Granma WITH a sick obsessiveness, certain media channels in Venezuela in open conspiracy with imperialism and its servile lackeys, frequently complement their everyday counterrevolutionary dealings with campaigns against the relations between Cuba and Venezuela.

Their gross lies and slander concerning virtually all issues have become a normal occurrence, however noble and selfless these might seem to impartial observers.

However, some of them are recurrent, as is the case with the existing oil contract between the Cuban Oil Union (CUPET) and the PDVSA Oil and Gas Corporation of Venezuela which, as part of the Integral Cooperation Agreement between our two nations and signed by their presidents on October 30, 2000, establishes contractual terms and conditions for the sale and purchase of oil and its derivatives to a total of 53,000 barrels per day over five years.

Two days ago, on June 5, El Nacional newspaper – one of the press organs to most frequently engage in such defamatory exercises in the service of who knows what shady interests – ostentatiously published an extensive and vile article on the Cuban-Venezuelan oil agreement.

This new – or reiterated – perfidious campaign is aimed at suspending oil sales to Cuba, discrediting our country and colluding with imperialism in its objective of undermining our homeland. That obliges us, once again, to publicly expound our position.

• The terms and conditions binding on Cuba in the above-mentioned sale and purchase contract are equal to or less advantageous than those relating to the rest of the countries in Central America and the Caribbean that are beneficiaries of the Caracas Agreement.

• Shipments began in December 2000 and continued without interruption until April 11, 2002 – the date of the frustrated fascist coup.

• Up until that date, in accordance with the agreement, some $439.7 million USD was paid in cash and at world market prices.

• Supplies were suspended last April, responsibility for which lies solely with the coup faction that was part of the PDVSA management. Of the four tankers destined to transport fuel to Cuba on April 11, 2002 – three of them ready to sail out of port on April 9 – only one was able to leave on the morning of the April 11. The other two, whose cargo was already the property of the Cuban CUPET company, were sold to a third party on the basis of a unilateral decision by the management – including some of the coup conspirators – who were acting owners of PDVSA; the fourth was never loaded.

• Given that situation, Cuba had no other alternative but to immediately go out to buy the oil and derivatives that the country required through intermediaries and at far higher prices. Those prices were aggravated by urgency and the high freight costs imposed by distance (some of the cargoes could only be contracted from Europe and Asia) and even then, there were consignments that could not be transported because of a lack of tankers, due to the well-known limitations that the U.S. blockade imposes on vessels arriving in Cuban ports.

• As a consequence of this interruption in the supply of Venezuelan crude oil, activities at the Santiago de Cuba refinery – the second most important in the country – had be to be halted from April through September 2002, causing additional imports of derivatives at a higher cost. The country had to resort to using national reserves held back for exceptional situations and imposing heavy restrictions on internal consumption.

• The additional outlay in dollars for this alone was close to $100 million USD, without taking into account the effect of that on the economy and the population.

• Last July, an agreement was renegotiated with PDVSA aimed at renewing shipments in August (in fact they materialized in September), which included the unjust payment of $13 million USD for arrears, imposed on Cuba by the coup conspiracy management and which our country accepted on the basis of a position of total comprehension of the problems facing the Bolivarian government of Venezuela, in spite of the fact that the responsibility for those arrears had nothing whatsoever to do with the Cuban party to the agreement.

• From September to November 2002, oil supplies were received as normal, with the due payment of $96.4 million USD, the exact sum that Cuba was committed to paying in that period of time and which was made without a single moment of delay.

One example to illustrate the situation that the country was forced into:

On April 28, 2002 it had to purchase the Four Six tanker with 415,225 barrels of crude from the Trasfigura company at a cost of $11,653, 981 USD. A similar cargo through the Venezuelan accord would have cost $8,809,414 USD; in other words we paid 24.4% more for the same volume of oil ($2,844,567 USD more on a single tanker). Less than one month later, on May 12, in a similar operation with the same company and with the same tanker, we acquired 449,449 barrels at a price of $13,071,475 USD; if the supplies agreed with PDVSA had not been interrupted, their value would have amounted to $9,925,182 USD, representing for us a further payment of $3,146,292 USD, equivalent to a 24% increase, again, just for one tanker. And bear in mind that this situation lasted for several months.

