www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 23, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: During his four years in the Presidency, Hugo Chavez has traveled abroad for about 5 solid months and talked some 600 hours to enthusiastic, reluctant, indignant or amused audiences in Venezuela and abroad.

In these 600 or more hours of largely improvised speeches, he has developed a dialect which combines military terminology with religious and folkloric expressions, all freely spiced with vulgar terms and 'machista' turns of phrase. Words are, however, just part of his personality as a speaker.

The other components are dress and body movements:

• When going to talk to the military, he wears his combat outfit and red beret, disguised as the paratrooper he used to be some 30 pounds ago.
• When he faces the crowds, which come to listen to him from all parts of the country in government paid buses ... hundreds of buses which park in immense lines and patiently wait until the end of the speech to transport the people back home ... he dresses in a pale brownish Nehru-like jacket, a couple of sizes too big to hide the anti-bullet vest.
• When he goes to visit the apprehensive Queen of England, he wears Armani suits and his very expensive wrist watch which, if sold, would feed one street child for no less than one year.

In more informal settings he likes to wear a jacket with the colors and stars of the Venezuelan flag.

His body movements are also important ... one of his favorite gestures is to hit the palm of his right hand with his left fist, not once but in staccato fashion, to send his followers a message of continuous aggression against the enemies of the revolution. His mouth twists slightly from left to right in an involuntary tic which appears, according to some clinical observers, every time he is telling a lie. His body sways slightly in tune with his words as if to hypnotize the audience ... he suspends the words in mid-sentence to add to the suspense in the crowd.

If someone took pains to rank the words utilized by Chavez in his contacts with the public there is little doubt that "traitors", "coupsters", "terrorists" and "saboteurs" would be at the top of the list ... he describes the petroleum managers and technicians fired by his government as traitors and saboteurs ... he uses the word bandit to define Carlos Fernandez, the recently arrested president of Fedecamaras.

The words that would be at the bottom of the list would be "economy", "plans", "programs" and "employment." His adversaries are 'squalids' and 'oligarchs.' The main commercial TV stations are the 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.' ... the judges whose sentencing might go against the government are 'plastas' or 'turds.'  When a spokesman from a foreign government says something that he interprets as criticism, he reacts violently to say that "Venezuela is an independent country" ... But he loves it when Fidel Castro speaks in his favor.  In the eyes of Chavez, foreign intervention exists only when there is some criticism of his actions. Women should be glad to "expect what he is going to give them," as he once promised his wife on national TV.

The words of Chavez are designed  to create conflict, to try to browbeat his "enemies" into despair. He delights in choosing  the moments when people are watching an important sports event or soap opera, to go on a mandatory broadcast, to announce that he is structuring a Commission to study, say, the sexual habits of Orinoco crocodiles or to talk nostalgically about his childhood in Barinas, when he earned his living selling sweets.

When I read commentaries from readers living in Europe or Australia or Canada or in Salt Lake City telling us who live here about how wonderful Chavez is, I wish I could give them the complete speeches by the President and ask them to hear them, instead of watching their favorite TV program or a game between Manchester United and Real Madrid. Their ''Chavismo' would not last a week... If Dante had written his "Divine Comedy" today he would certainly have included Chavez' TV speeches in national "cadenas" in one special circle of his imaginary hell.

I apologize in advance for my frivolity, which is one of the means of escape I have from the horrible reality of my country.

As Bernard Shaw used to say: "Life is too tragic to take it seriously." However, all I have said so far illustrates, I hope, the attitudes with which Chavez faces his job as President. To be a real President, Chavez would require a vocabulary with the words 'employment' and 'programs' and 'economy' that he does not know, and abandon his vocabulary with the words 'traitor', 'coupster' and 'terrorist' that he uses all the time to define dissenters.

To be a real President, he would have to inspire Venezuelans to unite, behind a common national vision ... to move forward and to convert Venezuelan society from filthy to clean, from vulgar to civilized, from being made up of beggars to being made up of producers.

To be a real President he should concentrate in the main tasks of fighting corruption, generating employment, promoting private investment, improving education and health services, curbing criminality, protecting the commercial nature of PDVSA.

In short, he would have to be doing the very opposite of what he has been doing.

His bedside manners have transformed the seriously ill patient into a terminal case ... in fact, I suspect that, besides being the physician in charge, he is also the owner of the funeral parlor...

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 ppcvicep@telcel.net.ve

www.boston.com By Colum Lynch, Washington Post, 2/23/2003

UNITED NATIONS -- American oil refineries have dramatically increased their reliance on Iraqi crude, even as the Bush administration steps up preparations for a military attack against Baghdad, to offset a shortfall in oil imports caused by a recent political crisis in Venezuela.

