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Mar
2
2012
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In Case You Missed It… Articles Roundup Week of 3/2/12

In this week’s roundup… Rumors surround Hugo Chávez’s health as conflicting reports emerge following his operation in Cuba; Chávez’s absence triggers discontent among the country’s military ranks; MUD candidate Capriles’ youthfulness could play to his advantage in the October presidential elections if Chávez’s condition worsens. Price controls continue to increase the country’s soaring inflation, hurting food production and industrial output; Venezuela continues to send aid to embattled Syrian president Bashar Assad despite international sanctions; public and private investments fall to 10.3 percent, below 2008 numbers; and anarchy reigns in the Venezuela penitentiary system due to a lack of government oversight.

Chávez Surgery Revives Speculation, The Wall Street Journal

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who is running for re-election, was in good condition after undergoing surgery overnight in Cuba to remove a pelvic lesion near where surgeons had removed a cancerous tumor last year, Vice President Elias Jaua said on Tuesday.

Hugo Chávez’s illness triggers new reports of discontent, fear in the military, Boston Herald

President Hugo Chávez’s illness has deepened the internal fissures of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, an institution that never integrated into one unique block of support of the Bolivarian Revolution and whose members have for months shown signs of concern and discontent, according to internal reports by the private intelligence company Stratfor leaked by WikiLeaks.

Chávez Surgery Opens Venezuela Election Chances For Candidate Henrique Capriles, The Huffington Post via the Associated Press

Throughout his presidency, Hugo Chávez has relied on his vigor and endurance: playing baseball, speaking for hours at a stretch and making decisions on the fly while bounding around Venezuela exuding energy.

Chávez’s Cancer Mystery: What if Venezuela’s President Doesn’t Run for Re-Election?, TIME
Lent, the pre-Easter season that started last week, is traditionally a time when Christians ponder their mortality – and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had a lot of it to contemplate before he left Caracas for Havana to undergo more cancer surgery.

Chávez’s health makes an impact on Venezuelan foreign policy, El Universal

Since last September, Colombian Ambassador to Venezuela Alfredo Curé has been waiting for a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to produce his credentials accounting for the official notice of the beginning of his mission in the country.

Chávez, his friends and life after death, The Financial Times

One of the more interesting lines of speculation about Hugo Chávez’s deteriorating health and possible death is what it might mean for the socialist Venezuelan president’s many foreign allies.

Venezuela’s New Price Controls Order Cuts Of Up To 25 percent, Fox Business

The Venezuelan government will cut prices on a slate of basic goods up to an average of 25 percent as part of a long-awaited first wave of broadly expanded price controls that officials say will combat the country’s soaring inflation, Vice President Elias Jaua announced Monday.

Agricultural balance still in the red, El Universal

World food prices will continue playing a key role in goods availability in the Venezuelan market in 2012. While the value of some commodities, including sugar, cereal and oil, dropped at the end of 2011, international organizations fear that prices this year will continue above the average.

Venezuela’s aluminum and steel production below 1997 numbers, El Universal

Official statistics reveal that the output of the subsidiaries of the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) and private manufacturing, of the essence to diversify exports and supply raw materials to the rest of the economy, is seriously shrinking.

Venezuela sends fuel to Syria, no plans to halt shipments aimed at aiding Assad regime, The Washington Post via the Associated Press

Venezuela has been sending diesel fuel to Syria and the government of President Hugo Chávez has no plans to halt the shipments, the country’s energy minister said Tuesday.

Public and private investment 10.3 percent below 2008 level, El Universal

Thanks to raising oil prices, the Venezuelan government is able to inject a significant dose of public spending and the economy takes again the road of growth.

Venezuela’s Gladiators, The New York Times

Two men with knives face off in a pit. Hundreds gathered around are egging them on, while on the walkway above others are picking their winner and placing bets.

 
Feb
17
2012
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In Case You Missed It… Articles Roundup Week of 2/17/12

In this week’s roundup… Three million Venezuelans came out to the polls in Sunday’s primary election; Henrique Capriles Radonski won with an overwhelming 62 percent of the vote, and his primary opponents immediately vowed to support him; the opposition resisted the government’s order to turn over voter lists. Meanwhile, Chávez instituted a new round of price controls and shipped oil to war-torn Syria, potentially undermining Western sanctions against the country and its repressive leader, Bashar al-Assad.

Venezuela’s Capriles wins primary, seeks to beat Chávez, Reuters

Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles easily won a primary election on Sunday to become the unity candidate against President Hugo Chávez, vowing to end 13 years of socialist rule that he said has left the OPEC nation in crisis.

Chávez Opponent Surges in Venezuela, The Wall Street Journal

An intense young governor, part of a new generation of Venezuelan politicians, will be facing off against an ailing President Hugo Chávez after winning a landslide primary victory Sunday.

Chávez’s Challenger, The New York Times

A lot was at stake in Sunday’s opposition primary beyond figuring out who would take on Hugo Chávez in the presidential election this fall. Venezuelans wanted to know whether the chronically splintered opposition could get its act together enough to unite behind a single, credible contender.

And in the blue corner…, The Economist

More than a few supporters of the opposition to Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, awoke on February 13th feeling the need to pinch themselves. The results of the open primary elections the night before, designed above all to pick a candidate to frustrate Mr Chávez’s bid for re-election in October, exceeded all expectations. The winner, as widely predicted, was Henrique Capriles, the governor of the state of Miranda.

