(WorkingForChange)--Two
weeks ago, the Chicago White Sox, led by manager Ozzie Guillen (Oswaldo Jose
Guillen Barrios as he is known in his home town of Ocumare del Tuy, Venezuela),
swept the Houston Astros to win their first World Series since 1917. As popular
as baseball is in both Venezuela and the United States, the victory--engineered
by the first Latin American-born manager of a World Series team--is unlikely to
be the catalyst for a warming trend in political relations between the two
countries.
The most recent
round of acrimony between the two countries began in late August when, during a
broadcast of "The 700 Club," the Reverend Pat Robertson advocated the
assassination of Venezuelan Present Hugo Chavez: "I think that we really
ought to go ahead and do it . . . We have the ability to take him out,"
Robertson said. While many were quick to condemn his comments, some observers
suggested that they went beyond the mere ramblings of an uninhibited
televangelist; perhaps they were a trial balloon--launched by a longtime Team
Bush supporter--on behalf of an administration that has shown little but
disdain for the Venezuelan president.
After more than two
decades of having gotten a pass for provocative, offensive, and often
ridiculous comments, several of Robertson's religious and political colleagues
unloaded on him.
Joe Loconte, who
specializes in faith-based issues as a William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and
a Free Society at the conservative Heritage Foundation, warned that Robertson
was alienating a large segment of the American people already suspicious about
"the role of religion in public life."
In a column in the Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review, Loconte suggested that, "evangelical leaders . . . marginalize
Robertson and his media empire--publicly and decisively. They should
editorialize against his excesses, refuse to appear on his television program
and deny him advertising space in their magazines. Board members should
threaten to resign unless he steps down from his public platform."
While Robertson
issued a quasi-apology, the State Department said little.
Since Hugo Chavez
became president of Venezuela, Team Bush has done much to destabilize and
isolate the Chavez government, as well as to demonize Chavez: A U.S.-backed
coup in April 2002 failed to remove him, and a recall election--during which
the opposition received U.S. support, particularly from the National Endowment
for Democracy--was unsuccessful. (Since he came to power, Chavez has held eight
elections, referendums and plebiscites.) Late last month, Israel acceded to
U.S. demands that it put on hold, or cancel, a large arms deal it had brewing with
Venezuela.
In mid-September,
President Bush issued "Presidential Determination No. 2005-36," which
branded Venezuela (and Burma) outlaw countries in the drug wars. Dan Feder,
writing for The Narcosphere--a project of the Narco News Bulletin--characterized
the president's decision as another component of the "Cubanization of
Venezuela."
Interestingly
enough, the presidential determination recommended that, "support for
programs to aid Venezuela's democratic institutions, establish selected community
development projects, and strengthen Venezuela's political party system is
vital to the national interests of the United States."
While "a drug
war decertification generally implies blocking a country from international aid
and loans," it is significant that Bush's Presidential Determination
encourages aid for Venezuela's so-called "democratic institutions,"
Feder reported. "So, while aid to Venezuelan 'democracy' (code for funding
the opposition to President Chavez), most recently seen in the National
Endowment for Democracy's $107,000 grant to Sumate, will be allowed to
continue, Venezuela will most likely be cut off from other forms of aid and
loans from institutions like the World Bank."
While Bush has not
directly advocated regime change in Venezuela, he has relied on surrogates and
longtime supporters to make the administration's desires known that Venezuela,
and Latin America, would be better off without Hugo Chavez.
On October 9, the
Rev. Pat Robertson was back on television, this time as a guest on CNN's
"Late Night," where he again had sharp words for Chavez. After
suggesting that Hurricane Katrina and other recent natural disasters might be a
signal that the "End Times" is hurtling down the pike, Robertson
turned his attention to the Venezuelan president.
Sans assassination
talk, Robertson linked Chavez to Iran, one of President Bush's "axis of
evil" countries, Osama bin Laden, and even to the jailed terrorist Carlos
the Jackal.
Robertson claimed
that the United States "could face a nuclear attack from Venezuela":
"The truth is, this man is setting up a Marxist-type dictatorship in
Venezuela, he's trying to spread Marxism throughout South America, he's
negotiating with the Iranians to get nuclear material and he also sent $1.2
million in cash to Osama bin Laden right after 9-11." The televangelist
maintained that Chavez sent a "warm congratulatory letter to Carlos the
Jackal, he's a friend of Mommar Qaddafi," he said. "He's made common
cause with these people that are considered terrorists."
Although Robertson
told CNN that he had "apologized" for advocating Chavez's
assassination, and that he would "be praying for him," he added that,
"One day we will be staring at nuclear weapons and it won't be Katrina
facing New Orleans, it's going to be a Venezuelan nuke." And in a remark
that sounded suspiciously close to comments that set off the late August
brouhaha, Robertson pointed out that "my suggestion was, isn't it a lot
cheaper sometimes to deal with these problems before you have to have a big
war."
When asked where he
was getting his information from, Robertson said, "Well, sources that came
to me. That's what I was told."
The sources
Robertson may have been depending on could be the same sources that fueled a
recent report in the Unification Church-owned Washington Times. On
October 17, Rowan Scarborough reported that Venezuela was beginning to take
steps toward developing nuclear weapons: "The Venezuelan government has
made overtures to various countries about obtaining nuclear technology,
according to U.S. officials, who worry that President Hugo Chavez might be
taking the first steps in a long road to develop nuclear weaponry."
"We are
keeping an eye on Venezuela," one senior official, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity, told the Washington Times. "My sense is
that Venezuela has not been as successful with its nuclear entreaties with
other countries as it would have liked." Iran is one of countries that
Venezuela has supposedly approached. The administration claims that Chavez is
developing a close relationship with the mullahs in Iran. "They are quite
kissy-kissy with Iran," said the U.S. official. "There is a lot of
back and forth. Iranians show up at Venezuelan things. They are both pariah
states that hang out together."
Chavez has carried
out actions that have clearly rubbed the Bush administration the wrong way. He
continues to be close with Cuba's Fidel Castro, and he has stressed that
Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, has a right to control it
own oil, and to determine its own affairs without the interference of the U.S.
In April, Venezuela
"canceled the long-running IMET (International Military Education and
Training) program, which had seen Venezuelan soldiers traveling to the U.S. for
training, as well as U.S. officers giving courses in Venezuela." According
to a report by Narco News Bulletin's Dan Feder, "the cancellation
was the direct result of findings by a determined young Venezuelan-American
attorney and journalist named Eva Golinger, who had discovered a direct
connection between the program and coup-plotters in the Venezuelan
military."
On August 31,
shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and the city of New
Orleans, Citgo, the US gasoline distribution affiliate wholly owned by the
Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), announced
that it would donate $1 million to help in rescue efforts for areas.
A few weeks back,
Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuelan ambassador to the U.S., accused the Bush
administration of "protecting" Luis Posada Corriles, a right- wing
Cuban wanted on terrorism charges in Venezuela.
On October 12, at
an indigenous gathering marking Columbus Day--renamed by Chavez as the
"Day of Indigenous Resistance"--he accused the Sanford, Florida-based
evangelical group, New Tribes Mission, with being agents of imperialism and
suggested that the group leave the country.
With all that is on
the administration's plate these days, it is unlikely that it will turn its
full attention to Venezuela. However, if Chavez continues to assert hegemony
over its oil, continues to grow his influence amongst other Latin American
leaders, and continues to be a thorn in the side of the Bush
administration, the U.S. could again turn its attention south.
Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the
conservative movement. His
WorkingForChange column Conservative Watch documents the strategies,
players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.