The United States has more than doubled its consumption of Iraqi crude over the past two months, buying more than $1.6 billion in Iraqi oil through foreign middlemen between Dec. 5 and Feb. 1, according to unpublished UN figures. The US Department of Energy, whose Iraqi import figures typically lag behind, by about 40 days, those of the United Nations, also recorded a sudden surge of Iraqi oil imports into the United States recently to more than 1 million barrels a day, according to US officials.

''We did have a large increase in Iraqi imports, but we don't know if that is sustained,'' said Doug MacIntyre, an international energy analyst at the Department of Energy who produces an unpublished weekly report on oil imports. MacIntyre declined to provide specific figures, citing concerns that the underlying data were too preliminary, but he said it was ''a doubling over the averages we have seen over the last several weeks.''

Iraqi exports to the US market, which includes the Caribbean, averaged nearly 500,000 barrels a day during the first 11 months of 2002. US firms purchased only 39 percent of Iraqi oil exports during the second half of last year. Between Dec. 5 and Feb. 1, US buyers consumed about 1.1 million barrels per day, accounting for 62 percent of Iraq's exports during that period, according to UN figures. The trend marks a significant reversal by US oil companies, which drastically cut their dependence on Iraqi oil last summer because of rising illicit Iraqi surcharges and concerns that the Bush administration was preparing for a war.

What are the occasions when war becomes necessary--despite the fact that violence is never a good in itself? We asked Boston.com users if war with Iraq meets the test of just war theory.

After Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation of declassified material to the UN Security Council on February 5, has the case been made for the US to go to war? We asked Boston.com users for their thoughts.

Under the terms of the United Nations-supervised Iraqi oil-for-food deal, Iraq is permitted to sell oil to purchase food, medicines, fund the repair of the country's infrastructure, and finance UN weapons inspections. Under the humanitarian program, established in December 1996, the UN sets the prices of Iraqi exports and monitors Baghdad's spending.

Although Iraq rarely sells oil directly to American oil companies, Exxon Mobil Corp., ChevronTexaco Corp., Valero Energy Corp., and other US firms have purchased more than half of Iraq's oil through foreign middlemen since the oil-for-food program came into existence. Spokesmen for Exxon Mobil and Valero could not be reached for comment.

Some American oil giants, hit with rising surcharges and facing criticism that they may have indirectly paid illegal kickbacks to President Saddam Hussein, began scaling back their imports of Iraqi crude last summer. UN officials claimed that Iraq was imposing surcharges of 20 to 50 cents on each barrel last year, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit profits for the Iraqi regime.

But oil analysts say that Iraq's decision to stop demanding a surcharge in September, and a sudden stoppage of Venezuelan exports following a national strike, has renewed American interest in the Iraqi oil market.

''The loss of Venezuelan oil complicated everybody's life,'' said Lawrence Goldstein, president of the New York-based Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. ''Iraqi oil is close to the Venezuelan-type oil, and it turned out to be the only large-volume alternative available'' over the past two months.

He suggested that American dependence on Iraqi oil is likely to diminish in the coming months as Venezuelan exports ''creep back'' up to normal levels and as the recent commitment by Saudi Arabia to increase production bears fruit.

Other analysts believe that Venezuela's oil exports will continue to be plagued by political uncertainty. They note that while Venezuela's oil strike has ended, the country is exporting only about half of the 3 million barrels it normally exports daily.

''I think that as the surcharge has faded, the concern that kept some people away from Iraqi oil has also faded,'' said George Beranek, the manager of market analysis at Washington, D.C.-based PFC Energy. ''It's a good large-volume source of oil. The risk of a decline [in potential Iraqi exports] was nothing compared with the fact of a loss of Venezuelan barrels. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.''

