english.pravda.ru 10:25 2003-01-15 The crisis in the South American country may frustrate US plans in Iraq

As political temperature in Venezuela keeps on rising, the US Department of State decided to take the conflict very seriously and designed a new action plan to avoid a global oil crisis. The problem for Washington is that Venezuela's strike has mined the normal flow of crude to USA just weeks before the so-called attack on Iraq.

Venezuela's strike has contributed to an increase in U.S. gasoline prices by 5 cents per gallon in the past three weeks to an average $1.50 a gallon, according to the Lundberg Survey of 8,000 U.S. service stations. No one can predict which will be the impact on oil prices of a war against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Citing scarce gasoline imports from Venezuela, the U.S. Energy Department said American motorists could pay up to $1.54 per gallon of gasoline this spring even if war is averted in Iraq.

"The market underestimated the tenacity of the Venezuelan strikers,'' said Phil Flynn, head of the energy trading desk at Alaron Trading Corp. on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to the foreign press. "People are finally starting to wake up not just to the strike but also to Venezuela's importance as an U.S. supplier".

Therefore, an immediate resolution of the crisis in Venezuela is absolutely necessary to secure oil supplying in case the battles in the Middle East become long. Therefore, the US Department of State initiated talks with other powers amid the region to reinforce OAS mission in Caracas. Washington wants Brazil, Mexico and probably Argentina to be part of the "Friends of Venezuela" group, to conclude the mediation talks with a reasonable agreement between Chavez and the opposition. The sooner, the better for US interests.

By the way, the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, got also involved in the conflict on Tuesday. Annan offered his help to calm down the situation in Caracas. But he does not lose time: on Thursday, Annan will meet Chavez in New York during the turning over of Venezuela's leadership of the "Group of 77" developing nations to Morocco for 2003.

"I will be seeing President Hugo Chavez here on Thursday ... and I hope to be able to discuss with him the developments in Venezuela, and how one can intensify the mediation efforts, to calm the situation and return it to normality," Annan said to Reuters.

Venezuela already lost $4 billion due to the oil strike. How much can lose the oil depending US industry if solutions do not come soon?

Hernan Etchaleco PRAVDA.Ru Argentina

www.timesdaily.com By MONTE HAYES Associated Press Writer January 15. 2003 2:33AM

Former coup leader Lucio Gutierrez pledged to battle corruption and entrenched poverty after he takes office Wednesday as Ecuador's new president, and warned that he would call street protests if the nation didn't change.

In a fiery address Tuesday night before the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Gutierrez said he would found a new Ecuador based on "ethical values, moral values ... with social justice" for the poor, including Ecuador's large Indian population.

Despite his strong words, in his first clashes with what he has labeled as a "corrupt" political establishment, Gutierrez has taken a beating and come off looking inept.

He has been forced to back down from a series of demands and threats. He even had to apologize publicly for having said all the country's ex-presidents should be in jail for their responsibility in "the national disaster."

Gutierrez, 45, has also been accused of showing an authoritarian streak, raising fears in many Ecuadoreans that he may be a copycat version of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez is a former paratrooper and coup leader whose leftist rhetoric has divided Venezuela along class lines and produced growing political instability.

"I think they are different personalities but their political plans are not so different," said Benjamin Ortiz, head of a Quito think tank. "His goal is to accumulate political power and if he achieves it, it will be a beginning similar to that of Chavez, who began with popular referendums."

Gutierrez, frequently referred to in the streets simply as "the Colonel," thrust himself into the national spotlight three years ago when he led a group of disgruntled junior army officers and 5,000 Indian protesters in an uprising that drove the highly unpopular Jamil Mahuad from power in the midst of the country's worst economic crisis in decades.

He won an election runoff in November, on a campaign pledge to put an end to deeply rooted corruption.

One international study ranks Ecuador as the second-most corrupt country in Latin America and the eighth most corrupt in the world. In his campaign Gutierrez pledged to reduce the number of lawmakers, eliminate the influence of political parties over the court system and extradite corrupt bankers who made off with people's money when the banking system collapsed in 1999. He plans to call popular referendums to achieve his reforms. "At some moment the country must change or if it doesn't I will convoke marches," he said in an interview published Sunday in the daily HOY. "We will not permit the mafia to destroy what we want to build."

Gutierrez got a taste of what he faces in his efforts to rein in Ecuador's traditional power brokers when he failed to negotiate an agreement with opposition parties that would have given him control of the 100-member Congress. Gutierrez's political coalition has only 17 seats.

