[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Venezuela rejects imperialism's 1% solution
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- Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 13:10:39 +0100
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Venezuela rejects imperialism's 1% solution
Published Feb 17, 2005 11:13 PM
Sometimes a single figure can speak volumes. Keep in mind the figure 1 percent
when discussing Venezuela with your friends and co-workers.
For almost a century, the Venezuelan economy has depended on selling oil
abroad. It has a rich supply of petroleum and was at one time--before the
development of Middle East oilfields--the second-largest oil producer in the
world.
Oil has been Venezuela's main source of revenue, amounting to 80 percent of its
exports. The Rockefeller-owned Standard Oil Co. for years controlled
Venezuela's oil, but promised that its exploitation of this precious resource
would make the country rich. It did make the Rockefellers fabulously rich, and
it made some Vene zuelans comfortably rich. But most Venezue lans never saw
that money and lived in great poverty.
Until now. The Bolivarian Revolution, which began with the election of Hugo
Chávez to the presidency and has now become a vast popular movement for
profound social change, is changing all that.
Today, Venezuela's oil revenues are pay ing for a broad range of social
programs, including a huge literacy campaign, land reform that is revitalizing
agriculture and raising the standard of living in the countryside, and a free
public health system that has already reduced infant mortality and maternal
deaths.
Now comes the figure 1 percent. That's what foreign oil companies--including
Chev ronTexaco, whose origins go back to Standard Oil--had been paying until
recently in royalties to the Venezuelan government for the extra-heavy crude
oil they extracted there.
One percent is like nothing. These multibillion-dollar companies were getting
the oil virtually for free, even though Venezuela had technically nationalized
its oil back in 1976.
Hydrocarbons Law and the coup
In November 2001, after several elections in Venezuela had established a new
Constitution and a new National Assembly dedicated to eradicating poverty, the
Hydrocarbons Law was passed. Under this law, Venezuela reasserted its control
over its most vital resource. The royalty on light and heavy crude was raised
from 16.7 percent to 30 percent. On extra-heavy crude, which costs more to
produce, the royalty was raised from 1 percent to 16.6 percent.
But almost immediately, before the law could be implemented, a vigorous
anti-Chávez campaign took to the streets. Within five months a coup had taken
place in which Venezuela's business leaders, allied to elements in the
military, kidnapped Chávez and declared themselves to be the new government.
There was no question that Washington--which speaks so glowingly of democracy
and free elections--was in total support of the coup against the elected Chávez
government.
The coup lasted two days. After hundreds of thousands of angry people
surrounded the presidential palace, and many soldiers began questioning the
orders they were getting from the high command, Chávez was rescued and the coup
was smashed.
That was in April 2002. Almost immedi ately, changes began to be made in PDVSA.
Although nominally the state oil company, PDVSA had been in the hands of a
privileged elite who were completely tied to the big imperialist oil companies.
A detailed and fascinating report on the history of PDVSA, written by a
free-lance jour nalist living in Venezuela, Gregory Wil pert, shows how it
functioned as a "Trojan Horse" for these transnationals. ("The Economics,
Culture and Politics of Oil in Venezuela," www.venezuelanalysis.com)
Wilpert describes how after the failed coup, the new head of PDVSA, Ali Rodri
guez, tried to reorganize the company, both to make it more efficient--it was
top-heavy with cushy supervisory jobs--and to break it away from the control of
foreign capital.
Some of PDVSA's most sensitive functions had been outsourced to U.S. companies.
Since 1996, the U.S. company Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC)
had managed all of PDVSA's data processing needs through a joint venture called
INTESA. In other words, they controlled PDVSA's computers--and it was costing a
lot of money. Rodriguez wanted this work taken over by Venezuelans.
But before this change could be implemented, the bureaucrats who had been
running PDVSA organized a "strike" that shut down Venezuela's oil production.
INTESA was part of the strike. When the government, with the cooperation of
some of the workers, started to get oil production going again, everything had
to be done manually.
"The result was that PDVSA could not transfer its data processing to new
systems, nor could it process its orders and bills for oil shipments," writes
Wilpert. "PDVSA ended up having to process such things manually, since
passwords and the general computing infrastructure were unavailable, causing
the strike to be much more damaging to the company than it would have been, if
the data processing had been in PDVSA's hands."
The "strike" failed to bring down the government, which has since reorganized
the oil industry. In the process, it made some interesting discoveries.
Wilpert wrote in 2003, "... INTESA, which controlled all of PDVSA's
information, is in turn controlled by SAIC, a For tune 500 company (revenues in
2002: $6.1 billion) that is deeply involved in the U.S. defense industry,
particularly as it relates to nuclear technology, defense intel ligence, and
computing technology. Its man agers included two former U.S. Secretaries of
Defense (William Perry and Melvin Laird) and two former CIA directors (John
Deutch and Robert Gates). Its current Board of Directors includes the former
commander of the U.S. Special Forces (Wayne Downing), a former coordinator of
the National Security Council (Jasper Welch), and the former director of the
National Security Agency (Bobby Ray Inman). Whether or not SAIC was actively
involved in the PDVSA strike and whether it passes crucial company information
on to other oil companies is unknown."
The last thing the oil companies and their friends in the political/military/
intelligence establishment of the U.S. government want is to have the public
know the specifics of their dirty dealings around the world.
Why oil execs are worried
Last November, Chávez announced during his weekly television program that the
government would begin implementing the rise in royalties for extra-heavy crude
oil from 1 percent to 16.6 percent. The oil companies pretended to be surprised
and shocked, even though Chávez was merely affirming what had been passed in
the Hydrocarbons Law of 2001.
Recently, two U.S. companies that had been drilling for oil offshore were told
to suspend their operations by the Venezuelan government. At the same time,
Vene zuela has signed contracts to sell more oil to China.
In the business pages of the corporate press, articles are appearing about how
worried U.S. oil executives are over developments in Venezuela. In the mass
media, however, the line is that U.S. consumers could suffer from the
revolutionary changes in that country.
A popular slogan in the large anti-war demo nstrations of recent years was "No
blood for oil." To say that the war in Iraq, or U.S. hostility toward the
revolutionary pro cess in Venezuela, is over oil is catchy, but it is not
adequate. Many pro-war, pro-imperialist elements will also say that the issue
is oil, and they mobilize mass sentiment with the argument that the population
here will be deprived of oil and gas for heating their homes, driving their
cars and so on unless the U.S. military polices the world.
What has to be made clear is that imperialist intervention is not for oil
itself, as a useful product, but for oil PROFITS. The government in Washington
that decides where to send troops and who to put under sanctions is a
government owned lock, stock and barrel by big capital--and there are no
capitalists bigger than the oil capitalists.
The people of the U.S. will need oil until the economy can be reorganized
around safer and sustainable sources of energy. And many countries want to sell
that oil. What we don't need are the oil companies that want us to fight and
die for their profits.
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