Venezuela launches Petrocaribe, extending regional oil diplomacy's reach

[Say_What]

Man does this guy have energy. A day or so ago it was Telesur and today its Pertrocaribe. I know that Petrosur is coming up too, but not sure when and there are other projects in the works as well.

Viva Chavez!!

<clips>

With his communist ally Fidel Castro of Cuba on hand, leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez launched Petrocaribe, a new cut-rate oil diplomacy vehicle that could greatly increase Chavez's regional influence.

Chavez promised highly preferential oil pricing for the 15 Caribbean members, with Venezuela picking up 40 percent of the cost if oil is selling over 50 dollars a barrel, as it is now.

If it should hit 100 dollars a barrel, Chavez said, "we would pay 50 percent for signatory countries, with a grace period extended from one to two years."

He also pledged to foot the bill for shipping oil to Petrocaribe participants directly, and to help set up local storage facilities across the Caribbean.

With sharp rhetoric, Chavez also slammed "an energy crisis the world is having dumped on its head more than for any reason because of the excessive wasting of the developed north; it is irrational consumerism."

Castro, 78, said the United States invaded Iraq to control its oil wealth.

"Now that they control all the oil, what is going to be left for developing countries?" he asked. Developed countries "control almost 100 percent of nuclear fuel. They say that they have the resources, that they will solve the problems. What they are going to produce is an enormous crisis," Castro argued.

http://www.todayonline.com/articles/58901.asp

[wakeme2008]

1. In truth he is not given away much $$$

How much Oil does say Barbados use a year... But OTOH,,, this makes him a major player in the Caribbean basin... :)

[LiberallyInclined]

6. a lot of the oil used by caribbean countries-

is used by/in support of the travel business- keeping prices lower for attracting the evil capitalists from the north.

[jody]

2. Mammon's golden rule is "those with the gold make the rules" but

Chavez says no, "those with the oil make the rules".

[Say_What]

4. Excellent analysis at NACLA yesterday about Venezuela

<clips>

...It is Chávez’s efforts, along with those of neighboring leaders, to create a “counter-hegemonic bloc” that has more potential bite than bark. Although substantive steps toward greater and deeper regional economic and political integration have been largely led by Brazil, it is Chávez’s emotive billing of integration under an anti-neoliberal banner that gives the process widespread support throughout the region. Helped by Brazil, he has also sought regional economic cooperation with Asian countries, particularly China, in an effort to diversify his country’s U.S.-dominated trade and investment portfolio. Instead of perceiving Latin America’s integration projects as sure-fire ways of ceding sovereignty, he understands regional integration, bloc-building and South-South solidarity as vehicles for attaining national sovereignty amid coercive U.S. power.

Of course, there are more radical forces at work in the region, notably in Bolivia, but none have yet achieved state power. Undoubtedly, Chávez is attempting a state-sponsored transformation of Venezuela, and by extension the hemisphere. He has invited Venezuelans to join him in constructing “a socialism for the twenty-first century”—presumably as opposed to Cuba’s. But in today’s context, what the Venezuelan government is carrying out is almost as radical as what the bearded revolutionaries achieved in the Caribbean. In both cases, immediate efforts focused on the radical inclusion of the nations’ poor, darker-hued majorities, and the chipping away of elite power.

Much ink has been spilled about Chávez’s “Bolivarian Revolution,” his policies, his ideas and his style— especially by those questioning his “democratic credentials.” It seems the stagnation of the Cuban predicament has given way to a new crucible of debate and critique around questions of social justice, anti-imperialism, neoliberalism, socialism, democracy and, ultimately, the liberation of a hemisphere.

http://www.nacla.org/art_display.php?art=2571

[jody]

5. Thanks for the link.

:hi:

[1932]

7. There's power in a union.

[slor]

3. Maybe I need to move there...

I like his style!

[Minstrel Boy]

8. In a world that offers little hope,

there's Hugo Chavez.

[Say_What]

9. Hugo is to this generation what Allende, Che, and others were to theirs

The difference I think is that the entire southern cone is consolidating their power. Tio Sam is no longer the slave master.