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Hugo Chavez Stays on Top
// But for How Long?
Long before the recent presidential elections in Venezuela, it was commonly presumed that the United States was preparing for them as for a decisive battle for its own interests in Latin America. And it now appears that the Americans had good reason to feel that the stakes in the Venezuelan elections were so high.
Hugo Chavez has annoyed the world’s only superpower practically since the moment he came to power in 1998. His anti-American rhetoric, which gets more and more harsh every year. His constant insults directed at the US president, as well as at the high officials of the world’s international bodies. And his friendship with America’s sworn enemies, whether it be Cuban leader Fidel Castro or fallen Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Moreover, the Americans cannot help but worry that the appalling, from their point of view, example of the Venezuelan leader is becoming more and more contagious, at least in Latin America. For example, the recent winner of the Ecuadorian presidential election, Rafael Correa, has openly called himself a disciple of Hugo Chavez. Meanwhile, the US has just invested more than $100 million in modernizing its military base in Ecuador.
Hugo Chavez is landing painful blows on the US on the oil front as well. In 2002, he took control of Venezuela’s oil, and last summer, during a visit to Beijing, he announced his readiness to supply China with Venezuelan oil that is currently being supplied to the United States.
Convinced that Washington would be fighting a decisive battle with the disagreeable Venezuelan leader in the recent elections, the Americans made many preemptive attempts to remove him from power. The United States has basically admitted that it supported an attempted coup in Venezuela in spring 2002, when Hugo Chavez briefly lost power, though for all of one day. In the spring of 2003, Washington began to lay the groundwork for Chavez’s removal within the framework of the struggle against international terrorism. For that plan, they were going to use Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia as a launching pad.
However, there was no decisive battle fought in the recent Venezuelan elections. Moreover, the impression was given that the Americans had all but made their peace with the disagreeable leader’s expected victory. In any case, American participation in the preelection process was barely felt at all.
That does not mean, however, that the United States has decided to give up on Venezuela and its current authoritarian leader. It is simply that Washington has apparently reckoned that the time for dealing a decisive blow to Hugo Chavez has not yet arrived. The moment will be right when oil prices start falling.
After all, the current support enjoyed by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and his extravagant behavior on the international stage are based largely on the high price of oil. It is thanks to expensive oil that the Venezuelan leader can build his grandiose plans for a battle with American imperialism and engineer an unlimited tenure in power. Once the price of oil falls, the situation will be very different.
Gennady Sysoyev
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 05, 2006
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