Venezuela

Venezuela

Foreign Diplomacy with the

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

The country of Venezuela is located in South America, near Guyana, Brazil and Colombia. With the country most widely known for its position in the petroleum industry, it is one of the most influential exporters of oil. The President of the country is Hugo Chavez who is becoming more of a power to reckon with than the world expected. His ultimate goal is to transform Venezuela into a socialist state.

Hugo Chavez was elected President in 1998 and then reelected in 2000 and 2006. Chavez is the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, in which focuses on democratic socialism, anti-imperialism and Latin American integration. On February 4, 1992 Chavez called for a coup d’etat. Five military units trying to take control of different key places in the city of Caracas-the presidential palace, the military airport, the Historical Museum, all in hopes of taking current president Andres Perez into custody. They had failed to do this, but with radical support, rebel forces were able to take control of the other large cities in the country like, Maracaibo, Maracay and Valencia. Chavez did surrender himself to the government and was allowed to speak on national television to ask for his supporters to cease hostilities in these cities. As he did so he mentioned that he had only failed “for now.” Even with this failure he was put into the spotlight and much poverty stricken Venezuelans saw him as a figure that stood up against the government and would be able to speak for them. When running for office in 1998 he used a campaign on helping the country’s poor population, he turned his focus on goals to combat disease, illiteracy, malnutrition and poverty. But with his support came criticism. He is far from a fan of the United States and especially our President George Bush. However regardless of how people perceive him, he is definitely a force. In both the years 2005 and 2006 he was one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.

One of the starting points that pit the U.S. against Chavez was the coup in April 2002. After a general strike on April 11, 2002-called for by the Confederacion de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV) a federation of labor unions. Thousands marched towards the headquarters of the country’s state owned oil company, upset about the management that was fired. At the same time at the presidential palace a pro-Chavez rally was taking place so the organizers of the strike decided to relocate there. There was gunfire and violence as the two groups collided and many civilians were shot and killed during the altercation. The commander in chief, Lucas Rincon Romero, announced that Chavez had offered his resignation and that Pedro Carmona would be the interim president and went back to the old nation’s name of Repulica de Venezuela. While this was happening Chavez was brought to a military base and held there captive. After mass support from loyal Venezuelan soldiers, they stormed the presidential palace and took it back for their leader Hugo Chavez. The president claimed that an airplane that was registered with the U.S. had visited and landed on the airbase where he was held captive, and then claimed he had absolute proof that the U.S military was involved in the coup. Now while it wasn’t a secret that the United States wanted the removal of Chavez, U.S Senator Christopher Dodd explained, “U.S. officials acted appropriately and did nothing to encourage an April coup against Venezuela’s President, nor did they provide any naval logistical support” also something Chavez claimed the United States did.

With Venezuela being one of the fore-runners in oil control, they rule over one of the most important natural resources we have. Huge increases in oil prices globally have given Chavez the ability to access billions of dollars in extra foreign exchange reserves. He also is the Vice President of the International Parliament for Safety and Peace, which is an Intergovernmental Organization that promotes safety and peace among nations by means of voluntary diplomacy. He is very involved with what looks like making the world a better place, but seemingly does it from a totally backward prospective.

In the last couple years Venezuela has strengthened its ties with alternate sources by purchasing weapons from different countries, such as Brazil, Russia, China and Spain. From Russia they have bought numerous fighter planes and helicopters along with 100,000 AK-47’s in which they claim is all apart of "an honorable answer to President Bush's intention of being the master of the world." Chavez also has the "main motivation now is to do everything he possibly can to negatively affect the United States, Bush in particular . . . trying to bring together all the enemies of the United States" according to Gerver Torres, a former Venezuelan government minister. He also accuses the United States government of trying to turn Colombia into an enemy of Venezuela. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insinuated that Colombia should be concerned with Venezuela’s military growth and purchases. Chavez stated that, “The U.S. Empire doesn’t lose a chance to attack us and try to create discord between us. That’s one of the empire’s strategies: try to keep us divided.” The smart government of Colombia did not take sides during this issue. Most recently, November 2007, Colombia has had an issue with a guerilla group, FARC, who had taken 15 hostages; but the group was captured by the Colombian army. Chavez had offered to be the middleman when it came to negotiating with the FARAC, but the Colombian President Uribe denied the offer. Which ultimately made for tension between the countries, and Chavez withdrew his Venezuelan ambassador to Colombia. The United States is trying to open up free trade with Colombia like it did with Peru, Chile, Singapore, Australia, Morocco, Bahrain and Central American nations, in hopes to level the playing field and to deter the countries from following Venezuela and their strong influence.

Chavez and his country own Citgo, a United States-incorporated firm refiner and marketer of gasoline, lubricants, petrochemicals and other petroleum products. Chavez has stated that his country has “a strong oil card to play on the geopolitical stage… and that it is a card that we are going to play with toughness against the toughest country in the world, the United States With this he had plans