayed his allegiance by wearing a Prussian-style uniform, suppressing pro-Allied newspapers, and incarcerating journalists who were sympathetic to the allied cause. In a slap in the face to the US, Gomez kept Venezuela neutral in the war even after the US entered the conflict in 1917 on the side of the Allies and German defeat looked more likely.

 

Gomez's position incensed the Woodrow Wilson administration, which reminded the Venezuelan leader of his manipulation of the constitution, and even went so far as to claim that Gomez ruled through "a policy of terrorism." In late 1917, the State Department considered its options regarding the Gomez problem. Quietly, US diplomats consulted with Venezuelan exiles, who recommended covertly arming anti-Gomez exiles. Apparently, like his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson favored intervention in Venezuela. In early 1918, he queried his secretary of state, Robert Lansing, whether "this scoundrel" could be overthrown without upsetting peace in Latin America.

 

Unfortunately for Gomez, the deterioration in US-Venezuelan relations threatened to destabilize the political situation in Zulia. Though Gomez's sympathetic position towards Germany was likely to please the powerful German commercial colony in Maracaibo, the restive city population would shortly appeal to Wilson for help in breaking free from Gomez's control. In normal times, Gomez could ill afford to allow secessionist movements to flourish, but now with the oil companies in Zulia and revenue increasing from the industry the notion became unthinkable. In 1920 Venezuela settled the last of its external debts, and Gomez could not jeopardize a fall off in further income.

 

Dr. Pedro Rojas: A Dangerous Enemy

 

Santos Matute Gomez, the Zulia state governor, prohibited a pro-Allies demonstration in Maracaibo in late 1917. Santos Gomez has been variously described as Gomez's half-brother or the bastard son of Juan Vicente Gomez' uncle. The danger for Gomez and his associates was that pro-ally sentiment in the city might lead to U.S. intervention in Zulia. In order to head off further unrest, Gomez and his men would have to keep a watchful eye on prominent dissident voices. Of particular concern to the regime was one Dr. Pedro Rojas.

 

According to the US consul Emil Sauer, Rojas "is a man of thirty-five, of pure white race, of distinguished parentage, and is highly respected here." A prominent architect and manufacturer and contractor, Rojas was said to be "very popular among the residents of the city." Furthermore, Rojas was one of the few Venezuelans in Maracaibo who spoke English well. A potentially dangerous force to be reckoned with, he wrote an article for Panorama, a Maracaibo newspaper, praising the free institutions of the United States and the liberal policies of the US president. Fearing reprisals from the Zulia state secretary, Landaeta Llovera, who had warned the paper to avoid any praise for the US or President Wilson, the editor refused to publish the article. Undeterred, Rojas paid a visit to the US consul in early 1918 and proposed that the US offer nothing less than support for revolution in Maracaibo.

 

On behalf of the "Pro Patria Bolivare Society," Rojas wrote in a letter to the consul (in impeccable English) that the Maracaibo revolutionaries sought "to put, in the place of our present system of government which is unconstitutional and rests on military dictatorship, a wholly civilian organization headed by honorable, civilized and unmilitary men. With respect to our foreign policy, we want consistently to abide by the democratic inclinations of our national spirit, which unreservedly brings us to the side of the Allied cause. We are led to them not only by our political and social principles, but also by our economic interests and our commercial ties with the allied nations of Europe, and especially at this time and from now on in an ever higher degree, with the North American nation."

 

Rojas went on to complain about Juan Vicente Gomez's "apparent neutrality which hides a connivance with Germany." Rojas also complained that the government provided special protection of German interests in Venezuela. In any case, Rojas argued, the Zulia state government had been imposed on the people, and had to be overthrown through a coup d'etat. Once the state authorities were out of the picture, Zulia would rejoin other states which in turn would free themselves of tyranny, and relations with Germany would be broken.

Rojas requested airplanes, ammunition, guns and steamers. Rojas stated: "The national force of militia and police in these parts is so small that it does not reach 200, an in addition the men are suffering vexations and ill-treatment in the barracks and jail, which keeps them in a state of humiliation and disaffection." The Maracaibo businessman concluded: "P.S. In trusting you with my name, I stake my life, so this confidential statement is for you and your Government under the reservation of honor."

 

Rojas Appeals for US Intervention

 

What is striking is that not only did Rojas run the risk of contacting the US authorities, but also appeared to enjoy significant support. According to the US consul, the "revolutionaries here include a considerable number of the best people of Maracaibo, including over one-half of the State Legislature members, and people of means, some of whom are intimate friends of mine. They claim that over-whelming majority of the best people here sympathize with the revolution, though uninformed of any organized plan."

 

These influential citizens of Maracaibo not only supported the overthrow of Gomez, but there appeared to be little stomach in the city for ongoing caudillo rule. For prominent members of the city, revolution was bound to lead to yet more repressive rule, "unless the United States would establish a sort of protectorate, as in Cuba, to keep representative government on its feet." Faced with the specter of revolt, the US consul noted, "It appears quite certain that the local government here is looking for trouble and is nervous." The authorities, continued the consul, increased security for Santos Gomez, who was heavily guarded particularly at night.

The US consul himself was surprised by the "extraordinary secrecy" of the conspiracy. "I knew there was a good deal of opposition here to the Government," he remarked, "but this is the first intimation I have received that a definite plan of revolution was being worked out." Leaders of the proposed revolution attempted to convince the consul that their efforts would meet with success.

 

In the first phase of the revolt, the state legislature would denounce the election of Santos M. Gomez as having been made under pressure from the central government "and as therefore void." Later, the legislature would elect another Zulia state president and organize a government independent of the Gomez regime. "They," remarked the consul, "say that the capture of Maracaibo, perhaps without bloodshed, is practically assured, the army being almost entirely on the side of the revolutionists." However, the revolutionaries requested that the United States should prevent Venezuelan Federal warships from entering Lake Maracaibo.

The revolutionaries planned to enlist two thousand men from Maracaibo and five hundred from Coro. Despite this groundswell of support, the US consul was decidedly non-committal in his dealings with the rebels: "I could not see how the United States government could make any promises in advance, because that would be encouraging revolution." The consul refused to attend a meeting of the revolutionaries. However, he agreed to refer the matter to the State Department.

 

How might one explain this lack of commitment on the US side? Wilson, after launching the US into the war to supposedly make the world "safe for democracy" now failed to support political forces that wanted to rid Venezuela of dictatorship. Significantly, the State Department's Division of Latin American Affairs even covered up news of Gomez's crimes so that Americans would not call for his removal.

 

In seeking to explain the US response, one scholar, Judith Ewell in her book Venezuela and The United States, takes a cynical view of US foreign policymakers: "Gomez...benefited from Washington's judgment that the effort to remove him and keep peace over an outraged population would require too great a diversion of military resources." What is more, in the event that Gomez vanished from the scene, the US would have to contend with a new and unpredictable political milieu dominated by Gomez's capricious political opponents.

Without any tangible US support, massive anti-Gomez demonstrations in Caracas failed to materialize. "The influenza epidemic," writes Ewell, "Gomez's ruthless use of force, the lack of a coherent organized opposition, and the quiescence of the United States allowed Gomez to survive." In Zulia, the revolutionaries decided to postpone the revolt indefinitely when U.S. assistance was not forthcoming. In Maracaibo, Rojas was arrested and charged with plotting against the government. He was incarcerated in the military prison of San Carlos for six years.

 

Nevertheless, further unrest suggested that Gomez was not yet out of the woods. In early 1919, Cesar Leon, a retired merchant and writer in Maracaibo, wrote a personal appeal to President Wilson condemning the lack of democratic freedoms in Venezuela.

 

Oil and the "Filibustering" Conspiracy

 

In a rejection of Wilsonian internationalism, US voters elected Warren Harding in 1920. On the surface, a less interventionist foreign policy stood to relieve pressure on the Gomez administration. However, Harding attached singular importance to promoting the expansion of US oil interests abroad, and the State Department was riddled with officials compromised by conflicts of interest. For example, William TS Doyle, the resident manager of Shell Oil in 1919-1920, was a former head of the State Department's Division of Latin American Affairs. Jordan Stabler, another State Department official, went on to work for Gulf Oil. Francis Loomis, a powerful State Department official, later worked for Standard Oil.

 

In December 1921, Gomez received a shock when he was apprised of a plot for a military invasion of Venezuela. The plan was foiled when the Dutch authorities stopped a ship setting forth from Holland. The ship had been chartered to travel to Venezuela, apparently to engage in a "filibustering expedition." Another ship was prevented from setting sail from England. Both ships, the British Public Records Office stated, had been funded to the tune of $400,000 by "oil interests of the United States," which "had been pulling every possible string in order to block the development of the British Concessions which they ultimately hoped to get hold of." It's unclear whether the U.S. government had any knowledge of the plot. British reports, based on information supplied by Gomez authorities, stated that "a person named Bollorpholl of New York representing himself to be connected with State Department has handled the money." Diplomats hinted that Standard Oil, which had been disappointed with legal decisions which favored British companies, "would like to see Gomez's downfall and may have contributed to this expedition."

 

Apparently, oil interests had been conspiring with Venezuelan military officers, such as Gen. Carabana and Gen. Alcantara. (British officials were most likely referring to Francisco Linares Alcantara, son of the Venezuelan president of the same name, who ruled the country in 1877-78.) What is more, the Venezuelan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Esteban Gil Borges, had been "practically in the pockets" of American oil companies. "So far as I understand," remarked a British diplomat, "the filibustering expedition was arranged by the American Oil Interests with the express object of removing President Gomez and bringing Senor Esteban Gil Borges back into power." When Gomez was informed of the plot, Borges was removed from his post.

 

Though the plot hatched by "American oil interests" never came to fruition, the growing oil presence was a concern for Santos Gomez, the Zulia state governor. In 1923, he personally wrote Gomez, warning his chief that oil workers could be subverted by enemies of the regime. Of particular concern to Santos Gomez was the isolated oil field of Mene de Buchivacoa, located across the Zulia border in the state of Falcon. Santos Gomez worried that the area could be an easy target for enemies to the regime, who could land forces there and garner the support of oil workers before the government could respond. "Santos Matute Gomez," writes historian Sandra Flores, "deplored the absence of authority in an area of such importance and recommended the dispatch of a corps of police."

 

Gomez Buys Off Pedro Rojas

 

Having weathered many secessionist plots, the Venezuelan authorities sought to head off Zulia secession by monitoring the opposition. The new Zulia state governor, Febres Cordero, remarked to Gomez that he had received reports that the popular Pedro Rojas, now free from his jail cell at San Carlos, was using his position as president of a local athletic center for political ends. Febres Cordero stated that it was possible Rojas was trying to found an association of workers. While the governor personally doubted the veracity of the reports, he paid 1,200 bolivares to help the center acquire a new boxing ring, "with the idea", he wrote, "of putting myself in communication with the members of the club and observe them more closely."

 

In a long 1926 telegram, the dictator wrote Febres Cordero "to watch Dr Rojas carefully and to investigate rumors that he was actively engaged in preparing a nucleus of young men and laborers who might be used in the formation of a body of troops in the event civil trouble occurred." In a more forceful approach, Febres Cordero summoned Rojas personally, so as to speak candidly. Febres Cordero told Rojas point-blank that Gomez had received an anonymous letter, suggesting that Rojas had been instrumental in helping to form an athletic center for young men. Rojas, according to the anonymous letter, sought to become president of the organization in order to train members for military purposes.

 

Furthermore, Rojas was accused of having trained men employed in his factories, and "was trying by every means to increase his popularity among the Venezuelans and so far succeeded as to be elected the president of the strongest club in Maracaibo (El Club del Comercio) against most active foreign opposition." Seeking to maintain a public facade of neutrality, Febres Cordero told Rojas bluntly that he had not investigated the charges. While he personally doubted the veracity of the claims, Febres Cordero advised Rojas to meet with Gomez personally.

