Is re-privatizing the Oil the real reason behind the anti-Chavez movement?

Goal of the opposition is to privatize Oil, note Ortega's involvment : http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?p=574

The goal: privatization of Venezuela's oil

A May 1 article in Mexico's Proceso says one of the aims of the coup leaders was "the privatization of PDVSA, turning it over to a U.S. company linked to President George Bush and the Spanish company Repsol; plus the sale of CITGO, the U.S. subsidiary of PDVSA, to Gustavo Cisneros and his partners in the north, as well as an end to the Venezuelan government's exclusive subsoil rights."

Cisneros, a longtime friend of former President George Bush, heads up a corporate empire stretching from the U.S. to Patagonia, the British Economist reports.

PDVSA is Latin America's largest company -- a lucrative prize awaiting the eager fingers of the privatizers. The maneuvers to achieve privatization of PDVSA began in earnest after Chavez became president. Though we are told that it was the workers who reacted against Chavez's changes, a March 2001 Wall Street Journal <http://www.transnationale.org/fiches/-852570645.htm> article disclosed a different picture, speaking of "top management and white-collar workers" at PDVSA "in open revolt against the government of President Hugo Chavez."

The WSJ reported: "hey have participated in ... noisy demonstrations and work stoppages to protest the recent appointment of three Chavez loyalists to PDVSA's board. ... Leaders of a newly organized PDVSA management union' aren't saying when or if they would strike. However, after holding a companywide meeting last weekend, they announced plans to carry out a series of gradual escalations of the conflict that could culminate in an indefinite strike ... The controversy quickly exploded when thousands of PDVSA executives signed full-page newspaper ads denouncing the new appointees as incompetent.'" On April 4, 2002, "PDVSA executives declared a work stoppage," the WSJ reported. In the lexicon of U.S. labor, these "strike" actions would be considered "lockouts" by management.

The leadership of the oil workers union, which operated in close alliance with the two political parties that ran Venezuela <http://www.transnationale.org/pays/ven.htm> for 40 years before Chavez, also became involved. And information continues to surface about the role played by the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) leadership, especially its president, Carlos Ortega, in the coup attempt and his ongoing role in efforts to bring down Chavez. Tayler notes that former Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez, currently living in Miami, who is wanted on corruption charges in Venezuela <http://www.transnationale.org/pays/ven.htm> and has been accused of involvement in the plot, is a mentor of both Ortega and Carmona.




The April 2002 coup by media. http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/01/1560075.php
"The conspirators, including Carmona, met at the offices of Venevisión. They stayed until 2am to prepare "the next stage", along with Rafael Poleo (owner of El Nuevo Pais) and Gustavo Cisneros, a key figure in the coup. Cisneros, a multimillionaire of Cuban origin and the owner of Venevisión, runs a media empire - Organización Diego Cisneros. It has 70 outlets in 39 countries (9). Cisneros is a friend of George Bush senior: they play golf together and in 2001 the former US president holidayed in Cisneros's Venezuelan property. Both are keen on the privatisation of the PDVSA (10). Otto Reich, US assistant secretary of state for Interamerican affairs, admits to having spoken with Cisneros that night (11). At 4am on 12 April <2002>, to avoid bloodshed, Chávez allowed himself to be arrested and taken to the distant island of Orchila."
-- Maurice Lemoine. Le Monde Diplomatique. August 2002.
<http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezuela> and
<http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1551768.php> and
<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20&ItemID=2321>

i also think it is a good idea to remember the long standing US policy when it comes to the western hem.

prevent popular sovereignty.

The strikes and disruptions in the state oil company became more frequent after the Chavez government mixed it up with the top management, and increased Venezuela's royalty share of extracted oil to 31% to pay for social programs for the poor.

That pissed off a lot of people. Makes the privatizers and free marketeers froth at the mouth....

in the FTAA...

All that these agreements need is a 'signature'

...and that's the end of it (or the beginning of something unimaginable)

could be
could very well be.
Nothing to see here move along.

In addition to the privatization described above, I remember the coup leaders also stating that they were going to pull out of OPEC and 'let the market determine the oil price'. Code words for making as much money as quickly as possible.

Historically, and in the present, Venezuela has been a very important (and founding) member of OPEC. Since Venezuela supplies an awful lot of the oil the US imports, capturing Venezuela and neutralizing OPEC in the same breath would have assured a low oil price during the war in Iraq. Neat trick, eh?

Well, it didn't work.

Read this (I know, it's long, but he get's it all right):

US foreign policy is determined for multiple reasons, and
economics is not always the first concern for a specific
policy, even if keeping the overall system stable for capital
accumulation remains the overarching determinant.
Venezuela is a key country in a key region, where there is
already rebellion afoot. In play are Argentina, Brazil,
Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia, all of which are
experiencing serious social upheavals that include strong
opposition to the Washington Consensus. Again, the
imperial obligation to make an example of the ?rebellious
child? is a factor. And US international power no longer
comes primarily from exploitative economic production,
but from a monetary regime that extracts interest from the
external debts of other nations based on rules it enforces, at
the end of the day, with the power of the dollar backed by
the military. Any attempt to develop any form of national
self-sufficiency that could add weight to a regional or
global default movement is a very real threat - perhaps the
most real of all threats - to US global power.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x40503

Chavez is a nationalist, he wants sovereignty and self-sufficiency
and self-determination. He wants an end to the Monroe Doctrine. That
is his sin.