This story ran on page A25 of the Boston Globe on 2/23/2003.

santafenewmexican.com By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER | Associated Press 02/23/2003 Fishermen drop their lines near an oil pump in Maracaibo lake in western Maracaibo, Venezuela, Jan. 31, 2003. AP | Ana Maria Otero MARACAIBO, Venezuela - Under the scorching sun on Lake Maracaibo, oil wells by the thousands suck up natural gas and crude oil, the wealth of Venezuela, for home use and for export. But much more crude than usual has been ending up in the water since oil workers joined a national strike against President Hugo Chavez in December, environmentalists and government critics contend. Although the walkout against Chavez has fizzled, many oil workers remain off the job, and the critics say the shortage of employees and lack of know-how among those who are working is causing severe environmental damage. The state-owned oil monopoly, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, denies that. It insists spills are small and rare and that they are quickly controlled. It also blames many of the spills on striker sabotage. The situation is difficult to check independently. The oil fields have been sealed off by army and National Guard troops who enforce a no-fly zone over the lake and turn back boats carrying journalists trying to get a firsthand look. "They won't let us overfly the lake to look for oil slicks anymore," said Eddie Ramirez, a former executive for the oil monopoly. "It's all militarized now. We still have people working in the oil fields who give us information. But it is getting harder to get." Norberto Robodello, who directs the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources' environmental quality program, complains there are areas even his ministry isn't allowed to see. Crude is critical in Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest exporter and a major supplier to the United States. Lake Maracaibo, 325 miles west of Caracas, is a major producer. Since World War I, about 14,000 wells have been drilled in the lake. About 8,000 are active. Estimates vary, but between 15,000 and 28,000 miles of pipes and tubes snake along the bottom. "There is no operation in the world like this," said Felix Rodriguez, recently named by Chavez's government to head oil operations in western Venezuela. Oil operations are spread over 60 percent of the lake's 5,200 square miles. Latticed derricks poke skyward from platforms. Black pumping units bob up and down relentlessly. More modern wells extend only a few feet above the water and are driven by electric pumps. During a boat trip supervised by oil monopoly officials, a reporter was shown purported sabotaged at an electrical platform that powered 24 wells. Heavy cables appeared to have been cut in several places. "Someone knew how to do it," said Luis Graterol, one of the officials. "You don't just do that with a pair of pliers. It takes a skilled electrician." About 35,000 of the monopoly's 40,000 employees went on strike Dec. 2, joining the opposition general strike aimed at forcing out Chavez, whom they blame for the country's political and economic strife. The general strike failed, but the oil walkout continues. Chavez has fired more than 11,000 oil strikers and split the oil monopoly into eastern and western divisions to tighten government control over operations. Production is creeping back to pre-strike levels. But the government claims it's hampered by sabotage. The private Venezuelan Environmental Foundation said it flew over the lake on Dec. 11 - before the flight ban - and spotted 17 spills. The foundation said one well was spewing oil and water more than 30 feet in the air and experts estimated it was spilling 1,100 barrels a day. Rodriguez, who blamed that spill on saboteurs, acknowledged there is government pressure to increase production. "We need the money," he said. "But we do it with safety. We are working to diminish the risk. If we aren't sure, we won't open a well." Lenin Herrera, a chemical engineer and former head of the Institute for the Conservation and Control of Lake Maracaibo, said spills of petroleum and production chemicals are a major source of contamination. "There have been unjustifiable spills since the strike. There was a spill in January that went three or four days without being fixed. Later a well spilled for two or three days," he said. Herrera said the oil work force is only 10 percent to 15 percent of normal levels and many of those workers are not trained. "Yet they contend the petroleum operation is safe," he said. Figures compiled by Zulia State's Maracaibo Lake Commission show that before the strike there had been a steady drop in spills in recent years - to a rate of about four barrels for every million produced in the lake. Now the rate is equal to 40 barrels per million, the panel says. "We didn't worry before. The government used international norms and standards," said Gonzalo Godoy, who heads the commission. "Now, with (the strike) a series of spills has begun." His agency counted 67 spills in the first seven weeks of the strike, 15 of them in the lake, even though production was down substantially. "The packing on those wells has to be checked and adjusted every day," Godoy said. "With so few people working, they just can't do it." Industry specialists say that if the packings are not kept in order, they can begin to leak and leaks can grow into full-blown spills. People are also worried about chemical contamination. "We suspect they are using dispersants to break up the slicks," Godoy said, noting that Venezuela and many other countries forbid their use. Dispersants don't really clean up oil but rather cause it to sink to the bottom, where both crude and dispersant can enter the food chain. "The government says they aren't using them, that they use special boats to pick up the oil, but fishermen say they have seen it," Godoy said. Zulia State Gov. Manuel Rosales, one of Chavez's staunchest opponents, declared a state of emergency in January because of reports of oil spills. He contended there have been 79 spills, about 40 percent of them in the lake and the rest on platforms or surrounding fields. "The spills have affected the flora and fauna of the lake," he said. "After days of this they had not implemented a contingency plan." The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources said it had reports of 96 spills between Dec. 6 and Jan. 28. Of the 84 it had investigated, only four were in the lake, it said. Critics also warn of natural gas leaks. Ramirez, the former oil executive, said the accepted standard for the escape of natural gas from wells into the atmosphere is 2 percent. Some of the rest is fed back into wells to keep pressure up while the remainder goes to domestic and industrial use. "But now we hear that 30 percent is escaping," he said. "Most of that gas is high sulfur and it comes back as acid rain." Oil monopoly officials insist gas leakage is nearly nil. Herrera, the chemical engineer, is urging the strikers and oil monopoly to accept a truce and work together to fix the spills. "The political crisis will end. The economic crisis will end. But what is contaminating the lake will stay there," he said. But the lake has problems beyond oil spills, others warn. Raw sewage flows into it. There is significant runoff of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, organic materials and other matter from the farms of Zulia State, the country's major agricultural producer. "The lake is aging prematurely," Herrera said.