 

Rojas, no doubt concerned for his personal security, accepted Febres Cordero's advice. Traveling to the Venezuelan city of Maracay, he was granted an immediate interview with Gomez himself. One can easily imagine Rojas' growing discomfort as the dictator personally outlined the charges in more detail. Far from his native Maracaibo and now on Gomez' home ground, Rojas realized that he would have to soothe Gomez's suspicions. He reminded Gomez that he had completed a six-year jail sentence at San Carlos. He added that "he had received his lesson?he had not and did not intend to mingle in politics but wanted peace."

At this point, Gomez slyly answered that he had never believed the charges. However, in an offer of good faith, Gomez offered to award Rojas an engineering position in charge of improving the Maracaibo dock and aqueduct. No doubt feeling relieved, Rojas immediately accepted the position and returned to Maracaibo. Later, the Maracaibo native son was careful to stay in touch with Gomez, writing the dictator in April 1926 concerning preliminary work on the aqueduct. Having Rojas work personally on the project made political sense. In this way, the authorities could keep a careful watch on the respected one-time revolutionary.

 

Oil, Cocaine and the Lindblad Conspiracy

 

On the other hand Washington did not seem to pose much of a threat to the regime. The Republican administration of Calvin Coolidge officially espoused a policy of non-intervention in Latin American affairs. In late 1926, Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg personally wrote American oil companies in Venezuela, lobbying managers to restrain abuses of the native workforce.

 

Nevertheless, Gomez would shortly receive worrying reports suggesting that the US Navy was spying in Zulia. While it's unclear whether the US military sought to intrigue against state authorities on behalf of the oil companies, Gomez already had sufficient cause for concern. Though the dictator enjoyed a burgeoning alliance with the companies, and the spreading of prosperity from the industry allowed him to secure his position in power, Gomez had strong indications that US companies were plotting against him.

 

In the summer of 1926, British authorities made reference to a peculiar plot. "Information," remarked one diplomat, "has been received from a very reliable source, and should therefore be treated with the greatest secrecy, that steps are being taken to foment a revolution in Venezuela during the course of the next few months. It is stated that the funds for a revolution are being supplied by American oil companies with a view to obtaining further concessions and their agent on this side to be Captain Herold LINDBLAD of 20 Craven Hill Gardens, Lancaster Gate."

 

The plot, documented in cloak-and-dagger fashion by British authorities, involved a bizarre assortment of shady characters. Central to the effort was David Herold Lindblad, a former commander of the Swedish Navy and acting Norwegian Consul in Trinidad. Lindblad sought to recruit support for the conspiracy in England and Germany. The British authorities noted that Lindblad was married to an English lady in Trinidad, whose mother was related to Gen. Alcantara, of whom Lindblad himself was a close associate. Alcantara, who was resident in Trinidad, had received indications of growing dissension in the Gomez armed forces and hoped to militarily intervene in Venezuela with the idea of becoming president himself.

 

British authorities noted that Alcantara was born into a prominent Venezuelan family and his father was president of Venezuela. Reportedly, he had support not only in Ciudad Bolivar but also in the Orinoco districts, Margarita Island and western Venezuela "where he is in command." Alcantara was in turn linked to other sources, such as a certain individual described in cryptic manner as "D." This individual had traveled from New York to the Caribbean and was in communication with Lindblad. Apparently, "D" met with a certain "L" in New Orleans, who had agreed to supply six thousand pounds for purchasing equipment. The 6,000 pounds, noted British authorities, "was to be placed at the disposal of Lindblad for the purchase of a trawler and arms." Meanwhile, "D would seem to be an intermediary between General Alcantara and certain parties in New York (?Standard Oil?) [sic], who might be interested in financing the plot."

 

According to British authorities, there were indications that the plotters had approached Standard Oil, Shell, British Controlled Oilfields, "and some group in Germany," with the idea of raising financial support for Gen. Alcantara. Of these the only party which agreed to negotiate was Standard Oil, which "did not wish to appear openly in the transaction but agreed to act through an intermediary." In conversations with British Controlled Oilfields, Lindblad suggested that the company advance 10,000 pounds to charter a ship and purchase arms at Hamburg. If Gen. Alcantara came into power, British Controlled Oilfields would receive a "quid pro quo" in the form of oil concessions.

 

Alcantara required money to buy one thousand rifles, 30 machine guns and other arms and equipment, and to hire a 200-ton trawler in Germany to transport the weapons to Venezuela. The port of embarkation was Hamburg. According to British intelligence Lindblad was associated with a businessman in the German port city, who had a flourishing trade with South and Central America and who had smuggled cocaine and morphine. Little to his knowledge perhaps, British authorities sent an agent from Scotland Yard to be present at Lindblad's interview with British Controlled Oilfields in London. The authorities, who remarked that Venezuela had enjoyed stable government under Gomez and that British interests were well treated in the country, promptly passed word of the plot to Gomez directly through British diplomats in Caracas.

 

Apparently, the plotters grew concerned when it looked like British interests might work against their plans, and Lindblad's wife warned him: "Be very careful about choosing the crew. Shell might succeed in getting traitors on board by means of much bribery." When Gomez found out about the plot, Standard Oil grew alarmed and withdrew its support; the conspiracy promptly fell apart when the necessary funds did not materialize. For his part, Lindblad notified his conspirators that he would shortly return to Trinidad from Hamburg. However, word of the conspiracy alerted the authorities to the possibility that disgruntled caudillos could unite with the oil companies to create unrest. According to British authorities, "hopes are?still entertained that when matters have quietened down and President Gomez's suspicions have been allayed, through the intermediary of 'L' the Americans may again be induced to co-operate."

 

Gomez Consolidates Power

 

In the midst of this political intrigue, Gomez acted decisively to appoint a stronger and more competent state governor in Zulia, Vincencio Perez Soto. According to Gomez biographer Brian McBeth, rumors of oil companies sponsoring Zulia secession concerned Gomez and convinced the dictator of the need to appoint a stronger man as state president. What is more, as British authorities put it, "the peace enjoyed for so long by this country has been one imposed by General Gomez, now getting on in years and in uncertain health, and it is doubtful whether it will long survive him."

 

Additionally, if Gomez died, then "candidates to the succession will not be wanting," a British diplomat found. Most worrisome of all, "the prizes of government have increased tenfold in the last few years. The most obvious first step to successful revolution would be to gain control of the oil region with a view to extracting financial support from the oil companies." Clearly, the oil-rich Zulia region was increasingly critical. By 1928, in fact, Venezuela would become the leading world oil exporter.

 

In the 1920s, US economic interests in Zulia grew, with American oil companies such as Standard Oil and Gulf joining their British counterparts in the Lake Maracaibo area. Though US diplomats reported that authorities in Caracas were not overly concerned about rumors that Maracaibo would break free of central control, the US consul in Maracaibo, Alexander Sloan, alerted his superiors to widespread disaffection in the city.

 

Sloan said that Zulia natives as well as Maracaibo residents "do not now and have not for years felt any great affection for the central government." However, he added that Zulianos believed the economic and natural boundaries of the Maracaibo Lake united the area with the Cucuta district in Colombia and not with Caracas. Likewise, local residents argued that Cucuta was united to Maracaibo by much closer economic bonds than to other districts within Colombia.

 

Furthermore, reported Sloan, Maracaibo natives suspected that the central government purposefully isolated their city from the rest of the country and from the outside world for fear that an independence movement might arise there. Local residents were also incensed "that although there are many quite capable Maracaiberos [Maracaibo residents], not one has ever been placed in a position of power in the state of Zulia."

 

Upon assuming office, Perez Soto set about meeting with oil company officials, including Roy Merritt, a manager at Caribbean Oil Company. Writing later to Gomez, Perez Soto commented that Merritt "had opened up to me too much, showing me that he was alarmed at what he called claims and inconveniences which had been presented against his company, and saying that he sees that these matters could be leading to the same path as the Mexicans in 1911. And these phrases leave a lot to think about."

 

The Mysterious Mission of the USS Niagara

 

Meanwhile, Perez Soto was confronted with unsettling news. On July 2, 1926 the USS Niagara arrived off the coast of Zulia. The US consul requested that the sailors be allowed to celebrate the 4th of July in Venezuela. When an air officer attached to the Niagara requested permission to fly over Maracaibo in honor of the July 4th, Perez Soto grew suspicious. Reports reached the governor that the real reason for the over flight was to take aerial photographs of the region. Perez Soto barred the disembarking of the Niagara crew and refused to authorize the over-flight.

 

Kellogg and the State Department's policy of non-intervention notwithstanding, Perez Soto was concerned. Writing Gomez, the governor related that the US sought to station the Niagara in Venezuelan waters "as a kind of sentinel of North American interests in Venezuela." Perez Soto was concerned that the Niagara might be a bad omen of things to come, and remarked that "in this same manner the Americans placed battleships in Magdalena Bay in Baja California in 1914."

 

Perez Soto then employed his intelligence to obtain detailed reports concerning the activities of US marines from the Niagara on Zapara island, located in the mouth of the Maracaibo Bar. Perez Soto uncovered that the Niagara crew had mounted a wireless radio with a reach of 2,000 miles. Perez Soto was particularly concerned that powerful sectors of Maracaibo society might conspire with the United States to further Zulia secession with the aim of separating the state from the rest of Venezuela.

 

In an effort to lessen tensions with foreign interests, Pérez Soto assured oil company managers that he was "anxious to discuss their problems with them and to lend them any aid in his power." Perez Soto sought to assert his authority over the oil companies through diplomatic and legal means. As the US consul put it, Perez Soto and local officials were determined "that conditions such as existed in Tampico [Mexico] are not to be tolerated here, and [they] have become much stricter in enforcing discipline and obedience to the laws." In a note to Gomez, Perez Soto mused that perhaps the oil companies would put up with legality and honesty—"or maybe not, and they will try to undermine me," through their representatives in Caracas.

 

Redrawing the Region's Borders

 

Clearly, in many ways Perez Soto had been more a more forceful governor than his predecessors. For Gomez, however, the risk was that the more powerful Perez Soto became, the greater the possibility that the charismatic politician would become a rival in his own right. As Gomez consolidated power, he faced yet further military unrest, and there were ample opportunities for Perez Soto to create intrigue.

 

As Gomez approached old age, Perez Soto might have wondered about his own future and felt a certain degree of concern. In the first years of Perez Soto's term in office, the political situation in Venezuela looked increasingly murky, with Gomez's presidential tenure set to expire in 1929. (Under the Venezuelan constitution, Gomez was allowed to run for another seven year presidential term in 1929. But, in light of student unrest in 1928, he proclaimed he would not run as a candidate. In 1929, the constitution was revised and the position of "Commander in Chief" and President were separated. Congress elected Doctor Juan Baptista Perez as president, who had little influence. Gomez became commander in chief and continued to control real power behind the scenes.)

 

In July 1928 Col. Jose Maria Fossi, a trusted Gomez subordinate, turned against the dictator, taking the city of La Vela de Coro for a few hours. The military uprising, which called for revolutionaries to be reinforced by 300 Venezuelan and 90 Dominican rebels working in Curacao, was crushed by Gomez's troops.

 

McBeth has written that following the assault Perez Soto reorganized his small armory in order to prepare for future attack. However, Fossi later remarked that Perez Soto had approached him and offered him money in exchange for his support in fomenting a separatist movement. The ultimate aim was to form a new republic comprising the Venezuelan states of Zulia, Falcon, and the Catatumbo region of Colombia. The venture, added Fossi, would have the support of the oil companies in Lake Maracaibo.