Only the PROMISE of new oil can help Bush this year. Maybe a market boost, but any real unrest will send prices up and markets down. They want a quick fix and immaculately timed because, as in Iraq, the oil will not visibly arrive in a torrent to our deliberately scarce refineries and all their local formulas.

The money is way late so we are getting toward an October surprise success of perceptions not reality. Eventually Bush expects to get it all so high prices and enraging the public are dangers he can live with.

Plots against Syria and Iran and others STILL in process as a matter of policy. The ones snuck in lately bode ill for the sovereignty of another bunch of nations, though Spain has been an exception worth noting.

Someone in Bushco has got to be worried about this crisis gaming strategy.

There is no quick oil, except maybe what is in the strategic reserve.
There is definitely no quick, cheap oil.
Other countries are developing larger appetites.
It's going to get expensive.
Of course conservation could help a lot, but that would be rational.
I still see no sign they plan to trot out the sort of infrastructure
investment that would make renewables a big contributor.

One of the flaws in "pure" capitalism is it's hard to get money
for big important infrastructure efforts that offer little
profit. Greed, like fear, makes you stupid.

want to see as little of the people having a share a nations wealth as possible. If Venezuela was more like say Kuwait then we wouldn't be able to push them around so much. And there'd be a groundswell of South American countries who would rally around a rich nation, proudly. We can't have that. We gotta have this pot stirred up so no one talks back to us.

By the way - where's windansea? - he's about overdue here. Maybe he's conferring with his girlfriend.

What do they expect the people to do if the opposition wins?

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16547
Chavez's well-funded opposition also appears to be receiving the tacit stamp of approval from Henry Kissinger and his international consulting firm, Kissinger and Associates. In late-January, while the national elections council was preparing to evaluate the authenticity of the two-plus million petition signatures handed in by the opposition, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was presenting an award to Venezuelan billionaire, Gustavo Cisneros, Chairman & CEO of the Cisneros Group of Companies. According to the Green Left Weekly, Cisneros has been "identified by Newsweek and Venezuelan publications as one of the protagonists and financiers of the April 11, 2002, coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez."

In a December 2003 press release announcing the upcoming awards ceremony, the IAEC described Cisneros as someone who "consistently sought to create an environment where business and government can work together in meaningful ways for the betterment of society." It went on: "The council seeks to create a forum in which effective policy making is made by the public and private sectors working together. Cisneros' life's work parallels the council's mission."
According to the Green Left Weekly, however, Cisneros is "credited with being a driving force behind the December 2002 nationwide lock-out and sabotage of the oil industry, which drove the Venezuelan economy into the ground by causing a historical drop of 27% in the country's GDP in the first trimester of 2003." And the US-based NGO Global Strike for Women condemned the IAEC's decision to give Cisneros the award, charging that he was a leader of the Dec 2002-Feb 2003 nationwide lock out "aimed at forcing President Chavez from office" and that "he played a similar role in the more recent oil lock out orchestrated by the CIA and aimed at paralyzing the whole country." more

Do you hate the US and freedom loving democracy or something?

FREEDOM FRIES, FREEDOM FRIES, FREEDOM FRIES......

never underestimate the dark side of the farce....bwwaaaaaah, bwaaaaaah!!

Venezuelan.

I can spot elitist hypocrites willing to sell Latin America to the highest bidder a mile away.

I can also recite the alphabet back wards when I'm drunk.

Man they are total babes.

:crazy:

that's the source

I think that holds for well over 90% of our "national interest" meddling...

Marine Corp Smedley Butler said pretty much the same thing in his essay "Wars a Racket". Butler exposed an attempted coup on Roosevelt by the Duponts and other Right-Wing whackos. Fast forward to about 1963 and you have another General named Shoup saying the same thing.

You would think that the US would get wise and develop alternatives but the BFEE must go first.

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At the same time it's the saddest part.

You're getting more desperate by the post. Maybe you can enlighten the rest of us with more Washington Times articles. How about some more plagiarism, maybe some of those mysterious letters from human rights organizations comparing Chavez to Mao and Stalin. Actually I have a good one, get some polls arranged by people that want Mr Chavez dead. Yeah that's the ticket.

people from getting shot at by the opposition, and then calling the National Guard 'fascists' for doing so. If that isn't calling night day and up down...

But I do have to say thank you for the fetishistic pictures of the opposition mujer with the wrist rocket. That gave me an image to associate with the picture of the ball bearing removed from the guy who died protesting.

I likes makin' em angwy.

Wonder who it was? I thinks I knows.

n/t:)