<a href=www.newsday.com>NewsDay.com By Mike Ceaser SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT April 20, 2003 Perija Mountains, Venezuela - These dark green mountains, where Colombian guerrillas roam and the Venezuelan military rarely ventures, are becoming a new frontier in illegal drug cultivation, according to recent reports. The Perija range, which straddles the Colombian border near the Caribbean coast, has long been a source of concern for drug control officials because its steep, remote slopes offer prime conditions for cultivating and hiding illicit crops. In recent weeks the 1,380-mile Venezuela-Colombia border has increasingly threatened to become a flashpoint for the two countries, with security problems brought on by drugs and guerrillas. Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez are set to discuss such issues in a meeting Wednesday. For more than a decade, the Venezuelan military, with U.S. cooperation, carried out eradication campaigns involving hundreds of soldiers who chopped down and yanked out fields of marijuana, opium poppies and coca, the raw material for cocaine. Last year, amid an aborted coup in April and serious political and social upheaval, Venezuela abandoned those efforts. This is not the first time Chávez has opted out of the U.S.-backed war on drugs. Shortly after becoming president in 1999, he banned U.S. anti-drug overflights for "sovereignty" reasons. While border military regiments are short of fuel and the manpower necessary to work on eliminating drug crops, some here suspect a political motivation in the eradication halt. The leftist Chávez has been repeatedly accused of aiding the Colombian guerrillas, which finance themselves partly by taxing the drug trade and are active in the Perija mountains. The range is "full" of drug crops, said a national guardsman in the nearby town of Machiques who participated in past eradications but requested anonymity. "The places we destroyed have regrown." Certainly, Venezuela's drug acreage is tiny compared with those in the traditional coca-growing nations of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. In 2001, Venezuela eradicated 117 acres of coca and 96 of poppy, while the "big three" eliminated tens of thousands. Still, nobody knows the extent of the illegal crops in Venezuela since it has no monitoring program. And recent reports show that plantings in the Perija range have increased. A recently released State Department narcotics control report said that during the 2001 eradication coca fields as large as 20 acres were found in the Perija range for the first time. It added, "Three cocaine base labs in this region were discovered for the first time ever in Venezuela, indicating what could be a troubling new trend." Cesar Romero, a ranger in the Perija Mountains National Park, said that in the past few years rangers have discovered drug crops more frequently during patrols. Last September, he stumbled on an already-harvested poppy field covering about six acres. Last year Colombia's eradication program, part of the $1.9 billion U.S.-funded anti-narcotics program called Plan Colombia, reduced coca acreage for the first time, with a U.S. report finding a 15 percent drop over the year before and the United Nations finding a 30 percent decline. However, the advance was partly nullified by acreage rebounds to the south in Peru and Bolivia. Small coca plots have also been discovered in Ecuador. Critics of drug eradication say the shift of cultivation to other countries is the inevitable "balloon effect," in which a reduction in one nation only produces a surge elsewhere. "You can achieve a short-term reduction in a limited area ... but it pops up somewhere else," said Adam Isacson, who directs the Colombia program at the Center for International Policy in Washington. Like other areas where drug cultivation has flourished, the Perija mountains are lawless and poor. Except for occasional military patrols, the central government is nearly absent. The indigenous inhabitants have few marketable crops, since produce would spoil during the long mule trips to towns. Deputy Javier Armata, who represents the Yupa indigenous people in the legislature of western Venezuela's Zulia state, which contains the Perija range, said Colombian guerrillas give indigenous people cash, food and medicines in exchange for planting drug crops. The guerrillas "say that drug planting is the best way to earn money," Armata said. "They earn more." Still, according to military officers and news reports, most drug cultivation in the mountains is done by Colombian peasants. While Colombia's eradication has sharply reduced drug acreage in its southwest, coca plantings have surged in its east, across the border from Venezuela. And Colombia's civil war has forced thousands of peasants, some of them drug farmers, to seek refuge in Venezuela. John P. Walters, the U.S. drug czar, told the House Committee on International Relations on Feb. 27 that Venezuela's lack of control over its territory concerned Washington. Venezuela's "pressing political problems have created an opening in which narcoterrorists can operate with impunity," Walters testified. Deputy Fernando Villasmil, president of the Zulia state legislature, says the Chávez government has drastically reduced its military presence along the frontier, leaving an opening for guerrillas. "If [the Venezuelan government] doesn't take radical measures, [the drug crops] will expand in size," he said. "We will change from being a transit country for drugs into a producer country."

nola.com Sunday April 20, 2003 By Joan Treadway Staff writer

Randy Poindexter has been trying for a year to give the city of New Orleans what she considers a significant gift, one that might be rescinded if it's not accepted soon: a "sister city" relationship with Cuba's Port of Mariel.