 

While such reports must be treated cautiously, Colombian authorities were apparently concerned about a plot and Bogota's House of Deputies met in secret session to discuss "moves of Yankee agents in the Departments of Santander and Goagira which sought to provoke a separatist movement which, united to Zulia, would form the Republic of Zulia."

Perez Soto dismissed rumors of his involvement in Zulia secession as "treason against the Fatherland, and an immense dishonor." However, Perez Soto's credibility was further damaged when correspondence reached Gomez himself hinting at efforts to involve Perez Soto in Zulia secessionist plots. McBeth writes that "important oilmen with close connections with the State Department had enquired about the suitability of Perez Soto as President of Zulia."

 

What might have motivated Perez Soto to become involved? One possibility is that he was worried about the future political climate. In the event that Gomez were to fall or die in office, Perez Soto could face political vendettas or worse. Perhaps Perez Soto, having conducted successful negotiations with the oil companies in 1926, now hoped to cash in on his political capital.

 

The History in Light of the Current Controversy

 

At this point it's unclear how similar Rumbo Propio might be to earlier conspiracies. The evidence is suggestive that in the past prominent political figures allied to the oil companies and the United States sought to foment unrest in Zulia. Today, Chavez hasn't demonstrated any proof that Rumbo Propio is affiliated with Rosales or the United States.

 

On the other hand, the group shares Rosales' and the United States' contempt for Chavez. Rumbo Propio, led by an economist named Nestor Suarez, is an avowedly right-wing organization opposed to the government's economic policies. The group seeks to encourage "liberal capitalism" in Zulia.

 

The question, however, is whether Rumbo Propio is destined to become another historical footnote or to make real political problems for Chavez. When I recently traveled to Maracaibo, I put this question to Umberto Silvio Beltran, Zulia regional coordinator of the Bolivarian Circles, pro-Chavez grassroots groups organized locally throughout the country.

Beltran didn't deny the existence of real regionalist sentiment in Zulia, but downplayed the notion that the area would break away from Venezuela. "People here consider themselves Venezuelan," he said.

 

Nevertheless, with tensions rising in the run-up to the election, one cannot discard the possibility that the United States, or local separatists, might take advantage of the political climate to create unrest. If Chavez is right and the Bush administration is encouraging secession, this cynical American strategy will most likely anger Chavez's hardened followers in Zulia.

 

The president's support in Zulia state is not insignificant, and any U.S. meddling could ratchet up political conflict. According to Beltran, there are approximately 180,000 people involved in the Bolivarian Circles in Zulia. Hopefully, Zulia will not become a political battleground on Election Day and cooler heads will prevail.

It now looks as if Rafael Correa, a leftist candidate in Ecuador, has handily won his country’s presidential election. As of Monday morning, with about 21 percent of the ballot counted, Correa had 65 percent compared to 35 percent for Alvaro Noboa, according to Ecuador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal. If Correa wins, he will preside over Ecuador for a four year term.

It’s yet another feather in the cap for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had long cultivated the aspiring leader’s support. What’s more, it’s a stinging blow against the Bush administration which now must confront a much more unenviable political milieu in the region. Ecuador now joins other left leaning regimes such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Chile, all of which are sympathetic to Chavez.

Bush cannot dismiss the Correa victory as inconsequential: Ecuador is currently the second largest South American exporter of crude to the U.S. The small Andean country hosts the only U.S. military base in South America, where 400 troops are currently stationed. Correa opposes an extension of the U.S. lease at the air base in Manta, which serves as a staging ground for drug surveillance flights. The U.S. lease expires in 2009.

"If they want," Correa has said ironically, "we won’t close the base in 2009, but the United States would have to allow us to have an Ecuadoran base in Miami in return."

It’s no secret that Chavez and Correa had a personal rapport. During a short stint in 2005 as finance minister under the regime of Alfredo Palacio, Correa brokered a $300 million loan from Chavez. As a result of his diplomacy, Correa was forced out of the government. Allegedly, Correa pursued the loan deal behind Palacio’s back. He later visited Chavez’s home state of Barinas, where he met with the Venezuelan leader and spent the night with Chavez’s parents.

"It is necessary to overcome all the fallacies of neoliberalism," Correa has declared. Borrowing one of Chavez’s favorite slogans, Correa says he also supports so-called "socialism for the twenty first century."

Correa: "Whipping" Ecuador’s Politicians, and the U.S., into Shape

Unlike Chavez, Correa does not come from a military background but grew up in a middle class family; the young politician also dresses impeccably. He got his doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois and is a follower of left wing economist and Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.

To his credit, Correa spent a year volunteering in a highland town called Zumbahua and speaks Quichua, an indigenous language. Natives from Zumbahua remember Correa as a man who walked two or three hours to remote villages in a poncho and broken shoes to give classes.

Correa pursued an amusing campaign. During rallies, he would bounce on stage to his campaign anthem, set to the tune of Twisted Sister’s "We’re Not Going to Take It." As the music blared, Correa would break out a brown leather belt, which he would flex along to the music.

For Correa, the belt became the chief slogan of his campaign: "Dale Correa." In Spanish, the phrase means "Give Them the Belt." Correa promised to use that belt to whip Ecuador’s politicians into shape.

Correa campaigned on pledges to prioritize social spending over repaying debt. He has even stated that the Andean country might want to default. He also declared that he would renegotiate contracts with foreign oil producers doing business in the country. Correa says he wants to increase funds for the poor and opposes a free trade deal with the U.S.

"We are not against the international economy," Correa has stated, "but we will not negotiate a treaty under unequal terms with the United States."

Correa, too, has nothing but contempt for George Bush.

When he was recently asked about Chavez’s "devil" diatribe against the U.S. president at the United Nations, Correa remarked amusingly, "Calling Bush the devil offends the devil. Bush is a tremendously dimwitted President who has done great damage to the world" [after he was defeated by Noboa in the first round of voting Correa toned down his rhetoric, stating that his comments about Bush were "imprudent" and that Ecuador would like to continue its strong tries to the United States]

Noboa Plays the Chavez Card

In an effort to scare voters, Alvaro Noboa, a banana magnate in Ecuador, sought to label Correa as a Chavez puppet. Noboa, in an allusion to Chavez’s military background, labeled his adversary "Colonel Correa."

Correa, the Noboa campaign charged, was being financed by Venezuela. In a bombastic tirade, Noboa even declared, "the Chavez-Correa duo has played dirty in an effort to conquer Ecuador and submit it to slavery." If he were elected, Noboa promised, he would break relations with Caracas.

Correa denied that his campaign was financed by Chavez and in a biting aside declared that his friendship with the Venezuelan leader was as legitimate as President Bush’s friendship with the bin Laden family.

"They have pursued the most immoral and dirty campaign against me in an effort to link me with communism, terrorism, and Chavismo," Correa explained. "The only thing left is for them to say that Bin Laden was financing me."

Chavez, perhaps fearing that any statement on his part might tilt the election in favor of Noboa, initially remained silent as regards the Ecuadoran election. But at last the effusive Chavez could no longer constrain himself and broke his silence.

The Venezuelan leader accused Noboa of baiting him in an effort to gain the "applause" of the United States. Chavez furthermore expressed doubts about the veracity of the voting result in the first presidential run off in October, in which Correa came in second. In his own inflammatory broadside, Chavez accused Noboa of being "an exploiter of child labor" on his banana plantations and a "fundamentalist of the extreme right."

In Ecuador, Chavez said, "there are also strange things going on. A gentleman who is the richest man in Ecuador; the king of bananas, who exploits his workers, who exploits children and puts them to work, who doesn’t pay them loans, suddenly appears in first place in the first [electoral] round."

The Noboa campaign, in an escalating war of words, shot back that the Venezuelan Ambassador should be expelled from Ecuador due to Chavez’s meddling.

Ecuadoran Indigenous Peoples and Chavez

Judging from the early electoral returns, Ecuadoran voters, many of whom are indigenous, disregarded Noboa’s fire and brimstone rhetoric. Indians, who account for 40% of Ecuador’s population of 13 million, are a potent political force in the country. Correa has capitalized on indigenous support. He represents Alianza País, a coalition that garnered the support of indigenous and social movements which brought down the government of Lucio Gutierrez in April 2005.

What does the Correa win mean for Chavez’s wider hemispheric ambitions?

As I explain in my book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (recently released by St. Martin’s Press), Chavez has long sought to cultivate ties to Ecuador’s indigenous peoples. Ecuadoran Indians have long feared that their traditional lands were being exploited to serve a rapacious United States intent on corporate expansion. U.S. missionaries have fueled the resentment. According to indigenous activists, the missionaries hastened the penetration of U.S. corporations. A key example, according to Huaorani Indians, was the petroleum industry which worked with the missionaries to open up traditional lands.

Chavez has done much to cultivate the support of indigenous peoples. He plays up his own indigenous roots, for example. He also expelled the Protestant New Tribes Mission from Venezuela, which he said was collaborating with the CIA.

"We don’t want the New Tribes here," Chavez declared. "Enough colonialism! 500 years is enough!"

In opposing the missionaries, Chavez has echoed the agenda of Ecuador’s indigenous peoples, who called for the expulsion of North American missionaries from their country. CONAIE, Ecuador’s indigenous federation, in fact endorses many of Chavez’s positions such as an end to U.S. militarization in the region and an end to neo liberal economic policies. CONAIE, like Rafael Correa, wants Ecuador to terminate the U.S. lease at the Manta military base. CONAIE, as well as the movement’s political wing Patchakutik, has backed Chavez. CONAIE in fact has condemned the "fascist" opposition in Venezuela and derided U.S. interventionism.

Chavez has not only cultivated political ties with hemispheric leaders but also with social movements from below. In an innovative move, Chavez has sponsored something called the Bolivarian Congress of Peoples in Caracas. CONAIE officials attended the Congress, as did Humberto Cholango, president of the Kichwa Confederation of Ecuador. Cholango remarked at the time, "no one can stop this [Bolivarian] Revolution in Venezuela, we will keep on defeating the Creole oligarchies and the Yankeesthe time has come for South America to rise up to defeat the empireLong live the triumph of the Venezuelan people."

Cholango is an important link in the future Chavez-Correa alliance. His Kichwa Confederation has backed Correa. In a communiqué, the Confederation wrote, "We will not let Noboa, who owns 120 companies and made his fortune by exploiting children in his companies, take control of the country to deliver water, deserts, oil, mines, forests and biodiversity to big private transnational corporations."

Ecuadoran Oriente: Area of Conflict

Chavez has exchanged oil for political influence throughout the region in such countries as Nicaragua, as I explained in my earlier Counterpunch column [see "A New Kind of Oil Diplomacy: In Nicaragua, a Chavez Wave?, November 7, 2006]. In Ecuador, Chavez may opt for a similar strategy but here the Venezuelan leader has to watch out for pitfalls that could reveal serious contradictions within his movement.

With a Correa administration in place, Chavez will be in an advantageous position to advance his plans for hemispheric energy integration. Ecuador’s state oil company Petroecuador has been involved in longstanding negotiations with Venezuela to refine its crude. Ecuador is also interested in acquiring Venezuelan diesel and gasoline to cover its own internal demand. Ecuador’s growing energy ties with Venezuela have been applauded by important figures such as Luis Macas, long associated with the CONAIE.

The dilemma for Ecuador is that, while oil represents about a quarter of the country’s GDP, many disadvantaged communities have been unhappy with development. The north eastern section of Ecuador, the "Oriente," has long been the scene of serious social unrest. I know something about the social and environmental conflicts in the area, having written a couple of articles about the Huorani Indians for the Ecuadoran magazine 15 Dias and the Quito daily Hoy.

In 1992, having just completed a reporting internship at WBAI radio in New York, I headed to Quito. At that time, North American as well as Ecuadoran environmental groups were concerned about Maxus Corporation, a Texas-based energy company. The influential company had the support of the government, the press, and North American Protestant missionaries. The Huaorani had just traveled to Quito, where they had carried out a protest in front of Maxus headquarters.

