by the El Reportero news services
César Chávez
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez claimed this week that the US is plotting to destabilise his government and ostracise it within Latin America. It is not the first time that Chávez has made such claims but both of the alleged plots this time involve firm developments rather than idle speculation. The first involves a case being heard by the US judiciary against four men arrested in Miami last week accused of involvement in a conspiracy to conceal an illegal campaign payment meant for Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández. The second was a long investigative report by the Spanish daily El País portraying Venezuela as a narcosanctuary for the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc).
Hugo Chávez in Havana Petrocaribe Summit: “Free Trade Doesn’t exist”
Raúl Castro: “At a time when the oil prices have broken every record, creating an extremely complex situation to most of the oil importing third world nations, the member countries of Petrocaribe are in a privileged position,” he said.
Hugo Chavez said Petrocaribe members’ collective debt for Venezuelan crude is currently near $1.2 billion and is expected to grow to $4.5 billion by 2010. He is promoting Petrocaribe as part of a larger effort to create a regional confederation from Argentina to Cuba that will help the region counter U.S. influence.
Presidents Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Rene Preval of Haiti and Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic, Belize’s Prime Minister Said Musa, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, Guyana’s Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding and St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, were attending the summit.
Other Leaders attending, Honduras’ Defense Minister Aristides Mejia, St. Kitts and Nevis’ Energy Minister Earl Asim Martin, Grenada’s Energy Minister Gregory Bowen, St. Lucia’s Industry Minister Guy Mayers, Suriname’s Oil Companies Managing Director Mark Waaldijk, Len Ishmael, Director General of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean, and representative from Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados.
CIENFUEGOS, Cuba – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez presided Friday at a regional petroleum summit in Cuba, pressing his efforts to counter U.S. infl uence in Latin America and the Caribbean by suggesting more of his neighbors could pay for cheap oil with goods or services in lieu of cash.
In his opening speech to the Petrocaribe summit in Cienfuegos, a southern coastal city about 155 miles from Havana, Chavez said his plan to provide low-cost oil to the region should go beyond financing mechanisms. He offered other countries the option of following the model of Cuba, which repays by sending doctors who offer free services to the poor in Venezuela.
Providing fuel in return for locally produced goods or services has been an option for some time under Venezuela’s current Petrocaribe pact, which supplies oil to the region through long-term, low interest financing. But it is unclear how many countries other than Cuba have taken up the offer.
Chavez also called for creating an international fund to promote solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative energy sources.