Poindexter believes a relationship would foster trade and cultural ties. But her gift, not surprisingly, is a Trojan horse in the eyes of some Cuban-Americans in the New Orleans area. They insist it would violate at least the spirit of the long-standing trade embargo against the communist nation and help Cuba's aging dictator, Fidel Castro, cling to power.

A portraitist, sculptor and the proprietor of a Garden District bed and breakfast, Poindexter, 54, got a preliminary agreement to the partnership a year ago from officials in Mariel. But on a trip to Cuba this month, she learned that San Antonio, Texas, and several other American cities are interested in connecting with Mariel, and that if New Orleans officials don't act quickly, it might be too late.

Poindexter said she was encouraged by a letter she received about a week ago from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. "I am impressed by your arguments to forge favorable trade relations with the City of Mariel," Nagin wrote. "With an eye to your recommendations, we will seriously consider Mariel for the Sister Cities program."

This seemed to be a shift from a February letter to Poindexter from Gina Nadas, director of international trade development in the Mayor's Office of Economic Development: "We will postpone any consideration of Cuban cities for Sister City agreements until such time as the embargo (against Cuba) were to be lifted."

Nadas said last week that the two letters do not contradict each other. "The mayor and I are on the same page," she said. Her office uses sister city agreements primarily for trade, and since full trade with Cuba is not allowed now, she is more interested in other markets. She said that when Nagin stated "we will seriously consider Mariel," he meant only after the embargo is lifted.

Of the 19 sister city agreements that Nadas has learned about since arriving at City Hall last fall, she said several represent good opportunities for trade, including those with Caracas, Venezuela; Merida, Mexico; and Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Supporters and critics

Poindexter said she and some of the 50 local residents who support her plan soon will seek a meeting with Nagin, both to clarify his position and to lobby for the proposal.

One backer, Romualdo Gonzalez, has written to Nagin, stating that the relationship would not violate the embargo and that Mariel is "the premier cargo port on the island."

Gonzalez, a local Cuban-American lawyer, said last week that he thinks the best chance for a change in Cuba's government will come "from a policy of engagement." This approach has worked in the former Soviet Union, China and Vietnam, he said.

Another supporter of the proposal is Cesar Martino, president of The Vega Group, which plans special events. Martino, who also is Cuban-American, said Mariel is undergoing an expansion that will include development of a free-trade zone.

But opposition forces are lining up as well.

George Fowler, an attorney for the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, which is anti-Castro and pro-embargo, said he too plans to talk to Nagin. He opposes the plan because Cuba is still listed by the State Department as a "terrorist" country. Developing a relationship with one of its cities would be "like becoming a sister city to Tikrit, when Saddam was still in power," he said.

The timing couldn't be worse, Fowler said, because Cuba has just cracked down on political dissidents, imprisoning about 70 of them, some for more than 20 years. Three people trying to escape Cuba in a hijacked ferry recently were executed, he said, noting that Mariel became a symbol of Cuba's yearning for freedom when 125,000 embarked from the port during the 1980 boatlift to the United States.

While Poindexter stresses that the sister city relationship is "apolitical" and a "people-to-people" effort, Fowler countered that "there can't be a people-to-people relationship when one person is on top (in Cuba)." Even the artists involved in any exchange wouldn't be free to express themselves, he said.

Felipe Cortizas, owner of the Liborio Cuban Restaurant in downtown New Orleans, opposes the plan for reasons both political and personal: His grandmother almost didn't make it to New Orleans when she was trying to leave Cuba in 1960. For trying to escape, she was briefly jailed and threatened with death by a firing squad, he said.

Mobile, Ala., blazed trail

Controversial or not, about 20 American cities have formed sister city relationships with an equal number of Cuban cities, said Lisa Valanti, president of the U.S.-Cuba Sister Cities Association in Pittsburgh. They abide by the rules of the embargo, and none has been penalized, she said.