The Indians demanded that Maxus halt its construction of a highway in block 16, which fell in their traditional homeland. I flew out to the Amazon and interviewed the Indians who were living in deplorable health and sanitary conditions. In my articles, I dissected Maxus’ unconvincing propaganda and warned about imminent environmental problems.

Venezuelan Involvement in the Ecuadoran Oil Industry?

I left Ecuador in late 1993, and not surprisingly the unrest continued. In 2002, the government declared a state of emergency following protests in Sucumbios and Orellana provinces. Protesters hit the streets, demanding greater investment in their communities. Indigenous peoples in the area had long felt that they had not adequately shared in the benefits of oil development. The military used teargas to break up protests which blocked oil wells.

In August 2005 the disturbances continued, with an oil strike hitting Orellana and Sucumbios. At that time, Chavez came to the aid of Ecuadoran president Alfredo Palacios by agreeing to send Venezuelan crude to the Andean nation. At the time, Chavez expressed sympathy with Ecuador "because we [Venezuela] have already passed through this type of thing with the oil sabotage [the oil lock out in 2002-3 encouraged by the Venezuelan opposition]."

Early this year, Petroecuador was forced to suspend exports when protesters, unhappy about longstanding environmental damage, demanded the departure of U.S. oil company Oxy and took over a pumping station vital to the functioning of a pipeline. Protesters, led by local politicians from the Amazon province of Napo, demanded that the government pay them funds for infrastructure projects in local communities.

In March, the government put three provinces under military control when workers initiated a strike for unpaid wages and improved working conditions. At one point, the government declared a state of emergency in Napo, when protesters demanded that the oil companies invest more of their profits in the area.

Guadalupe Llori, the prefect of Orellana, remarked "If we are treated like animals we are going to react like animals. We could join the workers and demand the government respect our rights." Petroecuador technicians and troops finally took control of oil facilities and cleared strikers from vital sites.

In May, Petroecuador took over oil wells belonging to Oxy’s block 15 oil concession; the Ecuadoran state wants the Venezuelan state company PdVSA to refine 75% of the 100,000 barrels per day within the old concession. According to the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal, Ecuador is considering Venezuela as a possible partner in the fields formerly operated by Oxy.

Chavismo and Its Hemispheric Contradictions

If PdVSA had a presence in block 15, this would lead to a potential problem for Chavez. Having proclaimed its support for social and environmental justice, as well as indigenous rights, Venezuela would now be operating in an area long marked by social unrest and discrimination of indigenous peoples.

In the short term, Chavez may take some pride in the fact that Bush received another black eye in South America; what’s more Venezuela can now count on Correa’s support as well as the indigenous movement. But in the long term, Chavez could run the risk of alienating many of his supporters if Venezuela is perceived to be an accomplice in misguided development schemes.

In the coming years, will Chavez maintain his political support amongst disadvantaged peoples throughout the hemisphere, or will his popularity be tarnished by oil diplomacy? Up to now, Chavez has certainly used oil as an effective geopolitical instrument, but it may prove his Achilles Heel if he is not careful.

With the Democrats now taking over Congress, the question is: what will the change in leadership mean for U.S. policy towards Venezuela? While it's heartening that some progressive legislators will be headed to Washington, unfortunately some hawkish figures stand to influence Latin America policy. Unless he is upended by Representative Howard Berman, Tom Lantos will become the Chair of the House International Relations Committee.

Lantos, who represents California's 12th congressional district in San Mateo, supported the October, 2002 "blank check" resolution granting authority to George Bush to wage preemptive war. According to John Nichols of the Nation magazine, Lantos is "reasonably solid" when it comes to supporting a liberal domestic agenda. "But," Nichols comments, "It's a different story on foreign policy matters."

Back in 2002 Lantos ignored anti-war activists who protested at his office, preferring instead to pursue a pro-war agenda in Congress. According to Nichols, Lantos said it was his "privilege" to deliver 81 pro-war Democratic votes for Bush. More recently, Lantos has criticized the execution of the war, and claims that the White House misled him about pre-war intelligence. Nevertheless he supports Bush's moves to fund the U.S. military effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, Lantos has been one of the House's consistent backers of the Patriot Act.

Congressman Lantos: Venezuela Hawk

Given his hawkish positions, it's not surprising that Lantos would take an aggressive position towards the leftist government of Hugo Chavez. The bad blood between the Venezuelan regime and Lantos goes back to 2004. Lantos, along with fellow lawmakers such as Republican Henry Hyde, sent a letter to Chavez complaining that the Venezuelan government was abusing its power when it accused Sumate, an opposition group, of conspiring with the U.S. to topple the Chavez regime.

In the letter, Lantos and others admit that Sumate had been financed by the U.S. taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) but that this financing would help encourage Venezuelan democracy. Lantos's letter elicited a sharp rejoinder from Venezuela's ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, who commented that the U.S. government was inconsistent when it came to democracy, and that the U.S. was the only country in the hemisphere to recognize the illegitimate Carmona regime which came to power in a brief coup d'etat in April 2002.

Lantos Snubbed in Caracas

Things deteriorated further last year when Lantos was allegedly refused entry into Venezuela and was stopped at the airport. Lantos had gone to the South American country as part of a high-level delegation headed by Republican Henry Hyde, the same legislator who had defended NED the year before.

Lantos and the delegation claimed they were actually harassed and held onboard their aircraft by customs officials at Caracas's Simon Bolivar International Airport. The delegation, which sought to repair troubled U.S.-Venezuelan relations, was set to meet personally with Chavez himself. After two hours, the delegation claimed, they left when government officials said that they could not guarantee that the party would be allowed to disembark or pursue its schedule on the ground. The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry denies the charges, claiming that it never held the congressmen who simply opted to continue on their way.

The incident provided fodder for xenophobic nationalists like CNN's Lou Dobbs, who told his viewers that the Venezuelan government's actions constituted "a Chavez insult to America." El Universal, a conservative Venezuelan newspaper, suggested that Chavez may have wanted to snub the delegation as payback, since the U.S. had refused to grant a visa to many members of Chavez's security detail when the Venezuelan president went to visit the United Nations in New York.

Lantos Goes On the Offensive

Snubbed by Chavez, Lantos went on the rhetorical offensive this past summer. During a hearing of the House's International Relations Committee, the California lawmaker accused Chavez of financing the electoral campaign of Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua (the Venezuelan leader has denied the charges). Lantos added fuel to the fire by remarking that in Venezuela, "the basis of democracy is being systematically suffocated by a demagogic leader."

Lantos went on to demonize Chavez for his ties to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and for creating "a one party state in Venezuela." Lantos added, "To insure the recently elected and soon to be elected Presidents of Latin America are not pressured into accepting the oil slick promises of dictators with dollars, we must reengage with the region."

Lantos's remarks were countered by some other Democrats including Howard Berman, a fellow California legislator. The U.S. was hypocritical in harking on democracy in Latin America, Berman argued. "I was in Nicaragua during the last presidential election [in November, 2001]," he said, "and it appeared to me that the U.S. Embassy was very involved in guaranteeing the defeat of Mr. Ortega."

Berman is currently Lantos' rival to run the House's International Relations Committee. According to a recent article in the Jewish Daily Forward, Berman, who represents parts of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, has often "been less conciliatory to the GOP" than Lantos. "Ousting Lantos," according to the Forward, " could signal that Democrat leaders, including presumed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, intend to usher in an era of more overtly partisan confrontation."

Lantos and Democrats Provoke Chavez on Media

But in the end, will the new "Madame Speaker" have the nerve to stand up to the hawks in the Democratic Party? She herself called Chavez "a thug" when the Venezuelan leader recently traveled to the United Nations and insulted George Bush. Unfortunately, the Democrats hardly inspire confidence and have more often than not joined with the Republicans in bashing Venezuela. A key example of this is the Democrats' handling of the Venezuelan media issue.

I recently returned from an extended six week trip to Venezuela, where I was struck by the stridently anti-U.S. tone in much of the government media. One edition of the pro-Chavez paper Diario VEA had a screaming headline reading, "General Baduel Warns: Foreign Aggression is Possible." Again and again on Vive TV, a state owned station, the channel would broadcast a short segment showing stark, bombed out images of Iraq.

"Imagine if your city was invaded and destroyed by a foreign army," intoned a solemn voiceover. It had been some years since I'd been back to Venezuela, and the state media had clearly ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Perhaps more controversially from the point of view of Washington, Chavez has also launched Telesur, a hemispheric wide satellite news station. Oil-rich Venezuela supplies 51% of Telesur's budget, with Cuba, Argentina, and Uruguay providing the rest of the funding. I frequently watched the station during my time in Venezuela and was struck by the coverage of the war in Iraq, which was much more graphic and critical of the conflict than our own U.S. media.

Since its initial launch in 2005 Telesur, which aims to rival other news stations such as Univision and CNN en Espanol, has certainly come a long way professionally. When I had first watched the station in the U.S. via Telesur's Web site, there had been frequent technical glitches. But now, I could scarcely tell the difference between Telesur and CNN from a technological standpoint.

In July 2005, Congressman Connie Mack, a right wing Republican from Florida, sponsored a measure to authorize U.S. supported radio and television broadcasts to Venezuela. Mack, a vocal critic of Hugo Chavez, has said that Telesur spreads "anti-American, anti-freedom rhetoric." Mack's legislation was approved as part of an amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorizations Act. Under the amendment the U.S. government could provide radio and television broadcasts, through the independent Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) for up to 30 minutes a day.

Though the legislation was supported by many Republicans, it also attracted support from Democrats and passed easily in the House. Again, it was Lantos who went on the attack, remarking that as Chavez "ramps up his information campaign, we should be prepared to present balanced news to the people of Venezuela." During the vote on the House floor on Representative Mack's media proposal, no Democrats spoke out against the measure. What's more, according to the Venezuela Information Office based in Washington, D.C., no liberal Democratic legislators have spoken out against Republican legislation designed to set up anti-Chavez media.

Predictably, Mack's amendment spread nothing but further ill will between the United States and Venezuela. Chavez called the amendment "a preposterous imperialist idea that should not surprise us because we know what the U.S. government is capable of." The Venezuelan president vowed to jam the signals if the U.S. tried to transmit broadcasts to Venezuela.

Colombia: An Opportunity for Democrats to Mend Fences with Chavez

Given all of the acrimonious history between Democratic hawks and Chavez, it is going to take a lot to restore trust. But perhaps, if the Democrats start to restrict U.S. aid to the Colombian military, Chavez's paranoia might be allayed somewhat. For years the U.S. has spent billions arming the Colombian military, ostensibly to fight drug trafficking. Chavez regularly denounces the drug war as a thinly disguised excuse to extend U.S. military control over the Andean region (for a more detailed discussion of Chavez's position on the drug war, see my recently released book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S). The Venezuelan president recently charged that the Bush administration might even be considering an invasion of Venezuela through Colombian territory.

While such rhetoric might seem overblown, Chavez has some reason to feel concerned. Paramilitaries allegedly tied to the U.S. funded Colombian military routinely cross over the frontier into Venezuela, creating friction along the more than 1,200 mile border. The Paramilitaries have pursued refugees into Venezuela, where they have killed or kidnapped those fleeing the violence. Even worse, the Chavez government claims that Colombian paramilitaries cross the border and fire on Venezuelan security forces. Ongoing clashes have led to the untimely deaths of Venezuelan military personnel.

Chavez has claimed, plausibly, that he needs to protect the border. In recent years the Venezuelan leader has acquired military hardware from Spain and Russia. Prior to the Democratic takeover, the right wing Republican majority in Congress showed no sign that it was willing to change course in Colombia and vociferously supported President Alvaro Uribe's calls for greater military aid. In a recent move, the State Department inexplicably "certified" that the Colombian armed forces had improved their human rights record, thus freeing up frozen military aid.