Venezuela opposition: Row erupts over voter list, BBC News

Venezuela’s opposition says it has destroyed the list of voters in Sunday’s primary election, despite a court order that they be preserved. The Democratic Unity coalition said the records had been burned in accordance with a promise to ensure confidentiality.

Venezuelans Resist Order to Turn Over Voter Names, The New York Times

A furor has erupted in Venezuela over voter secrecy in an opposition primary election held on Sunday to choose a candidate to run against President Hugo Chávez, with political leaders expressing fear that the government might seek reprisals against voters if their names are publicized.

Despite housing pledges from Chávez, Venezuela’s homeless call racetrack home, The Washington Post

Venezuela already faced a housing shortage of 2 million units, the government’s own statistics show, with the state only managing to build a third of the 100,000 new units needed each year. Julio Borges, an opposition deputy in the National Assembly who frequently clashes with Chávez on housing issues, said governments that preceded Chávez’s built more housing.

Venezuela to Begin Presenting Regulated Price Caps to Companies, Bloomberg Businessweek

Venezuela will begin to present regulated prices to about 385 companies that produce personal care and cleaning products including Colgate-Palmolive Co., Procter & Gamble Co. and Unilever NV today.

Venezuela Gives Pepsi Venture 4 Days to Provide Water Receipts, Bloomberg

Pepsi-Cola Venezuela CA has four days to provide receipts to the government after the country’s price control agency received complaints that the company raised its price for mineral water ahead of price caps.

Exclusive: Venezuela ships fuel to war-torn Syria, Reuters

The government of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is emerging as a rare supplier of diesel to Syria, potentially undermining Western sanctions and helping the Syrian government fuel its military in the middle of a bloody crackdown on civilian protests.

Venezuela’s oil industry: Spilling over, The Economist

On February 4th Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, held festivities to celebrate the anniversary of a failed coup attempt he led in 1992. He had busloads of public workers brought into Caracas for the occasion. Among them were high-ranking employees of PDVSA, the state oil company. That same day, a pipeline carrying pressurised oil fractured in the state of Monagas.

 

 
Feb
7
2012
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Game Changer in U.S.-Venezuela Relations

DSC 0754 150x150 Game Changer in U.S. Venezuela RelationsJosé R. Cárdenas served in several foreign policy positions during the George W. Bush administration (2004-2009), including on the National Security Council staff. He is a consultant with Vision Americas in Washington, DC.

Bombshell testimony on Capitol Hill last week by U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has dramatically altered the stakes in Washington’s relations with the Hugo Chávez regime in Venezuela. Speaking before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, Clapper said that Iranian leaders had changed their calculus and are now prepared to respond to perceived threats with terrorist attacks inside the United States.

Clapper said: “The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime. We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas. Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran’s evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the ambassador as well as Iranian leaders’ perceptions of U.S. threats against the regime.”

The implications for U.S.-Venezuela relations are clear. Now that it has been assessed that Iran is prepared to attack the U.S. homeland, focus must now be placed on its capabilities and means to do so. That Hugo Chávez has made Venezuela — less than a three-hour flight from Florida — one of Iran’s most important international allies is now a paramount concern to U.S. security agencies.

Indeed, Chávez’s deep-seated economic, military, and intelligence relationship with Iran, running into the tens of billions of dollars, provides an enormous cover for covert operations and other destabilizing activities. That relationship runs from establishing Venezuela’s Margarita Island as a center for Iranian and Hezbollah operations in the Americas and facilitating Iran’s development of a nuclear capability by helping it obtain uranium, to blunting  sanctions by providing Iran’s access to Venezuela’s banking system and jointly trafficking in weapons (here and here) and narcotics. The DEA believes a weekly flight between Iran and Caracas is used for, among other nefarious purposes, smuggling South American cocaine to the Middle East.

Moreover, we know already that a member of the terrorist network plotting to detonate fuel tanks at JFK International Airport in New York in 2007 was arrested on the run to Venezuela, where he planned to board a Venezuelan flight to Tehran.

Lastly, the explosive documentary aired last month on Univisión, “The Iranian Threat,” included not only incriminating information on Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats discussing cyberattacks on sensitive U.S. computer systems (The State Department subsequently expelled the Venezuelan diplomat from the United States, where she had been re-posted), but also compelling evidence on how young Latinos are targeted for recruitment and paramilitary training in Iranian and Venezuelan camps visited by Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Colombian FARC.

As the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, put it succinctly in another hearing last week, “The Iranian regime has formed alliances with Chávez, Ortega, Castro, and Correa that many believe can destabilize the hemisphere. These alliances can pose an immediate threat by giving Iran – directly through the IRGC, the Qods force, or its proxies like Hezbollah – a platform in the region to carry out attacks against the United States, our interests, and allies.”

In addition, Clapper told the Senate that the intelligence community remains concerned about Iran’s ties to governments in the region and was tracking the issue closely, adding, specific to Iran’s activities in the region, “there is more to unfold here.”

Clearly, Clapper’s testimony reflects a substantial change in the U.S. government’s own calculus about Iran, Venezuela, and the Western Hemisphere.  If Iran is now prepared to strike the U.S. homeland, then all actions need to be pursued to debilitate its capability to do so, and that means targeting its presence in Venezuela. Hugo Chávez made a very dangerous bet when he introduced Iran to the Western Hemisphere. Now, he should be made to pay the price.