Posted on 04/26/2003 11:54:36 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
RECIFE, Brazil - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday that foreign powers shouldn't meddle with Iraq's oil and that any interference would be a return to colonialism.
"Iraqi oil should be handled by the Iraqi people," Chavez said after arriving in this northeastern Brazilian city. "Otherwise it would be going back 200 years, and I don't want to think that the new century is beginning with colonialism."
Chavez and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva discussed several joint business projects, including construction of a $2 billion oil refinery.
No agreement was formalized to build the refinery, but Chavez told reporters he wants to sign an agreement as soon as possible.
Although five Brazilian states are vying for the project, Chavez said he prefers Pernambuco state.
Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, was the home of Jose Inacio de Abreu e Lima, a 19th-century Brazilian independence soldier who fought against Spain along with Venezuela's liberator, Simon Bolivar - who is Chavez's hero.
Chavez's visit to Brazil was the third since Silva took office on Jan. 1, but this was the first specifically to discuss business, not politics.
For years, Brazil was little more than a customer for Venezuelan oil. But the populist Chavez has pushed for closer ties with Silva, Brazil's first leftist president in 40 years.
Early this year, as Chavez faced an opposition strike demanding his resignation, Brazil played a key role creating a Group of Friends of Venezuela. The group - which includes the United States, Mexico, Spain, Portugal and Chile - works with the Organization of the American States to help the oil-rich nation resolve its domestic strife.
Weeks before the group was formed, Brazil sold Venezuela over half a million barrels of gasoline, just at the peak of a two-month oil strike that crippled Venezuela's economy. The strike eventually ended without reaching its goal of ousting Chavez.
The refinery is a long-standing economic development idea to meet the needs of Brazil's north and northeast, a vast poverty-stricken region with a population of 40 million - nearly a fourth of Brazil's 170 million people and almost double Venezuela's 24 million.
It would also improve refining capacity for Venezuela and Brazil, Chavez said. Brazil exports crude oil, but must import gasoline because it lacks refining capacity.
"We want to refine oil in or as close to Venezuela as possible - in the Caribbean, in the Andes or here in Brazil," he said. "We can refine all this oil here and sell gasoline not only in South America but also in the Caribbean and Africa."
The Brazilian government has not yet decided where to build the plant, which eventually would process up to 200,000 barrels of crude daily. At least five northeastern and northern states are interested.
At their meeting, Chavez and Silva discussed the situation in post-war Iraq. Silva, who opposed the war, said he is "committed to contributing for the United Nations to have again a key role in a lasting solution of this matter."
May 2001 - Chavez to Promote Third World Unity***CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Leftist President Hugo Chavez is embarking on a three-week journey across Asia to promote Venezuela's economic interests and his vision of a united Third World.
Chavez will visit several countries whose leaders will likely have a sympathetic ear for his uneasiness with what he considers U.S. dominance abroad. He trip starting Sunday takes him to Russia, Iran, China, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Chavez has raised eyebrows in Washington since coming to power. He has maintained a close friendship with Cuban President Fidel Castro has praised China's human rights record, and became the first democratically elected leader to visit Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War.***
Inspired by Cuba's system of urban market gardens, which has been operating for several years, left-wing President Hugo Chavez has ordered the creation of similar intensive city plots across Venezuela in a bid to develop food self-sufficiency in the world's No. 5 oil exporter. "Let's sow our cities with organic, hydroponic mini-gardens," said the populist former paratrooper, who survived a brief coup a year ago and toughed out a crippling opposition strike in December and January. Inside Fuerte Tiuna military headquarters, soldiers of the crack Ayala armored battalion supervised by Cuban instructors have swapped their rifles for shovels and hoes to tend neat rows of lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, coriander and parsley.
Since his election in late 1998, Chavez has drafted the armed forces to serve his self-styled "revolution" in a range of social projects, from providing medical services to running low-cost food markets for the poor. Besides the military vegetable patch in Fuerte Tiuna, the government has also planted a 1.2 acre (half-hectare) plot in Caracas' downtown Bellas Artes district. The market garden, denominated "Bolivar 1" in honor of Venezuela's independence hero Simon Bolivar, is being run by an agricultural cooperative set up in a nearby poor neighborhood.
PUBLIC SKEPTICISM The sight of sprouting vegetables nestling in concrete-lined earth beds behind wire fences in central Caracas causes many passers-by to stare. "This might be all right to provide for a family but not to feed a country," scoffed Diego Di Coccio, a 40-year-old unemployed businessman. "They should use the money to unblock the drains," said chemical technician Hector Gonzalez, pointing to the piles of rubbish in the streets around. Skeptics question why resource-rich Venezuela should need urban vegetable gardens when it has hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile farming land, much not in use. ***
Rather, the problem is that Brazil, the biggest country in South America, is sitting on the sidelines while the neighborhood is afire, several of the speakers said. Brazil is still paralyzed by 19th century fears of U.S. imperial designs, which have long driven it to instinctively reject almost anything coming from Washington or supported by Washington, regardless of its merits, they said. These days, Brazil is effectively blocking a Canadian-sponsored proposal to hold an emergency summit with President Bush and 33 other elected leaders in the hemisphere, aimed at doing something about the escalating crises in Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Haiti and several other countries.
Such a presidential summit would, among other things, force the Bush administration to pay some attention to Latin America, which fell off White House radar screens after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But while the United States, Mexico, Caribbean nations and most South American countries support the emergency summit, which would be held in September in Mexico, Brazil is stone-walling the proposal, Canadian and U.S. officials say. ''Everybody is mystified as to why Brazil doesn't go along,'' says Paul D. Durand, Canada's ambassador to the Organization of American States.***
Let's hope not. I know a number of good people down there who think Chavez is OUT this August by democratic referendum.
Meaning, in other words, "The Iraqi people should get a swell dictator like me to run things".
He somehow forgot they just had that.
Regards, Ivan
Indeed. Best case would be for Chavez to step down gracefully if defeated in a legitimate election.
But when have people like him ever stepped down, except at gunpoint? I hope this ends peacefully, but I have a feeling it will not.
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