To his credit, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont disputed the certification.

As the ranking Democrat in charge of foreign assistance, he temporarily halted the aid. Now that the Democrats have taken Congress, there is a possibility for greater scrutiny of human rights in Colombia as Leahy is now responsible for writing the basic draft of the foreign aid bill each year.

If Leahy and progressive legislators start to limit or put greater conditions on military aid to Colombia, tensions might be lessened in that war torn nation and this in turn could lead to greater peace and stability along the Venezuelan border. If Chavez perceives that Washington is serious about reining in the Colombian military, he might be prompted to reduce his own military expenditures.

Hopefully, Congress may restore some restore some semblance of rationality and humanity to U.S. policy in South America. The Democrats must now choose: will they continue the bombastic rhetoric that we have seen from the likes of Lantos? Will they promote counter productive legislation on the media which will only serve to agitate the Chavez government further? Will they continue to fund the Colombian military to the tune of billions of dollars with little oversight, leading to more strained relations with the Chavez government? In the weeks and months ahead, we shall see which wing of the Democratic Party prevails on these vital questions.

Initially, it seemed as if Chavez was perfectly poised to capitalize on a wave of anti-American discontent felt throughout the hemisphere. But then, a series of dramatic reversals cast doubt on Chavez's ambitions to become a truly hemispheric leader and a lightning rod against U.S. influence.

 

Over the last few months, I had begun to doubt whether Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would indeed have the kind of political staying power that I described in my book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (recently released by St. Martin's Press).

Initially, it seemed as if Chavez was perfectly poised to capitalize on a wave of anti-American discontent felt throughout the hemisphere. Throughout South America, Chavez exchanged oil for political influence with newly emerging leftist regimes in Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil; the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia, a key Chavez ally, seemed to underscore Venezuela's rising influence.

 

But then, a series of dramatic reversals cast doubt on Chavez's ambitions to become a truly hemispheric leader and a lightning rod against U.S. influence.

Chavez's Reversals, from Peru to the United Nations

 

In Peru, Chavez openly endorsed the nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala in the country's presidential election. But Chavez's strategy backfired when Humala's opponent, Alan Garcia, charged that the Venezuelan leader was interfering in Peru's internal politics. Garcia successfully exploited the issue to his advantage and went on to beat Humala in last April's election.

 

In Mexico, pro-business PAN candidate Felipe Calderon ran a negative campaign against his leftist challenger Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. In his TV ads, Calderon linked Obrador to Hugo Chavez, proclaiming "Lopez Obrador is a danger to Mexico." Though Lopez Obrador cried fraud in Mexico's July presidential election, the Electoral Tribunal ruled that Calderon had won the election and rejected Obrador's allegations. Calderon is set to assume office in December.

 

The next set back for Chavez came in Ecuador, where the Venezuelan leader's would be protégé, Rafael Correa, went down in defeat in the first round of the country's presidential election last month. A Correa win would have added another oil-rich country to Chavez's anti-American alliance.

 

Correa, a leftist economics professor, denied that Chavez had funded his campaign and the Venezuelan leader, chastened by his defeats in Mexico and Peru, was uncharacteristically quiet about the Ecuador election.

 

However, it's no secret that the two had a personal rapport. Correa in fact visited Chavez's home state of Barinas in August, where he met with the Venezuelan leader and spent the night with Chavez's parents. Correa, who opposes an extension of the U.S. lease at an air base in Manta, which serves as a staging ground for drug surveillance flights, has nothing but contempt for George Bush.

 

When he was recently asked about Chavez's "devil" diatribe against the U.S. president at the United Nations, Correa remarked amusingly, "Calling Bush the devil offends the devil. Bush is a tremendously dimwitted President who has done great damage to the world."

 

But Correa was shocked by a strong last minute showing by his challenger, pro-U.S. banana magnate Alvaro Noboa. Like Lopez Obrador, Correa has cried foul and declared that his campaign might have fallen victim to electronic fraud on the country's voting machines. He will face off with Noboa in another runoff election in November.

 

Then there was Venezuela's failed bid to secure a non permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. When the United States proposed its own candidate, Guatemala, things turned ugly. Chavez characterized the race as a struggle against U.S. domination throughout Latin America; Venezuelan diplomats went so far as to describe Guatemala as a U.S. stooge.

But in the end, Venezuela failed to come up with the requisite votes. Chavez could take some satisfaction that Guatemala too failed to come up with the necessary votes at the United Nations, and had to withdraw in favor of Panama.

 

The reality, however, is that despite Chavez's frenetic shuttle diplomacy throughout Africa and calls for Third World solidarity, he could not muster more votes than a small Central American country with very little regional influence and an appalling human rights record.

It was hardly an impressive showing.

The Chavez-Ortega Alliance

 

Events in Nicaragua, however, suggest that it won't be so easy for the Bush administration to roll back Chavez's ambitions. It now seems as if the Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega will cruise to victory in the country's presidential election and avoid a run off. As of Monday night, preliminary results show Ortega with about 40 percent of the vote, more than enough to avoid a future runoff.

 

For the White House, it's a nightmare that officials had long sought to avoid.

 

Though Ortega, who was president from 1985 to 1990 during the U.S.-fueled Contra War, is a pale shadow of his former self, having jettisoned his leftist rhetoric and hostility towards his northern neighbor, nevertheless Washington must now recognize that it has patently failed to isolate Chavez diplomatically. Nicaragua now seems poised to join the wave of left leaning regimes throughout the hemisphere inspired by Chavez.

 

When Ortega traveled to Venezuela for a meeting with Chavez last year, the friendship between the two began to bear fruit. During the meeting at Miraflores, the presidential palace, Ortega remarked that Latin American unity was necessary to confront globalization. He added that Chavez's electoral victory convinced him that revolutionary change could be achieved through the ballot box. "I thought that they were going to overthrow Chavez," Ortega remarked, "and that he would meet the same fate as Salvador Allende."

 

Ortega later alarmed Washington by remarking that if he won the election he would make sure that Nicaragua would join ALBA, Chavez's Bolivarian Alternative for The Americas. Chavez's trading plan, which is designed to sideline traditional corporate interests and Bush's Free Trade Agreement of The Americas (FTAA), is based on barter agreements between Latin American countries. Recently, to the chagrin of U.S. policymakers, Bolivia joined Venezuela and Cuba in ALBA.

 

Chavez, Ortega and ALBA

 

"Without a doubt," Ortega declared during a Cuban summit meeting with Morales, Castro and Chavez, "we have to look towards the south, we have to look towards integration, and ALBA is an open door, it is Latin American and Caribbean integration."

 

Ortega later added that he opposed U.S.-backed trade deals. "Central America's trading future lies not with the U.S. but with Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina," he said.

 

Ortega, smarting from three successive electoral defeats after the fall of the Sandinistas from power, added that he was "convinced after 16 years of neo liberal policies in Nicaragua that the conditions are ripe for the Sandinista Front to retake power, now via the ballot box."

In the Plaza de La Revolucion in Havana, Chavez approached Ortega and remarked, "Daniel, we are inviting you next year to come here as the president of Nicaragua."

 

According to Ortega, Chavez followed up on his promising words by offering to help Nicaragua join in ALBA. Speaking before hundreds of workers in Managua, Ortega said that Chavez and the president of the Venezuelan Economic and Social Development Bank (known by its Spanish acronym Bandes) had pledged to help open a development bank in Nicaragua. "Venezuela is willing to provide support so that this bank will become a reality and campesinos will have credits and a secure market," Ortega told supporters.  According to Ortega the Venezuelan aid formed part of ALBA.

Chavez, Ortega and CAFTA

 

In seeking to recruit Ortega for his ALBA scheme, Chavez found a willing ally in Ortega. Indeed, Nicaragua's experiment in "neo-liberal" economics since the fall of the Sandinistas in 1990 has not been a very happy one. Like Venezuela, which experienced political unrest as a result of neo liberal policies pushed by Washington, Nicaragua has been buffeted by "savage capitalism," as Ortega has put it.

 

Today, Nicaragua is a bleak place. Per capita income is a paltry $700 and more than 70% of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Successive governments have failed to restore Managua from a 1972 earthquake. Within yards of the presidential palace lie slums and empty buildings; beggars and barefoot children splash around in the gutters of Managua instead of heading to class.

 

Like Chavez, Ortega has spent a lot of time over the past years criticizing U.S.-led free trade deals. For example, the Sandinista led the charge against CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Ortega pledged to pull Nicaragua out of CAFTA and "end savage capitalism when we win." CAFTA, Ortega argued, was an effort by the U.S. to exploit poor countries in a rush to the bottom and cheap labor.

 

"Bush is taking up CAFTA," Ortega remarked in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, "because it is his way of keeping Central America from looking south." Ortega furthermore suggested that Washington was seeking to splinter Nicaragua's solidarity with the Left in Latin America such as Chavez's regime.

 

CAFTA was pushed ruthlessly by U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick over the objections of labor, environmentalists and human rights groups [for more on Zoellick, see my profile of the diplomat in my book].

 

"CAFTA is the opportunity of a lifetime," Zoellick remarked in an address given at the Heritage Foundation. "If we retreat into isolationism, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez and others like them, leftist autocratswill advance."

 

Zoellick's efforts to link Ortega and Chavez in order to ram through CAFTA were echoed by paranoid, red baiting Republicans in the House and Senate. Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe warned his fellow Senators: "These Communists, these enemies of the United States, Chavez, Ortega, and Castro, are all in opposition to CAFTA. If you want to be on their side, you would vote against CAFTA."

 

In the House, Republican Rep. Mike Kirk of Illinois took the fear mongering prize by arguing that Chavez was "Venezuela's Mussolini." Chavez, claimed Kirk, was purchasing weapons in order to fight a new war in Central America. "Let us enact a free trade agreement with Central America to lock in democratic growth and stability," Kirk exclaimed, "and let us make sure that President Hugo Chavez's Venezuelan agents find no fertile ground in America's back yard."

 

In the end CAFTA passed narrowly in Congress. In Nicaragua, CAFTA was opposed by the Sandinistas in the National Assembly as well as key figures in civil society, including the president of the country's largest agricultural organization, who warned that the agreement would give rise to greater poverty in the countryside.

 

According to experts, CAFTA stood to encourage the growth of more maquiladora assembly plants, but any positive benefit would be offset by the loss in farm jobs as a result of the influx of cheap U.S. agricultural goods. Despite domestic opposition, Nicaragua passed CAFTA in October 2005.

Efforts to Demonize Ortega and Chavez

 

Despite its CAFTA public relations victory, the Bush administration was clearly still worried and kept up the pressure on Ortega during the run up to the presidential election. Paul Trivelli, the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, warned that Ortega's victory would signify "the introduction of a Chavez model" in Nicaragua.

 

Meanwhile the conservative press flew into a tirade against Ortega, with the Washington Times remarking that "Ortega will take Nicaragua out of CAFTA and into Mr. Chavez's Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, and almost synonymous with this is a move to nationalize industry, much like Evo Morales did in Bolivia."

 

The Washington Post was similarly hostile, remarking in an editorial that Ortega "is about to return to power and increase the alliance with non-democratic countries [such as] Venezuela." The Post, interestingly criticized the Bush administration for reacting too slow to the Chavez and Ortega threat.

 

On the pages of National Review, Otto Reich, a former State Department official who dealt with Venezuelan opposition conspirators in the run up to the coup against Chavez in 2002, remarked that "The emerging axis of subversion forming between Cuba and Venezuela must be confronted before it can undermine democracy in Nicaragua."