Poindexter's point that New Orleans could lose Mariel is well-taken, Valanti said. Some Cuban cities are considering partnering with more than one American city, but others have rejected the idea of multiple partners.

Through her own involvement, Valanti said she has become a godmother to the child of a Cuban woman who works for her as a translator when she visits the island.

Mobile, Ala., was the first American city to connect with a Cuban city -- Havana. The decade-old partnership has meant not only friendships, but also business, said Gene Lambert, Mobile's international protocol officer. One outgrowth of the sister city relationship he cited was a pledge Cuba made in February to purchase $10 million worth of agricultural products from Alabama, which is allowed under an easing of the embargo three years ago.

But Oakland, Calif.'s, 3-year-old sister city partnership with the city of Santiago de Cuba has led to discord. Differing political factions have tried to exploit the relationship to their own advantage, said Simon Bryce, Oakland's chief of protocol. He is trying to pull together the community, so that the relationship can be more productive, he said, but right now, it's "polarized."

. . . . . . . Joan Treadway can be reached at jtreadway@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3305.

<a href=www.riyadhdaily.com.sa>RiyadhDaily.com Economy   Sunday - 20 April 2003 Tehran [Agencies].............................. Iran wants a reduction in OPEC oil output from May 1 only if there is an urgent market need for one, Oil Minister Bijan Namadar Zanghaneh said Saturday in an apparent toning down of earlier calls for a second quarter cut. "A May 1 date for a cut in OPEC production would be too soon unless there is an emergency situation," Zanghaneh told reporters on the sidelines of a Tehran oil and gas conference. On Thursday the minister had caused jitters on world oil markets by suggesting that Iran would push for an immediate cut at the OPEC cartel’s next meeting in Vienna on Thursday. "We need a decrease in production... starting the second quarter of 2003," Zanghaneh said then. "Currently there is a surplus in the oil market, and if it is not controlled in the long term, oil prices will slide." Iran Nominates Aide to Head OPEC Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh confirmed on Saturday he had proposed his deputy for OPEC’s top job. Asked by reporters in Tehran whether he had nominated Deputy Oil Minister Hadi Nejad Hosseinian, Iran’s former ambassador to the United Nations, for the post of secretary-general, Zanganeh said, "Yes." Venezuela’s Alvaro Silva is currently serving as OPEC Secretary-General, having replaced fellow Venezuelan Ali Rodriguez in June 2002. Rodriguez had served just 18 months of a three-year term at the helm of the 11-member producer group before being chosen to run state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The former Venezuelan oil minister shifted into the secretary-general position in January 2001 to settle an 18-month deadlock in a battle between Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. OPEC rules dictate that the appointment must be unanimous. Meanwhile, Iranian oil minister stated that the possibility of Iraq leaving the Organization of Petroleum Producing Countries (OPEC) would not be in the in the long-term interests of the cartel members, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namadar Zanghaneh said on Saturday. "It is in Iraq’s interests to stay within OPEC", said Zanghaneh at the closure of an oil and gas conference in Tehran, but he conceded that if it were to leave, "it would not have any influence on the market." However, if Iraq were to quit OPEC it would hurt both the country and the group as a whole, he said. Iraq would have less influence on the world market and the long-term interests of other OPEC members would be harmed, according to the minister. Some analysts are predicting that Iraq, now under the control of US forces, would leave OPEC to rid itself of the system of export quotas assigned by the cartel to its members, thus flooding the market with more oil and bringing down prices. Zanghaneh said he would urge a cut in oil output at OPEC’s next meeting in Vienna on Thursday only if such a cut was needed, in an apparent toning down of a stronger statement favoring a cut two days ago that pushed oil prices higher. The June Brent crude-oil futures contract rose 86 cents, or 3.4 percent, to 25.88 dollars a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange in London on Thursday. The market is closed until Tuesday for the Easter holidays.

<a href=www.theage.com.au<theage.com.au Sunday 20 April 2003, 8:05 AM

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) must do something about the surplus two million barrels per day (bpd) that had come onto the market since the war in Iraq ended, the group's president said.

"There is a surplus of two million bpd that we have to deal with," Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah told reporters at the start of a visit to Oman.

He said OPEC's next meeting at its Vienna headquarters on Thursday, to discuss a possible output cut, would "examine the market situation and take the measures necessary to restore order".