He angrily declared he would not take the oath of office in Congress but in front of "the people" in another forum. But when told the constitution required the oath be taken in Congress and that his vice president would be sworn in as president instead, Gutierrez backed down.

He then threatened not to accept the presidential banner from the Congress president, whose election he questioned as unconstitutional, before again backing down.

"He has no political experience and isn't familiar with constitutional norms, the mechanisms of negotiation," said Simon Pachano, a political scientist. "He is showing the authoritarian spirit of a military man. He is chief of the executive branch. He can't give orders to Congress.

"I think he's going to have a conflictive government and is going to want to resolve things in the street like Chavez."

Despite tripping up in his first confrontation with Congress, Gutierrez appears to have strong backing among the poor, just as Chavez has enjoyed in Venezuela.

Gonzalo Lopez, 51, a truck driver in Quito, is a Gutierrez supporter. "Congress is full of the corrupt," he said. "The traditional parties don't want the reforms that Lucio wants so that he can govern for the people."

athena.tbwt.com By Rufus G. W.  Sanders TBWT Contributor Article Dated 1/13/2003

To date the president have not been able to convince the thinking-American-public and indeed the discerning world that to go to war against Iraq is the just and the moral thing to do. But that's probably because he has not been totally honest and open with the American people. The evidence that he gives is not only flimsy at best for war justification, but according to the UN weapons inspectors is non existent.

The inspectors to date have not seen nor discovered any signs of the much taunted and prohibited biological weapons of mass destruction that the Bush people have purported that the Iraqis have. They won't even share with the world the so called smoking guns of evidence that they and the British supposedly have to substantiate what is fastly becoming Railean- like claims of legitimacy.

While the president continues to claim that he hopes that war can be avoided; he has already moved over a 100,000 American soldiers to the Gulf region. It's obvious that he is hell bent on war no matter what the outcome is of the final UN inspectors report. I submit that by February 1, the United States will more than likely declare war against The Republic of Iraq. This has been the single most thing on the mind of George Bush ever since he took office as president of the United States.

At this point for him not to rush to war would make him advisors look like the insensitive tunnel visioned bunch of arrogant power craze egomaniacs that they really are on this issue.

He goes to war because it would be a huge and reckless waste of the billions of dollars that has already been taken from the deficit ridden national treasury to mobilize such a large and unnecessary armada that now surrounds Iraq.

He goes to war because this becomes an imperialistic opportunity to send a message of force to the North Koreans and the Iranians that rather than negotiate through conversation and diplomacy; America alone will decide who is allowed to have nuclear weapons on this planet and who's not to have them.

He goes to war to send a message to the Chinese rather than talk to them directly about their dubious record of support for terrorist's camps around the globe and their lucrative commercial trade in weapons of mass destruction. The entire world knows that it is China who sold nuclear secrets to the Pakistani's, who then passed them on to the North Koreans, who then sold them to Yemen; which we then permitted.

So rather than deal with the real problem; which is Chinese support of terrorism; we sagaciously and rather sheepishly send them this veiled message at the expense of millions of Iraqi people who will die, but who to this date has done nothing to us. Every state that is listed on the so called international list of rogue nations and who practice or abet international terrorism has received technology and arms directly from China.

It's no secret that while the North Koreans and the Chinese have had political problems for centuries; they still share the same common emotions, heritage and histories that bought them together in the Korean War against the United States and that those sentiments yet simmer, even to the point of boiling over at times. Not to mention America's lingering Taiwan problem. Therefore it should be the Chinese and the North Koreans that we ought now to be dealing with directly and maybe taking a more diplomatic stance with the Iraqi. Because they both already have nuclear weapons

He goes to war because the American economy is in the worst shape that it has been in for decades. Joblessness is at a high that it has not seen in years. The entire stock exchange for the last few years has been in a free fall. Even with interest rates at lows that have not been seen for 30 years, the economy just can't seem to rebound.

The real hope and focus of this administration is that a war will help the economy get going. His new budget proposal earmarks billions of dollars for the war effort and the new war economy that will be created; while cutting almost all but entitled domestic spending programs. It will be the producers of war equipment and the merchants of energy that will benefit from any spoils that come from this new war economy.

We all know that the spoils will be oil. The rich will get richer and the poor will be forced to continue to take whatever it is that will happen to trickle down from the wealthy newly enriched Titans of the first imperialistic commercial venture of the 21 century. Mr. Bush goes to war not only because Iraq is the easiest of the Axis of evil states to invade, but also because Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world.

