Chávez's oil largesse winning fans abroad
London is the latest city to get a fuel deal as part of the Venezuelan leader's '21st century socialism.'
from the March 5, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
It is this type of "demonstration effect," as Mr. Tinker-Salas calls it, that could ultimately prove lasting in the region and beyond.
In the US, Venezuela is sending oil subsidized at a 40 percent discount from the delivery price to 16 states – double from the year before – as well as 163 native American tribes. That represents 100 million gallons of fuel this winter. The program brochure describes it this way: "This is a people-to-people program that comes from the heart of Venezuela to the homes of American families who just can't pay their energy bills."
"In New York, residents wonder why a foreign country has to provide this. They want to know, 'Why can't you provide it? Or BP and Shell?' " says Tinker-Salas. "It's highlighting what those countries are not doing for their own populations."
That was the sentiment in November in a neighborhood called Las Torres, one of the poorest in Nicaragua's capital, Managua, which has been plagued by blackouts over the past year. "Light? Of course not," says Flor de Maria Flores, who regularly lights her home by candle, and, like so many of her neighbors, cooks over an open fire. She was vaguely aware of Chávez's plan to send discounted oil to her nation to help ease power blackout problems. "I'm glad someone is doing something about it," she says.
Chávez's latest scheme, signed by London's leftist mayor Ken Livingstone on Feb. 20, will save the city $32 million a year. In return, London transport chiefs will visit Caracas next month to advise on traffic management and urban planning. "The agreement with Venezuela is to use the energy cost contribution to alleviate the impact of high energy costs for some of the poorest Londoners," says a spokesperson for Mayor Livingstone.
But critics have questioned the logic of the deal. "I find it strange that the capital of a G-8 country is effectively receiving foreign aid from a poor country," says Richard Barnes, a Livingstone opponent in the Greater London Assembly. "Thirty-eight percent of [Venezuela's] people live below the poverty line and here [Venezuela] is subsidizing London's poor."
London joins a growing list of locales receiving Chávez largesse. Venezuela's oil has gone to at least 18 nations. Cheap oil is sent to needy Caribbean nations as part of Chávez's Petrocaribe initiative. Recently he pledged to send Nicaragua 10,000 barrels of discounted oil and oil products a day.
In its most obvious defiance against the US, Venezuela sends 100,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba at subsidized rates. The projects go beyond oil. Venezuela gave Argentina $2.5 billion to pay off its debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year, and promised to help Bolivia to continue nationalizing key industries.
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