news.independent.co.uk By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 23 February 2003

An increasingly cornered Iraq complained yesterday it might be signing its own death warrant if it obeyed a United Nations order to destroy dozens of missiles at the moment the US is poised to lead an invasion.

"They want us to destroy them at a time when we are threatened daily," said Owayed Ahmed Ali, the director of the Ibn al-Haithem plant, which produces the al-Samoud missiles, after another visit by UN weapons inspectors.

The protest is the most specific reaction yet to the demand by Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, that Baghdad start destroying the missiles by Saturday, after they were found to exceed the 93-mile range permitted by existing arms restrictions on Iraq.

With the order coming barely a week after Mr Blix's relatively benign report on 14 February, US diplomats were delighted. Not only does it impose a de facto deadline for Iraqi compliance, it also fits in with the likely timetable for the Bush administration to go to war.

Yesterday, President George Bush met Spain's Prime Minister, Jose-Maria Aznar, one of his strongest European supporters, at his ranch in Texas to discuss the new Security Council resolution Britain and the US will introduce tomorrow.

The draft is understood to contain no specific deadline. It will state that Iraq has failed to comply with UN resolution 1441 ordering it to disarm. Baghdad thus faces "serious consequences", the diplomatic formulation that authorises the use of force.

On Friday, Mr Blix will deliver a new report, this time behind closed doors. The next day is the deadline for Baghdad to start getting rid of its al-Samouds. Shortly after that, and certainly by 14 March, Washington and London are expected to force a showdown vote in the UN.

Whatever the outcome, Mr Bush repeated last week that the US would if necessary lead a "coalition of the willing" against Iraq. An invasion could begin any time, perhaps around 23 March, when moonless conditions will provide maximum advantage for US forces. Some analysts speculate the invasion might be launched sooner, if the administration calculates that further delay will erode international support.

As of last night – barring an act of reckless defiance by Saddam Hussein – the odds were stacked against London and Washington securing the required nine Security Council votes to pass the second resolution.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, who is on a visit to East Asia mainly devoted to the stand-off with North Korea, will take time out in Beijing to press for support from China, a veto-holding member of the council. Washington will also use economic and financial sticks and carrots to try and bring waverers on board, as it is doing with Turkey.

worldnetdaily.com

Posted: February 22, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern Editor's note: Last month marked the 44th year of Fidel Castro's dictatorial rule of Cuba. To discuss this anniversary and prospects for change in Cuba are Agustin Blazquez, a documentarian of Communist Cuba whose recently released "Covering Cuba 3: Elian," which is available through www.CubaCollectibles.com; Enrique Encinosa, a historian and news editor of WAQI radio in Miami, whose books include "Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution"; Servando Gonzalez, author of "The Secret Fidel Castro: Deconstructing the Symbol" and most recently, "The Nuclear Deception: Nikita Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis"; and Juan Lopez, a political science professor at the University of Illinois and author of the recently released "Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro's Cuba."

By Myles Kantor

Question: On Jan. 8, 1959, Fidel Castro entered Havana after Fulgencio Batista left Cuba for the Dominican Republic. What's your response to the claim that Castro's occupancy of power 44 years later reflects popular support? Ted Turner, for instance, claimed at the Harvard Law School Forum in March 2001 that "most of the people that are still in Cuba like him."

BLAZQUEZ: What I have learned from sources inside Cuba is that 90 percent of the general population despise the regime. The rest is part of Castro's privileged ruling elite who, for personal economic and security reasons, are afraid of the consequences inherent in the collapse of the regime. His longevity is not a factor of popular support. It is a factor of his highly repressive totalitarian machinery that controls all aspects of life in Cuba. Since the law forbids freedom of speech and association, the democratic opposition forces in Cuba are unable to carry their message to the rest of the population or outside Cuba without incurring significant risk.