Little or none of these facts were referred to in El Nacional or any other Venezuelan counterrevolutionary libels, nor those of the anti-Cuban mafia in Miami which, as one would logically suppose, second these fabrications every time they lack “raw material” for their lies.

Nor were the new effects on Venezuelan crude supplies that occurred afterwards, and which were announced in a January 9 note from our Foreign Ministry. On December 2, barely three months after supplies were reestablished and in the midst of a new coup attempt, the cargoes specified in the Caracas Agreement were once again interrupted with similar consequences to those of the April-August period. The Santiago de Cuba refinery came to a standstill and the country was forced to turn to intermediaries, thus incurring high costs etc at a time when there was a drop in PDVSA production and the imminent danger of an unjust and unnecessary war that the United States subsequently unleashed on Iraq. This caused an exorbitant rise in the already high oil prices on the international market and a lack of production in the Caribbean area.

As the old saying says “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.”  And the speculators gained such a hold that they even auctioned the fuel tankers in order to sell them to the highest bidder and thus increase their profits.

One further fact is enough to illustrate those consequences for Cuba.

The non-existence of oil in nearby areas forced us to acquire 100,000 tons of diesel from the Far East, which took close to six weeks to arrive.

To resume cargo shipments after the paralyzation and sabotaging of the Venezuelan oil industry, we had to wait until mid-January 2002. This meant that for over one month Cuba did not receive one single barrel of oil out of the 1.5 million that it should have received during that lapse in the current agreement. PDVSA did not fulfill its agreement, causing us hundreds of millions of dollars worth of economic damage from April 2002 to that date.

Only the oil importing countries, certainly the immense majority, are capable of understanding the economic dangers attached to the paralyzation of agreed shipments and, having scant resources, being forced into hasty pacts at the mercy of intermediaries. However, perhaps no other country is forced to do so in a manner so disadvantageous as in the case of Cuba. It has the same financial difficulties arising from the world economic crisis that other nations are experiencing, while facing a ferocious and criminal U.S. blockade in place for more than 40 years, and, we should point out, those factors have been compounded by the numerous problems arising from the three hurricanes that caused losses of more than $2.5 billion USD.

Of course, none of that has been published in any newspaper, nor has one minute of television space been dedicated to it by the Venezuelan media in the service of the coup plotters and their masters. What could be expected when the empire orders and commands? For that media, the priority news lies in denigrating Cuba on all sides, in the hope of confusing the Venezuelan people and above all, sullying the leadership of President Chávez with lying arguments such as: “He is giving away or endangering the public heritage,” by selling oil to Cuba. Or like those published yesterday in El Nacional, out of the mouth of that insubstantial individual whose name does not even merit a mention.

But what can we expect from an “independent press that is the defender of democracy” and that incited the toppling of a constitutionally elected president in April 2002 from its columns and networks? The independent media that seconded strike calls by neo-coup plotters in the business and trade union sectors as a way of economically sinking the country through paralyzing its main source of income?

What can we expect from a press that in no way calls to task PDVSA managers and other officials who were not the least concerned at causing losses of over $10 billion USD to their own country by sabotaging oil, without even evaluating other effects such as losing established markets, a key aspect of any company’s efficiency.

And this, yes, in large capitals, IS about damaging national interests. Or a media that even makes superficial references to the multimillion losses that such actions, certainly directed at the heart of Venezuela’s national heritage, have brought to the nations of Central America and the Caribbean by failing to meet fuel supply commitments to them as well?

Can they be expected to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars paid to PDVSA by Cuba? Or the incommensurate effort and sacrifice that the cent-by-cent commitments represent for the country? Or that it should acknowledge that accords like the Caracas Agreement constitute an international trading practice?

Or that it should even mention that the Integral Cooperation Agreement with Cuba does not only cover the buying and selling of oil, and nor is it one-way?

The perverse charges fabricated against Cuba by a servile press and a few puppets aligned to a base and repugnant fascism that has nothing to do with the Venezuelan people’s interests, are an irritant but, above all, hurt, because those attacks are directed at President Chávez, of whom our country has only received evidence of nobleness, friendship and solidarity.

PDVSA has not stopped claiming pending payments from CUPET, as is its duty but, having analyzed the damage caused to our country in the wake of the fascist coup of April 2002 and the equally fascist stoppage of last December, has renegotiated the debts, reaching a new agreement that has facilitated a renewal of the promised payments.

