VENEZUELA : Hugo Chavez: Bush’s enemy, Blacks’ ally by William Reed

www.sfbayview.com/020106/blacksally020106.shtml - 15k - 6 avr 2006 -

President Hugo Chavez salutes his people. He often speaks proudly of his African and Indigenous heritage and uses Venezuela’s oil wealth especially to uplift those who share his bloodlines. Like their cousins in the U.S., they have long been oppressed.

Sometimes it’s just hard to go against a guy when you know in your heart that he ain’t as bad as they say he is. So what should you have to say about Mr. Hugo Chavez: Dictator? Because he is George W. Bush’s enemy, therefore he’s mine as well? Many Americans vilify Chavez, but check the facts - he demonstratively uses his country’s oil resources and revenues to benefit the poor.

Hugo Chavez says he “believes deeply in the struggle for justice by Blacks, both in the U.S. and Venezuela.” President of one the world’s top oil producing countries, Chavez was elected in a landslide on a platform to use Venezuela’s oil revenue to benefit the poor.

At the U.N., Chavez recently called the U.S. a “terrorist nation” for harboring televangelist Pat Robertson, who has called for his assassination. Chavez’s malice goes back to 2002, when the U.S. initiated a coup attempt against him.

Chavez has brought his brand of populism to the U.S. with a program to give discounted oil to poor people. Under the plan, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), and its Houston-based affiliate, Citgo, will set aside up to 10 percent of refined oil products to be sold directly to poor communities and institutions.

It calls for sales of heating oil and gasoline to hospitals, nursing homes, schools and communities conducted outside the industry’s network of “middle-men” intermediaries. Citgo, a $30 billion-a-year firm, is proving access to 20 million gallons of discounted heating oil to poor families in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. PDVSA bought control of Citgo in 1990. Citgo accounts for 15 percent of oil refining output in the United States.

The fuel discounts fly in the face of Bush administration policy, which maintains strong political opposition to Chavez and his close relationship with Cuba’s Fidel Castro. The discounts and other of Chavez’s programs can help African Americans directly.

“We could have an impact on 7 to 8 million persons,” says Chavez. Rafael Ramirez, president of PDVSA, says Citgo Petroleum Corp. will refine up to 664.000 barrels of oil through eight refineries it owns and operates in the U.S. Ramirez, also Venezuela’s Minister of Oil and Energy, says Rev. Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH organization will be engaged to help identify those in need.

At a meeting Chavez held in Venezuela, singer and activist Harry Belafonte, a former UNICEF goodwill ambassador, had high praise for Venezuela’s oil discounts. “There are many places in the world where they don’t speak well of President Chavez or efforts he’s making for Venezuelan people.”

Venezuela also plans to provide free surgery for certain eye conditions among the U.S. poor. Chavez has invited people in the U.S. interested in eye operations to contact Venezuela’s embassy.

The free eye operations plan is part of Chavez’s “Mission Miracle” programs. More than 150,000 Venezuelans have received eye operations for cataracts, myopia, pigmentary retinosis - eye problems that impact people of color in higher numbers than whites.

The clout of people of color lies in their level of consumerism. Recent programs illustrate that Chavez uses resources to help the poor in this hemisphere; so who can be against such a movement?

Such a movement needs a substantial number of people of color to engage in “Buycotts” of support. Calling it “a blow to Bush and corporate cronyism,” activists for such a program say: “If people purposely patronized Citgo, money they pay for gasoline products will go primarily to Venezuela - not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East.”

These activists encourage people to consciously buy gasoline at Citgo stations and contribute billions of dollars to a government Chavez says will use it to provide poor people health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food.
Black right-wing political devotees will demonize Chavez and say that such consumer spending is “unpatriotic” and will fill the coffers of people outside the U.S. This is true, pretty much the way they already spend their money - outside of Black financial circles. Posing a question as to which is more “patriotic” to Blacks: him or them?

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