 

As per the case in Peru, the Nicaraguan right sought to link its Sandinista opposition to Chavez in an effort to instill fear in voters. Presidential candidate Jose Rizo remarked that Chavez and Ortega were "a threat to regional and hemispheric stability," and claimed that the Venezuelan leader was financing Ortega's campaign [both Venezuela and Ortega deny the accusation]. "Ortega will become Chavez's lieutenant in Central America and the Caribbean in the same way that he represented the extinct and failed Soviet Bloc," Rizo added.

Ortega Unlikely to Radicalize

 

Unlike Peru however the opposition's strategy of trying to scare Nicaraguan voters proved unsuccessful and at long last Ortega has prevailed in his drive to reach the presidency. Despite the hyperbolic claims by the U.S. and conservative politicians in Nicaragua however, Ortega is hardly in a position to become Chavez's steward overnight. Unlike Venezuela, Nicaragua is poor and foreign investment and aid accounts for 35 percent of the budget. That money could disappear if Ortega started to radicalize the country and expropriate industry.

 

In an effort to appease jittery investors, Ortega recently signed a pro-business pact in which he pledged to promote the private sector. Though he has spoken about the need to renegotiate aspects of CAFTA, Ortega now says he will build on free trade agreements. Ortega will have to tread lightly: the U.S. is Nicaragua's largest trading partner and accounts for about one fifth of the country's imports and approximately a third of its exports. About 25 wholly or partially owned subsidiaries of U.S. corporations operate in Nicaragua.

 

With so much at stake, Ortega has predictably moderated his rhetoric by stating that he would work with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and Inter American Development Bank.

 

Carlos Fernando Chamorro, son of former president Violeta Chamorro and editor of the weekly Confidencial newspaper, is not too concerned about a radical Ortega agenda. He argues that Ortega is a pragmatist and will try to appease the United States. Observers believe that the right wing Liberal Constitutionalist Party (known by its Spanish acronym PLC), the main opposition to the Sandinistas, will hold onto its many seats in the National Assembly following this election, which would further complicate any radical agenda.

 

But, Chavez's Oil Diplomacy in Central America Could Be a Factor

 

Nevertheless, Chavez seems to be trying hard to bring Nicaragua into its political orbit. Chavez has enhanced his stature in South America by trading oil for other goods, and seems to be pursuing a similar strategy in Nicaragua. Venezuela has in fact already provided cheap fuel to Nicaragua through Sandinista mayors. Speaking on his television and radio program Alo, Presidente!, Chavez told Ortega that Nicaragua could pay for Venezuelan oil with meat, milk, cheese and other goods.

 

Ortega and Chavez have held personal discussions about setting up a mixed Venezuelan-Nicaraguan company that would import the cheap oil. Chavez is apparently willing to invest in Nicaragua to set up necessary oil infrastructure. Best of all, Chavez's offer could prove politically beneficial to Ortega since restive students have protested any move to raise transportation costs. Farmers meanwhile would not have to increase their production costs.

What does it all add up to? Despite some setbacks, Chavez stands to at least gain some diplomatic and political leverage in Central America. Ortega will be hampered in bringing about radical change, but will at least look upon Venezuela as an important regional ally and friend. Try as it might, the Bush administration has not been able to isolate Chavez. To the contrary, the U.S., through its efforts to demonize both Chavez and Ortega, has unwittingly brought them together.

Located within the western provincial state of Zulia, Lake Maracaibo has long been a center of the petroleum industry.  Historically, the lake has been plagued by oil spills and pollution. 

Most recently, the lake has witnessed a profound catastrophe with the arrival of duckweed, a freshwater weed which has spread out across the surface of the water. Experts say that duckweed contributes to Lake Maracaibo's pollution.  Significantly, the weed could seriously change the habitat of various species of fish as it exhausts their oxygen supply and cuts off light from the depths of the lake. 

 

In Maracaibo, I interviewed Jorge Hinestroza, a sociologist at the University of Zulia and former General Coordinator of the Federation of Zulia Ecologists.  During the insightful hour long interview, Hinestroza illuminated many of the contradictions within the Chavez government's environmental policy. 

 

ICLAM and Lake Maracaibo

 

NK: Jorge, I have just been attending an environmental conference here in Maracaibo sponsored by the ICLAM (Institute For The Conservation of Lake Maracaibo, a government agency).  However, I see that some environmentalists in Zulia have been critical of the conference.  Why?

 

JH:  We could cite the case of Elio Rios, a doctor and veteran environmentalist.  Recently he sent out an e mail which accused ICLAM of excluding poor communities from the conference.  Rios is the Vice President of Azul (Environmentalists of Zulia).  Their group has been around for a long time, and probably has a couple of dozen active members.  Azul has made a name for itself by resisting coal exploitation in the Sierra of Perija [a mountainous area near the Colombian border]. 

 

Azul has undergone a very interesting evolution from the point of view of environmental politics.  Rios is himself a fervent follower and supporter of Hugo Chavez.  As a matter of fact, he participates in meetings of the Bolivarian Circles [pro-Chavez groups organized at the local level which carry out community projects with government assistance].  However, he has been one of the most vocal critics of the regime when it comes to the environment. 

 

When Elio says in the e mail that the ICLAM conference is elitist he's telling the truth.  The ICLAM conference was comprised solely of experts.  It is all rather ironic because supposedly in Venezuela we are living in an era which has opened the doors of science to the community.  But as this event makes clear, there is no link between the people and science. 

 

Environmentalism in The Chavez Era

 

NK: How have local environmentalists fared during the Chavez era?

 

JH:  As a result of the "Bolivarian Revolution," popular struggles have been frozen.  The expectation for change amongst the people has risen, and there is a great hope that the regime will resolve social problems.  Environmental concerns have practically been abandoned by popular struggles here.

 

NK: Could you comment specifically about communities within Lake Maracaibo and local environmental struggles? 

 

JH: The Chavez regime has sought to provide the immediate necessities of life for the people.  That is to say, the government offers large quantities of food and services, which in one way or another satisfies the most critical necessities of the people.  Government programs have dampened social tensions.  In various communities that I have visited, local struggles which confronted the great forces of transnational capital have been derailed. 

 

We might cite for example the case of the Olivitos Marsh, where a transnational company [Produsal, S.A., a company whose capital has been provided through Cargill and the state-run Pequiven or Petrochemical of Venezuela], produced salt [necessary for producing petrochemical products].  Produsal's arrival in Olivitos resulted in habitat fragmentation in the area.  The company also displaced fishing communities that were linked to the natural ecosystem. 

 

In response, local communities mobilized against the petrochemical transnational.  Local residents also struggled against the Ministry of Environment which for many years supported the company.  The Ministry handed out all the permits and supported big business, notwithstanding that it's a ministry pledged to protecting the environment. 

 

But with Chavez's political triumph, local communities practically halted their struggle.  The majority of the local fishermen were Chavistas.  They hoped that they would reclaim the waters that they had had traditionally used for fishing.  There was a lot of commotion when Chavez proclaimed the new Constitution which had important provisions favoring fishermen's rights.  However, local leadership later abandoned the struggle.

 

PDVSA and the Case of Lagunillas

 

NK: During the environmental conference, I participated in ICLAM visits to various companies around Lake Maracaibo.  During our visits, the managers presented a very clean corporate environmental image.  To what extent have they have really changed their environmental policies for the better? 

 

JH: As a result of industrial sabotage during the oil lockout of 2002-3, the government has spoken of the need for local communities to find out more about security and environmental risks within the oil industry.  Unfortunately, the government's promise to make the oil industry more transparent has not been met.  When we environmentalists complain about oil slicks for example, we get the same executives and environmental employees from PDVSA [Petroleos de Venezuela, the state run Venezuelan oil company] with the same rhetoric and discourse from the previous era before Chavez.

 

Another example of PDVSA indifference has to do with the actual sinking of coastal lands as a result of oil drilling around the town of Lagunillas [located along the east bank of Lake Maracaibo].  While I am sure there are new PDVSA executives with good intentions, basically environmental management is the same and the ideological orientation continues to be opaque. 

 

NK: That's interesting, I recently went on a tour of PDVSA installations in Lagunillas, but I didn't know anything about a relocation program.  What's it all about?

 

JH:  There are more than 60,000 people living along the east bank of Lake Maracaibo who are at risk from a serious disaster.  In the event of a large tremor, the Lagunillas protection wall could break and expose the people to dangerous flooding.  A relocation plan was developed more than 15 years ago.  The plan involved preparation of the community for an eventual disaster and evacuation contingencies.  As a matter of fact the authorities developed an alarm system and they had organized predetermined evacuation routes and secure relocation sites. 

Up to now, however, the authorities have only relocated between 10,000 and 15,000 people.  It seems to me that the relocation could have been carried out better in both quantitative and qualitative terms.  The point is that a technocratic vision still predominates when it comes to dealing with communities.  There should be more attention paid to social and environmental concerns, so that the relocation is carried out with a human face and not just in accordance with economic criteria. 

 

Moreover, through my discussions with local inhabitants I understand that the disaster contingency plans and alarm system was abandoned three years ago.  I have spoken with some PDVSA staff and they seem surprisingly uninformed about this serious matter.  A little while ago I spoke to a woman engineer from PDVSA.  When I brought up the issue of the Lagunillas protection wall and security risks she said no, that wall is not a risk, this wall is completely safe. This attitude indicates to me that something is gravely wrong. 

 

I believe that greater popular participation could minimize the risk of an eventual disaster.  If the Chavez government really takes its rhetoric seriously and promotes popular participation, this is the moment for greater dialogue on safety issues.

 

NK:  Through ICLAM, I was able to tour the PDVSA installations at Lagunillas and the control room which monitors seismic activity.  Outside of actually relocating people, is there anything else that PDVSA could do to protect the population? 

 

JH:  From a technical standpoint there's not much you can do.  We as environmentalists however pose the question of whether all this oil exploration along the east coast of Lake Maracaibo, which has affected 60,000 people and put communities at risk, has been worthwhile in a human sense.  We ask if the costs have been lesser or greater than the benefits.

 

Mining and The Sierra of Perija

 

NK:  What has been the situation within the Sierra of Perija and coal mining?

 

JH:  President Chavez once offered to halt coal production in light of the environmental disaster that would result.  Venezuelan coal production certainly pales beside domestic oil production in economic terms.  What is the advantage that coal mining brings for the Venezuelan economy and the Venezuelan people? 

 

Coal mining, from the outset, has caused considerable environmental destruction.  Not just that, but it's also affected the miners.  Workers have fallen sick with lung disease as a result of their work in the mines.  These workers have spent practically their entire lives in the mines and they are going to die young. 

 

I have also observed that around the mines, the rivers and forests have been destroyed.  Mining doesn't benefit the people nor the indigenous communities in the vicinity which have lost their agricultural way of life as a result of harmful ecological destruction. 

 

While it is true that the money from coal extraction has been used by Chavez for positive social works, the problem has to do with cost and benefit.  I wonder whether it is legitimate to destroy nature to favor a majority which is socially marginalized.  One must consider the plight of the next generation, the sons and daughters of the people who may benefit today.  What will they do when they find that the natural resource base has been destroyed?

 

NK: During my time at the ICLAM conference, I heard someone from the local development agency CORPOZULIA give a talk about ambitious new port facilities in the state of Zulia.  Could you comment about it and explain how it ties into the question of mining?

 

JH:  Currently we confront another environmental threat in the form of a newly proposed project, Bolivar Port.  Corpozulia and Bolivar Port are both linked to coal exploitation.  As a matter of fact, Corpozulia actually owns mining concessions.  This port which has been proposed for the mouth of Lake Maracaibo and the Gulf of Venezuela would prove catastrophic for mangrove vegetation in the area.  Suspiciously, we environmentalists have observed that many figures from the pre-Chavez era are pushing this project.  Investors and officials who are in favor of the port project sit on the government commission.  That is to say the same people who are interested in exploiting coal, which contributed to the displacement of Indians in the Sierra of Perija and the pollution of the soil and rivers, now proclaim that they are brothers of the Bolivarian Revolution. 