Once again Cuba reiterates that it will honor its obligations to PDVSA that it will pay up to the last cent.

Given its high concept of honor, Cuba’s attitude to Venezuela has been totally different. For our country this commitment has absolute priority. Our cooperative relations are not measured by money.

For Cuba its links of cooperation with Venezuela have one sole objective: to make a modest contribution to the well being of our sister Venezuelan people. We will never, under any circumstances, interrupt our programs to which we also give high priority.

Cuba is not in the habit of talking about what it has done, is doing and will do for the benefit of other peoples. It is enough that the peoples and governments know it.

In the case of the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, our services are the genuine fruit of the Integral Cooperation Agreement signed two years and seven months ago by Fidel and Chávez, the major part of which is being offered free of charge and the rest at a cost well below the international price value.

But we do not evaluate those services by the hundreds of millions of dollars of their monetary total. Their value cannot be measured because they are based on the solidarity and generosity of the Cuban people, demonstrated so many times and in so many places throughout their history, and because it is engraved in our heritage with the Martí maxim: “Give me Venezuela that I may serve her, she has in me a son.” For that we have more than enough reason to reiterate why we are for Venezuela and will always be ready to give our lives to that nation if necessary.

Counterrevolutionaries, fascists and coup plotters can never say that and their lies will be shattered against the wall of our truths expressed and defended by millions of Venezuelans.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic news Posted: Monday, June 09, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Veteran historian and political analyst, Domingo Alberto Rangel say the disarming issue is a permanent feature in all the opposition's petitions ... "general secretary of the cadaverous Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV),  Manuel Cova went so far as to demand disarming of civilians in six months ... he forgot to ask Washington to send the Marines." That's what it would take to disarm civilians in Venezuela. 

Rangel maintains that Venezuela is armed to the teeth. The US State Department declared that it would suspend all arms sales to Venezuela but the State stops functioning at the entrance of Caracas' barrios where the law of the jungle starts. To survive one needs two weapons: the revolver or machine gun and cunning or sympathy , friendship.

"In Venezuela, there are two powers, two States, two societies: that of the urbanizations and that of the barrios ... the urbanizations where the civil sector holds sway and the barrios where the natural sector rules."

The neighborhood warlord is Head of State with his entourage and his armed guard.  If there are two states in Venezuela,  it's only natural that there are two armies. "We have the Armed Force (FAN) and thousands of armies ... it's a reality that everybody knows about but nobody makes public ...  disarm in six months? ... it would be a job for General Tommy Franks."

Rangel maintains that battles have already taken place ever since the civil sector army and the natural sector armies clashed on February 27, 1989 (Caracazo) ... "the barrio armies made a mistake and withdrew to the hillsides leaving unarmed protesters that had acted as a shield unprotected." The barrios started re-arming after that and international arms-traffickers fed but Russia, Israel and Belgium made a killing. 

"Over the last couple of years middle-class urbanizations have been purchasing arms since they lost confidence in the FAN to protect them ... I was told that in Valencia, El Trigal, El Vinedo and other urbanizations have set up barricades, as though they were at war."

Hammering home, Rangel states it's an impossible task to disarm the population ... " the army guessed as much on 27F ... who is going to disarm the barrios and withdraw barricades in the urbanizations?" 

Rangel comments that there is one character that revolutionaries have overlooked in the barrios and urbanizations: the petty criminal who mugs and robs and yet knows about guns and has gunfights with the police at night. "I'm not saying he should be enrolled ... I'm just suggesting we should not ignore his existence ... he can fight better than any cop or soldier." 

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, June 09, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

El Ultimas Noticias editor, Eleazar Diaz Rangel says the heart of the conflict in Venezuela's Legislature lies in the legislation committee, which came under the complete control of the opposition with the desertion of Movimiento Quinta Republica (MVR) deputies ... "the committee did not reflect the correlation of forces inside the National Assembly (AN) and the problem is that the committee controls everything in Parliament ... nothing gets passed to the plenary session without its approval." 

After each attempt to change the composition of the committee was blocked, the government bench decided to approve the internal debate regulation, according to which a draft law would automatically pass on to the Assembly, if the committee did not present its report before the deadline. 