"OPEC has done everything possible to maintain the balance between supply and demand, having increased its production to prevent any crisis," said Attiya, who is also Qatar's oil minister.

He was referring to the US-led war on Iraq launched on March 20, and prior to that ethnic unrest which cut Nigeria's oil output by around 200,000 barrels a day, as well as an opposition strike which battered Venezuela's petroleum industry.

OPEC, whose production ceiling is fixed at 24.5 million bpd for the member countries - except Iraq - said late in March it could announce at next week's meeting that it would reduce output by two million bpd. ©2003 AFP

CommonDreams.org Published on Friday, April 18, 2003 by OneWorld.net by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - A major environmental group has declared a ceasefire in its three-year campaign against Citigroup, the world's largest private financial institution, after new commitments by the giant lender to adopt more responsible social and environmental policies in deciding what projects to finance.

Citigroup's decision to more seriously engage one of its main critics, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), came one week after the San Francisco-based group launched a major ad campaign to persuade Citigroup credit card holders to destroy their cards to protest the company's support for projects and industries that environmentalists consider particularly harmful.

The campaign, which featured television ads by Hollywood celebrities such as Susan Sarandon, Ed Asner, Ali MacGraw, and Darryl Hannah debuted last week in New York and was set to begin running in other U.S. markets this week, before RAN agreed to suspend its efforts and enter into talks with Citigroup.

In a letter to Citigroup's Shareholder Dialogue Group and RAN, the company's management stressed that its goal is "to facilitate sustainable and beneficial development and promised "to take additional measures in the short term to reduce degradation or destruction of endangered ecosystems in the conduct of our business."

In addition, the letter said Citi was "aware of growing concern about climate change" and promised to "report greenhouse-gas intensity of future power projects in our project finance business (and)...seek to identify investments in less carbon-intensive sources of energy."

As of the world's top funders of the fossil fuel and logging industries, Citi has been a major target of RAN and some other environmental groups. In the year 2000, it was the top lender to both the coal industry and fossil-fuel pipelines around the world, as well as the top underwriter of stocks and bonds across the energy sector.

Emissions caused by the combustion of fossil fuels are considered by most scientists to be the greatest contributor to global warming and associated changes in the world's climate and weather. Logging and deforestation also contribute to warming, both by releasing more carbon-based gases into the air and eliminating forests that absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

RAN and other groups have attacked what they say is Citi's disproportionate support for extractive industries around the world, particularly fossil fuels and logging. Among other projects that Citi has helped finance are the controversial Camisea pipeline project that will ship natural gas from the Amazon region of Peru to the Pacific Coast; oil drilling in Papua New Guinea and Colombia; oil pipelines in Chad, Cameroon, Ecuador, and Venezuela; and giant power plants in Thailand and the Philippines.

Nany of the pipeline projects involve the construction of roads into remote forests. Those roads ordinarily make it easier for farmers in search of land to move into these areas and clear the forests.

RAN's campaign, which has featured a series of civil-disobedience protests, including office lock-outs at various Citi offices around the United States, has been aimed at persuading the company to reduc--and eventually eliminate--funding for fossil-fuel projects, beginning with an immediate ban on future investments in projects in endangered ecosystems--such as parts of the Andes--and terminate all projects that have a negative impact on endangered forests or traditional forest communities.

At the same time, RAN hopes Citi and other lenders will provide more funding to more ecologically and socially benign enterprises, such as renewable energy, tree-free paper, and certified wood alternatives, and work to integrate social and environmental criteria into all of its operations.

For its part, Citi has objected strongly to RAN's efforts, insisting that it shares RAN's concerns and has tried to improve its environmental record by, among other things, recently drafting the so-called "Equator Principles" with the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) that commits signers to comply with certain social and environmental guidelines in deciding on loans.

It also objected strongly to RAN's now-suspended ad campaign as "highly misleading and inaccurate." The ad features celebrities reading the names of former Citibank cardholders who have destroyed their cards while depicting scenes of timber-cutting in jungles, forest fires, and oil pollution on various bodies of water.

"We think they've made a good-faith commitment to sit down and work with us," said RAN spokeswoman Sara Brown Riggs Wednesday after announcing the campaign's suspension.

"We are aware that many of our employees and customers care deeply about environmental and social issues and expect Citigroup to act in accordance with those values," Citi management wrote in its letter.

Copyright 2003 OneWorld.net

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