 

Lake Maracaibo and Duckweed

 

NK: What is the cause of the proliferating duckweed vegetation which has become a major environmental hazard in Lake Maracaibo? 

 

JH:  I believe that duckweed is not a chronic problem, because it abruptly emerged in 2003 and this points to sudden causes.  Sudden in the sense of an enormous deposit of nutrients in the lake, and a new economic component.  I believe that the new source of nutrients is the shrimp companies which proliferated in Lake Maracaibo starting in 2000.  Half the shrimp companies that exist in Venezuela operate in Lake Maracaibo.  Shrimp farming is sufficiently prolific to give rise to excess nutrients and the duckweed phenomenon.  I believe that ICLAM has sufficient data to prove this to be the case but doesn't pursue the matter for economic and political reasons.

 

NK: How has the Chavez government handled the duckweed problem?

 

JH: I think the official policy in relation to duckweed has been far from desirable.  We are dealing with a government that has revolutionary pretensions, but the Ministry of Environment adopts classic political posturing from the Fourth Republic [prior to Chavez's election] period.  In other words, only the experts know about this problem, while the communities are passive observers, assigned to pick up duckweed which provides employment for the community. 

 

The Chavez government says that environmental damage is inevitable and results from progress.  The government has even claimed that duckweed is beneficial, that it is good news for us.  Chavez, in 2003, said that the duckweed was benign.  The government said that duckweed would be very good for the population because it was going to serve as food for animals, and that it was almost a gift.

 

Fishermen, who number about 10,000-12,000 in Zulia, have been most affected by the duckweed phenomena.  Every year, every time that we go into the rainy season, duckweed invades the beaches.  Duckweed affects people living on the banks of the lake.  It is always the poorest fishermen who are most adversely affected, not the investors in the fish industry. 

 

Paradox of the Petro State

 

NK: Chavez constantly denounces the U.S. for wasteful consumerism and has warned of the green house effect.  But the irony is that Venezuela continues to be a major world oil producer.  Do you think Venezuela should be moving away from oil, in sync with the growing rhetoric?

 

JH:  I don't believe the peak oil theory is a fantasy; I think that by 2050 we will have exhausted oil as a viable energy resource and we will have to rely on new sources of energy.  What will happen to Venezuela, if we are not prepared to live from anything else besides oil?  In the next fifty years we should be going through a process of transition, to substitute oil for another source of energy.  I think from a scientific and technical standpoint we are not doing sufficiently enough to look for oil alternatives.  But the U.S. and its European partners are heading towards the substitution of oil.  And I believe the new energy paradigm will be hydrogen. 

 

In Venezuela we have developed a technological innovation.  It's a new way to take advantage of oil, in the sense of producing energy with less resulting pollution.  Venezuela could be a great producer of orimulsion, a product resulting from the mixture of water and heavy oil.  Orimulsion is less polluting than coal.  I don't understand why we produce coal, which is destroying the Sierra of Perija and the indigenous communities there, when we could develop orimulsion production plants.  We could develop orimulsion, which could compete with coal on the world market.  I am saddened that within the Chavez government officials have not chosen to sufficiently take advantage of orimulsion.

 

Jorge Hinestroza is professor of sociology at the University of Zulia.

Articles touting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's political successes and social programs are a dime a dozen on left wing Web sites these days.  When I was researching my own book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and The Challenge To The U.S. (recently released by St. Martin's Press), I read a lot of these accounts and began to develop an exceedingly idealistic idea of what was happening in Venezuela.  Having just returned from an extended six week trip to the country, however, I feel that the political and social landscape is a lot murkier and more ambiguous than many have suggested.

 

As an admittedly "left wing tourist," I had the fortunate opportunity to participate in a delegation organized by Witness For Peace, a Washington, D.C. based group which has been working for more than twenty years to halt U.S. interventionism in Latin America.  As a member or our delegation, I had the rare privilege to interview figures from across the political spectrum.  After the delegation left, I stayed and conducted more interviews on my own. 

 

Housing: A Mixed Picture

 

One of the most daunting issues facing the Chavez government has been the dire shortage of housing in the country.  All over surrounding Caracas, brick houses lean precariously off the side of steep and eroded hillsides. 

 

To really get a sense of the magnitude of the problem one must first travel to the state of Vargas.  Located about an hour from Caracas by car, Vargas spans the coast and has a brutal tropical climate.  Today, the state is still reeling from a tragic natural disaster which occurred years ago.

 

On December 14, 1999 intense rains fell across the state.  For four days, the rains continued.  On the 17th, massive landslides shook the area, with rivers of dirt and mud falling down the mountain slopes.  The avalanche brought with it collapsed houses, creating a human catastrophe of epic proportions. 

 

Traveling with my delegation to the site of the devastation, we saw a gully where the landslide had washed out houses, mud and earth.  A group of construction workers were laboring in the torrid heat.  They were removing rocks from the area and building a dike further down below. 

We spoke to a middle aged Afro-Colombian woman whose house was severely damaged by the landslide.  "When the landslide arrived," she told us, "it took everything away and anything that was left we had to sell in order to eat." 

 

To the side of the gully, there were still people living in rudimentary cinder block houses with no access to public services.  There was no garbage pick up, forcing local residents to burn their refuse in a gigantic pile.  Looking up the side of the hill, I feared that the earth might collapse on top of the houses in the event of further heavy rains.

 

Seven years later, local residents in the area complained that the government still had not processed their paperwork so they might relocate to safer housing away from the disaster area.  One young man with three children said that he and his family were ready to relocate, but that the authorities had delayed and delayed. 

 

"Chavez has never come here to see what's going on," he complained bitterly.

To be fair, the housing problem predates Chavez's arrival as president.  Prior to his election, there was a great scarcity of housing in the country.  The Vargas tragedy, which occurred scarcely a year into Chavez's first term, compounded the housing situation yet further. 

Nevertheless, the government has brought some relief and has enjoyed some notable successes.

 

Traveling in a blue van rented by our delegation, we traveled to the state of Miranda near Caracas.  There, we saw a model housing program called Ciudad Miranda, consisting of dozens of tall apartment blocks and smaller houses.  A local guide explained that people had been relocated to Ciudad Miranda from unsafe housing in Caracas and Vargas.  Once residents were ensconced in Ciudad Miranda and had been awarded an apartment, they would have twenty years to pay back government housing loans. 

 

As I walked up to the apartment blocks, I noticed that on the first floor many residents had set up cooperative businesses.  According to our local guide, the government had provided start up money for the new cooperatives.  What is more, on one corner the authorities had almost finished constructing a local school.

 

I spoke with the owners of one local grocery who had been refugees from Vargas.  They told me of their harrowing tale of escape, and how their entire house had been swept away by the landslide.  The residents were pleased to have left Vargas behind, but Ciudad Miranda was not immune from social problems. 

 

Store owners told us that some people had moved into Ciudad Miranda without proper documentation and there was little security in the housing complex.  Additionally, from a purely aesthetic point of view Ciudad Miranda left something to be desired: the apartment blocks were unattractive, and the small houses were not much more appealing.

 

On the other hand, in the hills surrounding the town of Charallave in the state of Miranda, the government has tried a different approach.  There, the authorities have built housing on a much smaller, human scale.  Local residents had traded in their ranchitos or rudimentary shacks for charming looking houses. 

 

I admired one house, freshly painted on the outside in red and white.  Walking inside I observed a modern kitchen and bathroom.  The local woman who was set to move in to the house beamed proudly as she guided us around the premises.  She denied that there had been any favoritism in the allocation of housing and that members of the Chavez opposition would be able to acquire a house. 

 

On the other hand, it had been a battle to get the authorities to construct the housing.  According to our guide, the authorities had only been spurred to construct the new houses after local residents mobilized and successfully lobbied the media to draw attention to their plight.      

 

Back in Caracas, I asked Rafael Uzcategui, the media coordinator of the human rights group Provea, what he made of the government housing program.  My old acquaintance was critical of the authorities for what he called an overly quantitative approach.  "The government says it will build, say 100,000 houses.  But more thought needs to go into planning.  New housing needs to be more conveniently located to services, employment, and medical facilities." 

Rafael was also critical of government inefficiency.  Recently, he said, the housing minister was sacked after only one year.  Whenever a fresh minister was appointed the new official would bring a different agenda and separate programs, thus encouraging bureaucratic inefficiency and waste.

 

Seven Years After: Chavez's Mixed Record

 

During a meeting with our delegation, Marino Alvarado, the coordinator at Provea, soberly evaluated Chavez's tenure in office.  While Chavez's victory in 1998 held out the possibility of overcoming traditional social problems, after seven years of the Chavez regime many hopes had not been satisfied. 

 

"There are some policies that are very positive," Marino remarked.  However, he added, "in other areas things are pretty much the same." 

 

Marino conceded that there was a great willingness within the government to help the poorest and historically most marginalized sectors of society.  On the other hand, there was great government inefficiency and "the willingness on the government's part to carry out policies is not enough to make the policies happen."

 

Marino explained that the country was awash in oil money, and people's expectations were high.  However, due to inefficiency public discontent was mounting.

 

"There's a lot of social protest," Marino told us, "calling on the government to comply with promises that haven't been met.  These are not opposition protests against Chavez, we're talking about sectors of the population that are supportive of the government.  They are calling for the authorities to actually implement programs.  They are calling for the right to health care, the right to housing, the right to work."

 

Leaning forward, Marino confided to us, "if you go to the presidential palace right now I'm sure you'll find people there.  Every day there is another protest."

 

Chavez had been fortunate in that he'd enjoyed a kind of cult of personality.  When something went wrong, Marino said, the poor tended to blame inefficient government bureaucrats and not the president.  The problem was that cases of corruption were mounting at the highest levels of government. 

 

Politically, Marino said, Chavez would win the December presidential election. 

 

However, he added, "there could be a moment when people start to point to Chavez as the figure that's responsible for government inefficiency.  If there aren't solutions to social problems very soon, it would not be strange to think that there might be a popular uprising against the president."

To read the article, click here.

Here in New York, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has been causing a sensation. With a recent speech at the United Nations during which he called George Bush "the devil," Chavez turned up his rhetorical bombast on the White House. "I can still smell sulfur in the room," Chavez added, referring to Bush's earlier address at the United Nations. Yesterday, while touring Harlem, Chavez went even further, calling Bush a "sick man" and an alcoholic.

 

It's not the first time that Chavez has relied on such mud slinging.

 

Personally, I preferred Chavez's prior characterization of Bush as "Mr. Danger," a more droll term than the devil.

 

But beyond the mere rhetoric, what does Chavez hope to achieve through this verbal assault? By bashing the White House, Chavez surely shores up his domestic constituency, the Venezuelan poor. And he may enhance his stature world wide as a combative, hemispheric leader.

 

However, the long term impact of Chavez's remarks upon the domestic U.S. political scene is unclear. While many on the liberal left in New York will not disagree with Chavez's opposition to Bush (U.S. interference in Venezuelan affairs, documented in meticulous detail in my recent book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and The Challenge To The U.S., has been a longstanding concern of political activists here), the rest of the country is another matter.

They're watching the likes of CNN, which yesterday spent much of the afternoon deriding Chavez. On one segment, anchor Wolf Blitzer interviewed Republican William Bennett and Democrat Donna Brazzille about Chavez's visit. Both lambasted Chavez for his imprudence. From there it was on to pundit Jack Cafferty who suggested that we immediately deport Chavez back to Venezuela.