The opposition reacted making blocking the media content law a point of honor by using obstructionist tactics, such as stacking the list of orators to draw the process out. This time round, they decided to prevent the AN board from taking their seats and the result were the fisticuffs we saw last Wednesday. 

The government bench convoked a plenary session in El Calvario. 

The rule isn't clear about the need of the majority to hold sessions outside the Capitolio ... the government bench has shown it has parliamentary majority.

Rangel says he doubts whether the opposition is ready to challenge the basis of democracy which lies in majority rule, especially after signing the negotiations agreement, especially the clause defending the spirit of tolerance. 

Opposition forces have tried to change the balance in Parliament using bribes and even though the government majority has waned, it is still majority and must be respected, as the steamrolling Accion Democratica (AD)- Christian Socialists (COPEI) were in the old Congress and AD and Movimiento Quinta Republica (MVR) majorities in the Constituent Assemblies in 1946 and 1999 respectively.

Rangel suggests that both sides are obliged to act according to the negotiations agreement spirit. "I don't think that the opposition is so blind as not to realize that policies such as the current one means ignoring the golden rule of democracy and not accepting that they are in the minority ... it could force indecisive sectors of society to move in to the government camp."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic news Posted: Monday, June 09, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

"I repeat.... I will be in power until 2021, possibly beyond"...  Hugo Chavez, in a national TV and Radio hookup, April 6, 2003.

"The Venezuelan revolution is the younger sister of Mao's revolution" -- Hugo Chavez, in his farewell to Whan Zhem, departing Chinese Ambassador to Venezuela, April 9, 2003.

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: When the President of a democratic country says what he said on April 6th there are only three possible explanations, since such a statement represents an open violation of our legal and constitutional framework:

1. The person is mentally disturbed;
2. The person is irresponsible, or,
3. The person is declaring his intention to place himself above and outside the Law of the Land.

There is an even worse alternative: that the person combines all of the problems above listed. Whoever listened to all or part of the speech given by the President April 6 will attest to the truculence of the language, to the lack of verbal restraint which characterized the outpour and to the waves of violence and hate for dissidents that he transmitted to the listeners. This is the worst we have heard from his lips. This behavior suggests some type of mental disturbance, the more dangerous since it afflicts a top public servant. This has already been expressed by Dr. Franzel Delgado Senior, president of the Venezuelan Association of Psychiatry ... a man who should know what he is talking about.

In parallel, the President exhibits an irrepressible tendency to behave like a TV showman. He can not find the proper balance between being sober and being over frivolous, which greatly detracts from the majesty of the Presidency.

But, worst of all, the continuous reference to his stay in power far beyond the period which the constitution allows (Article 230) and our laws dictate, clearly represent a serious offense. It is not enough to say that he has not done it since he is clearly telling us that he intends to do it. If I stood in Main Street shouting that I am going to kill the President and the police just laughed at me when passing by, they would not be doing their job. They should take me into custody, run some mental tests to discard insanity and, then, put me in prison, either because of my lack of civic restraint (falta de respeto) or because I am a potential killer and can not be left on the loose.

The equivalent of the police for matters of State and for serious constitutional violations in our country is the armed force. We have never been involved in a war since independence and, still, we manage to spend an average of $1.4 billion per year in military equipment. The justification for this expenditure is that the armed force acts as the guardian of our territorial integrity and as protectors of our constitution (Article 328). However, our armed force is doing much less than their job. Our territory is being systematically violated by irregular armed groups of Colombians and by Brazilian "garimpeiros" who destroy our environment with their brutal mining in our rivers for gold and diamonds. Our constitution is being violated by a President who is placing himself above and outside the law. The duty of the armed force is to restrain him and restore the majesty of the Law. This has nothing to do with a military coup but with the correct application of constitutional checks and balances. In fact, not restraining the immoderate servant of the State would, in itself, constitute the coup.

