Word: chavez
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...That?s a question the Bush Administration - whose feelings for Chavez are certainly mutual - has struggled to answer ever since Venezuela initiated the Citgo program last November. While the heating oil gesture has certainly allowed Chavez to tweak Bush?s nose, it is also being recognized inside and outside of Washington as a public relations coup for Chavez?s Bolivarian Revolution (named for South America?s 19th-century independence hero, Simon Bolivar...
...small percentage of the heating oil Venezuela exports to the U.S. each year, but Citgo says it has set aside about 10% of its refined petroleum products for the program. Says Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, D.C., "Unfortunately for the Bush Administration, Chavez is proving to be a more inventive thinker in terms of hemispheric politics...
...Critics suggest Chavez?s oil diplomacy is simply a ploy to take consumers? minds off of record high oil prices, which are partly a result of his efforts to rebuild the power of OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member. Alvarez insists crude prices in the 1990s were "unfairly low" for producers like Venezuela - but says the Citgo program does give Chavez a chance to showcase "one of our revolution?s most important principles: the redistribution of oil revenues, especially for the poor." He adds it also reflects "the kind of cooperation mechanism we?re using with our neighbor...
...heating oil project?s biggest diplomatic coup, Alvarez concedes, may be the good will it generates among Americans at a time of deteriorating U.S.-Venezuela relations - strained ever since the Bush Administration was widely accused of backing a failed 2002 coup against Chavez (a charge it denies). Chavez, who has been democratically elected twice and is almost certain to win reelection this year, is convinced the U.S. is out to assassinate him or invade Venezuela for its oil; the White House, concerned about a growing wave of leftist victories in Latin American presidential elections, insists Chavez is a would...
...Amidst those tensions, says Alvarez, the Citgo program is proof that Chavez?s revolution is still fond of Americans, if not their government. (Citgo, Chavez aides point out, is also a NASCAR sponsor.) "We?ll continue to support a people whose government is hostile to us," says Alvarez. "We have nothing against this country." Venezuelans and Americans might feel that way, but for the moment it seems that no amount of heating oil, no matter how deeply discounted, could thaw the enmity between their two governments...