 

With the media getting whipped up into a frenzy over Chavez's effrontery, what is worrying is that the Venezuelan president might actually have a political impact on the upcoming Congressional elections in November and tip the scale towards the Republicans. While the GOP looks vulnerable, Bush has recently been surging in the polls by stoking the public's fear of terrorism. He's also been doing a fair amount of saber rattling towards Iran, a nation that Chavez has warmly embraced.

 

Will Chavez play into Bush and Republican hands? The Democrats have been momentarily cast off balance by Chavez's visit. Even liberal Congressman Charlie Rangel of Harlem criticized Chavez for his rhetorical excesses. House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi went even farther, calling Chavez "a thug." The Democrats, it seems, fear that close identification with Chavez could cost them politically.

 

In a very cutthroat sense, they might be right.

 

During the recent presidential election in Peru, the more nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala embraced Chavez. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan leader made no secret of his antipathy towards Humala's challenger, Alan Garcia.

 

Chavez taunted Garcia in much the same way that he is doing now with Bush.

 

The tactic backfired: Garcia exploited the issue, charging that Chavez was blatantly interfering in Peru's domestic politics. Garcia went on to beat Humala in the general election and Chavez was discredited.

 

Does Chavez know what he is doing? The Venezuelan leader likes the limelight, but his actions may have unforseen consequences.

Articles touting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's political successes and social programs are a dime a dozen on left wing Web sites these days.  When I was researching my own book, Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics, and The Challenge To The U.S. (recently released by St. Martin's Press), I read a lot of these accounts and began to develop an exceedingly idealistic idea of what was happening in Venezuela.  Having just returned from an extended six week trip to the country, however, I feel that the political and social landscape is a lot murkier and more ambiguous than many have suggested.

 

As an admittedly "left wing tourist," I had the fortunate opportunity to participate in a delegation organized by Witness For Peace, a Washington, D.C. based group which has been working for more than twenty years to halt U.S. interventionism in Latin America.  As a member or our delegation, I had the rare privilege to interview figures from across the political spectrum.  After the delegation left, I stayed and conducted more interviews on my own. 

 

Feeding the Poor: Chavez Scores Some Gains

 

In our meeting with Marino Alvarado, the cautious Provea human rights advocate praised government programs to bring food to the Venezuelan poor.  After meeting with him in downtown Caracas, our delegation went across town to a so-called "Endogenous Center of Development" housing workers' cooperatives and a government sponsored market or Mercal.  The space had formerly been a pumping station belonging to the state oil company, PdVSA, and was located within the working class district of Catia.

 

Within the market, local residents could buy discounted items including cooking oil, beans, ice cream and shampoo. Jeff Cohen, a media critic and member of our delegation, bought some pasta in the store. Our young guide said that shoppers could save up to 50% on discounted high quality items. Nevertheless, the Chavez opposition claimed that the market served only "dogs." 

 

At another Mercal in the countryside, a package of sugar only cost 750 bolivares, half the price that consumers would pay in a normal supermarket; chicken too was half as expensive.  Discounted pasta had a message on the back of the package: "When the people are in need, its revolutionary government responds!" 

 

Rafael Uzcategui, the media coordinator at Provea, remarked that Chavez's popular markets were "well done."  Rafael argued however that more thought should be put into the planning of popular markets.  Most of the products there were imported, he told me, while the government wrote catchy propagandistic slogans on the packaging.  In the long term, Rafael said, Venezuela would have to develop greater food self sufficiency to feed the neediest.

 

The government had also put a great deal of effort into promoting soup kitchens.  I had the opportunity to observe one of the kitchens, located within a Mennonite church which worked closely with Witness For Peace.  Working class Protestants comprise a chief base of support for the Chavez regime, and the government provided raw food to the church. 

 

The church was run by Pedro, a wiry and hardworking black man, and his wife America.  Their family, including children and a Siberian Husky puppy, lived in the church.  Upstairs, women prepared the food that had been donated by the government in large vats and pots.  On one day, the church staff provided lunch to the poor waiting outside in the street.  The meal consisted of juice, rice, patacones (fried and mashed plantains), and sausage.

 

Workers' Cooperatives: Advancements and Criticisms

 

One example of the government's determination to eradicate poverty is the Women's Bank.  Housed along pollution clogged Urdaneta Avenue in downtown Caracas, the bank has extended credit to working class women so that they might form small businesses. 

 

To get a better sense of how the Women's Bank had affected working class women, our delegation traveled to Charallave, a town outside of Caracas.  After a rather hair raising ride through the mountains, we arrived at a house which housed a women's baking cooperative and Mercal. 

 

After completing a quick baking course, the women had applied for credit from the Women's Bank and set up their thriving bakery.  Spread out on the tables were pastries that looked much more tempting than the usual fare served up in most Caracas bakeries. 

 

According to Ercilia Seijas, one of the workers, the cooperative started initially with 27 women.  This number subsequently went down however to 14.  This was so, she explained, because the women's husbands fiercely resisted their spouses growing economic independence. 

 

The women worked in two shifts: the morning crew arrived at 6 A.M. and finished at mid-day.  The others worked from noon until 6 P.M.

 

"Our lives have improved," Seijas remarked.  "We were taking care of the house before the subsidized market and cooperative.  Now we can make money."     

 

We also visited cooperatives at the "Endogenous Center of Development." Within the complex in Catia, workers had set up a textile and shoe manufacturing cooperative.  The textile facility had two male workers but otherwise was staffed solely by women. 

 

In Venezuela, explained a young woman guide, poverty affected women hardest.  It was they, she added, who had to shoulder the responsibility of raising children when men abandoned the family. 

 

On the other hand, our guide remarked, the women had undergone a profound psychological shift working in the cooperative.  Before, they had always been ordered around, but now they had all become part owners in the cooperative and took great pride in the Che Guevara T-shirts produced at the plant. 

 

Later, Jeff Cohen and I walked outside into the street, where we were greeted by huge murals depicting Simon Bolivar.  Jeff remarked that the cooperative model of development at Catia bore striking similarities to the classic anarchist vision emphasizing democratic and decentralized workers' control.

 

To get a more critical perspective on the cooperative issue, I asked my old acquaintance Rafael Uzcategui what he thought.  In the conference room back at Provea, we discussed Chavez's many social programs. 

 

Five years previously when I'd met him Rafael was a student at the Central University of Caracas, writing his thesis about the anti-globalization movement and the significance of the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization. 

 

He'd been a frequent contributor to El Libertario, an anarchist newspaper published in Caracas.  He'd now cut his hair but still wore his trademark high top canvas sneakers.  Rafael said that his work now took up much of his time but he still managed to write for the paper.

I'd read numerous columns appearing in El Libertario over the years, and sometimes grew frustrated with the newspaper's seemingly relentless criticism of the Chavez government. What, if anything would satisfy the writers? 

 

"Isn't Catia an anarchist idea?" I prodded.

 

Rafael said that in theory the cooperatives were a good idea, but in practice the government would hire cooperatives to sweep the street or carry out other work without extending adequate labor protections.  He added that in some cooperatives, but not all, there was no right to social security.  What's more, the authorities had been derelict by extending credit to groups of workers who would then take advantage of government largesse and set up fictitious or ghost cooperatives.

Articles touting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's political successes and social programs are a dime a dozen on left wing Web sites these days.  When I was researching my own book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and The Challenge To The U.S. (recently released by St. Martin's Press), I read a lot of these accounts and began to develop an exceedingly idealistic idea of what was happening in Venezuela.  Having just returned from an extended six week trip to the country, however, I feel that the political and social landscape is a lot murkier and more ambiguous than many have suggested.

 

As an admittedly "left wing tourist," I had the fortunate opportunity to participate in a delegation organized by Witness For Peace, a Washington, D.C. based group which has been working for more than twenty years to halt U.S. interventionism in Latin America.  As a member or our delegation, I had the rare privilege to interview figures from across the political spectrum.  After the delegation left, I stayed and conducted more interviews on my own. 

 

Education: Some Significant Successes

 

Without a doubt the Chavez regime has scored important victories which have improved the lot of the Venezuelan poor, which make up 70% of the population.  Not even members of the middle class opposition that I spoke with deny the government's numerous accomplishments. 

Mariño Alvarado, the coordinator of Provea, an important Caracas-based human rights organization, explained to our delegation that in education the government had achieved some successes.  A lawyer by profession, Mariño had been working with Provea for ten years.  Hardly a tool of the right wing opposition, Provea provides rigorous and objective human rights analysis, as well as important information about social, cultural and economic conditions in Venezuela.

 

A solemn man with indigenous features, Mariño spoke to us in a deliberate, serious tone.  At the Provea headquarters located in downtown Caracas, he remarked that the authorities had been able to increase the number of school age children studying at all educational levels.  What's more, he added, "the government has carried out a very successful literacy campaign, and built an impressive number of schools." 

 

After my delegation left for the States, I stayed in Caracas and caught up with Rafael Uzcategui, who had just recently started working with Provea as the organization's media coordinator.  Five years earlier I'd met Rafael in Caracas.  At that time he had been a student at the Central University and I was pursuing field work on my doctoral dissertation dealing with the oil industry. 

 

To be fair, Rafael said, Chavez was not the first Venezuelan president to deliver massive state support for education.  "In previous periods when the price of oil was high," he explained, "various governments were able to enact social policies as there was money floating around."  Even Acción Democrática, a corrupt party derided by Chavez, had funded the massification of education through oil revenue prior to Chavez's election in 1998.

 

Nevertheless, one cannot deny the government's successes.  Piling into a blue van, our delegation paid a visit to one of the government's many "Bolivarian" schools near to the town of Charallave.  An immaculately clean, pleasant, and orderly facility, the school had a computer room and a newly constructed basketball court outside.  Outside a girl swung happily from a swing. 

 

Unfortunately, school was not in session and we did not observe class.  I do not doubt for a moment however that most any parent would have been proud to have his or her children in that school, surely superior to many dilapidated schools within inner cities of the United States.

 

Health Care: Successes and Shortcomings

 

For Marino, one of the other hallmark accomplishments of the Chavez government has been health care.  Across Venezuela, the government has set up so-called Barrio Adentro clinics administering primary care to marginalized sectors of society.  Cuban doctors, whose presence in Venezuela has stoked political controversy, staff the Barrio Adentro clinics. 

One day we had the opportunity, purely by chance, to speak with one of the Cuban doctors.  During a visit to a poor slum in the Caracas area one of the members of our delegation, a young college student, fell into conversation on the street with a strapping man in his forties with a moustache.  He explained that he was a doctor working in the local Barrio Adentro clinic.

 

Inside his clinic, there was a photo of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, as well as a picture of Simon Bolivar, an independence leader who fought against Spain. The doctor, who seemed leery of talking with us on the record, said that the community had accepted him and that he frequently played baseball with local residents.  He had seemingly adapted to life in Venezuela, though the serious drug addiction problem in the country had startled him. 

Inside the makeshift facility, the doctor had a cabinet stocked with basic medicines.  The doctor admitted that Cuba had a much better health system than Venezuela.  He said that though he was pleased to oblige and provide his services in Venezuela, the Cuban presence was a mere band aid.

 

During a visit to the working class district of Catia, we had the opportunity to observe another, more specialized clinic.  Within the clinic we observed separate departments specializing in gynecology, pathology, dentistry and pediatrics.  According to our guide, doctors attended 400 people daily in the clinic, principally from Catia.  If patients had more serious ailments, they were referred in turn to local hospitals.

 

It's undeniable that the Barrio Adentro clinics and the new facility at Catia have made a difference for poor Venezuelans who historically had negligible access to health care.  However, according to Mariño, though programs like Barrio Adentro have been a signal success the full health care system is still very deficient and has not improved substantially under Chavez.

 

"Cuban doctors can treat certain problems," remarked my old acquaintance Rafael.  "But what happens if someone has to go to the hospital, get an operation, and the hospital doesn't work?"