Now that we have our hands on the rich oil reserves in Afghanistan and with our hands on the fields in Iraq, not only will we have encircled Iran but we would have neutralized the oil producing Arab world. We will be able to literally control the world. It would then not matter what OPEC did with the rising and lowering of oil prices or what happens to the oil economies in Venezuela or Nigeria, because we would be major players as well.

He also goes to war out of a political revenge and personal vendetta, like his father, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney; he hates Saddem Hussein for disrupting the presidency and tarnishing the legacy of the first Bush political administration. He goes to war because the powers that be have sat back and been silent. They will speak only when the sons and daughters of America come home in body bags, but then it will be too late.

www.heraldtribune.com By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER Associated Press Writer

A seven-week-old opposition strike against President Hugo Chavez dropped Venezuela's currency to a new low Wednesday and sent Venezuelans in the capital scrambling to banks to buy dollars.

Support for Chavez's adamant refusal to consider early elections showed signs of crumbling as three pro-Chavez lawmakers unveiled a plan for an early vote on his presidency.

The strike has slashed oil exports to a trickle, depriving the government of half its income. Venezuela's bolivar currency closed at 1,716 to the U.S. dollar, down 6 percent from Tuesday. In Caracas, hundreds of citizens waited in long lines at banks and exchange houses to buy dollars.

Trying to calm fears of an economic crash, the government denied speculation that it plans to devalue the bolivar so it can balance its $25 billion budget. Most government income is in dollars and a weaker bolivar would increase its domestic spending power. Venezuela has acknowledged the oil strike has cost $4 billion so far.

Venezuela's opposition launched the strike Dec. 2 to demand that Chavez resign or call early elections if he loses a Feb. 2 nonbinding referendum on his rule.

The National Elections Council is organizing the vote, but Chavez says he will ignore it, and ruling party lawmakers have challenged its legality in court. Venezuela's constitution allows citizens to petition for a binding referendum halfway through a six-year presidential term, or August. Opposition leaders fear Chavez will find a way to postpone it.

Chavez was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000.

Rafael Simon Jimenez, a pro-Chavez lawmaker who quit the leftist Podemos party, said he and two other legislators would introduce a measure as early as next week to amend the constitution. It would end Chavez's term later this year and allow general elections.

The proposal by Jimenez and Chavez supporters Guillermo Palacios and Luis Salas would leave opposition legislators just one vote shy of a simple majority needed to pass an amendment in the 165-seat Congress. Jimenez said he was looking for that vote. Elections are the only way to solve Venezuela's political crisis and end the 45-day-old strike, which has raised gasoline and oil prices abroad, Jimenez said.

"We don't see an elections as a break with Chavez. We see elections as a response to the country's crisis," Jimenez said. Legislator Freddy Lepage of the opposition Democratic Action party said Chavez was steadily losing support in Congress as the crisis deepened. "We still don't have the majority, but I'm confident we'll have it soon," he said.

Chavez enjoys the support of the military, which he purged of dissidents after a brief April coup. The government claims oil production is back up to 800,000 barrels a day, compared to a pre-strike level of 3 million barrels a day.

The U.S. Energy Department says American motorists could pay up to $1.54 per gallon of gasoline this spring even if war is averted in Iraq. Home heating oil prices rose 4.7 percent in December. Negotiations mediated by Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, were briefly suspended while the region's leaders attended the Wednesday inauguration of Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez.

In Quito, Ecuador, Chavez lashed out at his opponents as "a subversive movement from the far right, a fascist movement backed by economic elites."

Chavez was to meet with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York on Thursday before returning to Caracas. Some strike leaders, meanwhile, were in the United States pleading their case with U.S. government and business leaders.

Several nations voiced support for a so-called "Friends of Venezuela" proposal to strengthen the efforts of Gaviria, who has had little success in mediating talks since November.

"The solution must be democratic, constitutional, and, it seems, electoral," said Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in Venezuela on Wednesday for a fishing trip with Venezuelan businessman Gustavo Cisneros. Carter, whose Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center also is trying to resolve Venezuela's crisis, said that he would meet with Gaviria and government and opposition leaders next week.

BUSINESS IN BRIEF www.washingtonpost.com Wednesday, January 15, 2003; Page E02 Venezuela's currency fell to a record low against the dollar, deepening investor concern about the country's ability to pay its debts as a nationwide strike entered its 44th day. The bolivar closed 3.9 percent lower, at 1,650 to a dollar. The bolivar has dropped 16 percent this month.