Thus there is a generalized lack of confidence that any opposition actions can bring about change. Contributing to the maintenance of the status quo is the lack of support from outside Cuba. The general ignorance of the American public and the rest of the world of the real Cuban situation is due to the rampant misinformation distributed by the left-wing-controlled mainstream news media. It generates insensitivity and a lack of international solidarity for the cause of the liberation of Cuba. Therefore, it is a serious roadblock to freedom.

ENCINOSA: If Castro has so much popular support as Ted Turner claims, why doesn't he allow opposition political parties and free elections? The facts indicate he has no popular support but maintains power based on repression and fear. Over 15,000 Cubans have been executed by firing squads, thousands more have died at sea escaping, tens of thousands have been guests of his concentration camps and almost 2 million – out of 11 million – have escaped to exile.

GONZALEZ: Though it is impossible to know the extent of support for Castro – opinion polls in totalitarian countries are pretty unreliable – I don't think that Cubans in Cuba like Castro. Though it is true that in the very first months of the popular revolution – of which Castro was just one of its many leaders – the majority of the people supported it, as soon as Castro managed to get total control this support began to diminish. Though in the last couple of years the dislike of the Cuban people for Castro is more and more evident, and they express it more openly, for many years they feared repression and disguised their feelings as best as they could. But, in several opportunities, Cubans have expressed their anti-Castro feelings by voting with their feet. This was evidenced when Castro opened the gates in the port of Camarioca in September of 1965 and again during the Mariel boatlift of 1980, when close to 125,000 Cubans precipitously escaped from Castro's proletarian paradise. I am convinced that if tomorrow Castro would open the gates again, in less than six months no less than half of the Cubans would escape from the island.

There is, however, at least one kernel of truth in Turner's words. In 44 years of Castro's tyrannical rule, no major anti-government rebellion has occurred. Save for an initial strong opposition, only a relatively minor incident in the summer of 1994, the so-called Habanazo riots, has been reported. Therefore, even if Cubans don't like Castro, it seems that they don't hate the tyrant enough to risk their lives trying to get rid of him.

Contrary to common belief, liberation from Castro's tyranny is not a difficult thing to accomplish, but is has a high price. To do it, Cubans don't need freedom of association or civil liberties. They don't even need guns. They only need to supply their blood. A spontaneous rebellion would force the Castro regime to bring tanks to Havana's streets and would end in several thousand Cubans massacred by Castro's army. This would destroy the myth of Castro's popularity and inflict a mortal blow to the tyranny. Unfortunately, Cubans obviously value life more than freedom, and they are not willing to pay the ultimate price for it.

In his much-quoted dictum, "Give me liberty or give me death," Patrick Henry expressed it brilliantly. People who value life above freedom sooner or later will become slaves. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case of the Cuban people.

LOPEZ: Under dictatorships, it is not possible to conduct a reliable public opinion survey to determine what percentage of the population supports the dictatorship. However, there are various indirect measures to assess the degree of support for the Castro government among citizens in the island. These proxies suggest that the support for the Cuban government is very low. Whenever the opportunity to leave Cuba has come up, as in 1980 with the Mariel episode and with the rafters in 1994, there have been endless streams of people wanting to get out. Only force has put an end to the migrations. Indicators of social anomie, like high rates of suicide and alcoholism, repeated spontaneous protests (for example, to complain about poor services and breakdowns in the supply of basic necessities), and small-scale strikes (to demand unpaid wages or for other reasons) are further evidence of discontent.

Then there are the facts that the dictatorship does not want free elections, suppresses free speech and freedom of association and is terrified of the possibility that mass protests could develop. Any government that is confident of enjoying majority support does not oppose free elections. Castro is even afraid of holding a referendum, as the Varela Project asks. It should be clear, for those who want to see, that mass mobilizations carried out by totalitarian regimes to orchestrate a facade of public support are just exercises in mass coercion. Many signs also indicate that there is considerable discontent with the regime among members of the Communist Party, the armed forces and other state institutions, for example, defections abroad, widespread corruption and even expressions of criticisms.

As for Ted Turner's comment, the most likely explanation is that he is a conscious supporter of the Castro dictatorship. No wonder some people refer to CNN as Castro's News Network. Evidence shows that CNN news reports are highly biased in favor of the Cuban government. Other possibilities are that Turner is an idiot or one of Castro's uninformed foreign dupes. But I think that the first explanation is more accurate.

...... worldnetdaily.com