While the issues described above make up the essential malady of our country at this moment, the crisis increases by leaps and bounds all across the board. The National Assembly is in chaos, after the government lost their fragile majority over the intended Gag Law for the Media.  As a result, the government group called an illegal meeting away from the Assembly headquarters and replaced the dissident members with their alternates, all in violation of existing legislative procedures. As a result the National Assembly is close to dissolution. This and other signs of political disintegration have combined to place Venezuela as next to last in the ranking of the OAS on Efficiency of Governance, only above Paraguay. The internal debt, which was $900 million in 1998 is now over $11 billion, while minister Nobriega is touring the First World trying to get loans of up to $5 billion to balance the 2003 budget, an effort bound to fail given the discredit of the government in international financing circles.

The latest actions by the government have given a second air to dissidents, fatigued after the national strike. The adversaries of the government are again on the move, propelled by indignation due to the unethical behavior of the government.

By trying to place himself above and outside the Law, President Chavez is unleashing a new wave of popular and civic protests which will have unpredictable consequences. At first sight only two outcomes are possible: either the President will have to go, or he will emerge as a dictator. In a way, therefore, no matter what happens, this crisis marks the end of the "normal" Presidency of Hugo Chavez, the "democrat." Only the coupster remains.

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email gustavo@vheadline.com

By Hil Anderson UPI Chief Energy Correspondent Published 6/9/2003 6:23 PM

LOS ANGELES, June 9 (<a href=www.upi.com>UPI) -- Crude futures reached a 12-week high Monday as traders dug in ahead of anticipated production cuts by OPEC that are aimed at offsetting Iraq's return to the oil market, but that could take effect even before Iraqi exports resume.

July crude settled 17 cents higher at $31.45 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Monday, while OPEC officials continued dropping hints the cartel could decide this week to reduce output to prevent a price collapse when Iraqi exports hit the market later this summer.

The timing of Iraq's return to the export market is not clear, which apparently had refiners and speculators preferring to stock up as a precaution against being caught short during the peak demand of the summer driving season in the United States.

"The war in Iraq has been over for over a month, and the OPEC basket price has risen to the upper part of its target range," the U.S. Energy Information Administration noted in its latest assessment of OPEC's intentions. "Part of this may be attributable to the replacement of the 'war premium' by an 'uncertainty premium' over the anticipated time period when Iraqi oil exports will resume and reach pre-war levels."

Iraq has already announced it would accept bids for some 8 million barrels of crude stored in Ceyhan, Turkey, since before the war; however, Iraq's capability for sustained production and exports from its oilfields are a far larger factor in how world crude prices will shape up for the remainder of the year.

A sizable delay between the sale of the Ceyhan oil and the resumption of regular exports could leave the world's consuming nations in a lurch during July and August when demand for gasoline in the United States is at its highest.

"We've seen nearly three months of slowly falling prices and that trend should continue for the short term," Carol Thorp, a spokeswoman for the Automobile Club of Southern California, said as AAA's nationwide average retail gasoline price held at $1.49 per gallon. "Crude oil and gasoline inventories have increased significantly in recent days, which relieves some analyst concerns over potential supply problems. However, crude oil prices have climbed back to $30 per barrel range and this could affect retail prices later in the summer."

Meanwhile, OPEC is looking past the summer to the time when the shoe will be on the other foot. Autumn tends to see gasoline demand drop as summer vacations come to an end, which could leave OPEC in a buyers market at the same time Iraq is trying to regain its share of the world market.

OPEC may also be contributing to the perceived oil glut by its own capitalistic instincts to cash in on the current bull market for crude. With NYMEX well over $30 per barrel, the OPEC nations have been increasing their output over and above their official quotas.

The authoritative oil publication Platts Oilgram reported Monday that the 10 OPEC members -- excluding Iraq -- produced 26.35 million barrels per day last month, up 250,000 bpd from April and a combined 1.85 million bpd above the official quota. Only Nigeria, Indonesia and Venezuela were within their quotas, suggesting that OPEC's Middle East members were not prepared to surrender their market share to Iraq.

As happened at its last meeting, OPEC may announce it will reduce production by amounts that in reality only bring output in line with the current quota.

"Instead of reining in overproduction towards their new quotas, most OPEC countries have actually increased production. With (NYMEX) WTI (West Texas Intermediate crude oil) around $30/bbl and (International Petroleum Exchange) Brent around $27/bbl, there has been little incentive for them to cut back," said John Kingston, global director of oil at Platts. "Some OPEC officials have talked about cutting official quota levels at the June 11 meeting in Doha, Qatar, but that looks unlikely now."