http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=14617
International Center for Justice & Peace director Karen Talbot writes: The power elite in the United States has never been happy with democratically-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, but it took the Bush administration to turn up the heat against him.
Matters reached a boiling point in April 2002 with the coup d'etat against Chavez Frias which surprisingly lasted only two days as millions of Venezuelan poor came to his defense.
Many of the details about the ousting of Chavez Frias and his replacement by corporate mogul Pedro Carmona Estanga, during those 48 hours, have yet to be sleuthed out, but key evidence implicating Bush and his cohorts has already accumulated.
The primary clues are revealed in the repeated criticisms of Chavez Frias by Washington -- echoed in the commercial media -- and its immediate virtual endorsement of the Carmona regime by its failure to condemn the coup. In this stance, the US stood alone. The unmistakable backdrop behind the US position is Venezuela's status as the 4th largest oil-exporting country in the world, and currently the third largest source of US oil imports.
"Venezuela is a major cash cow for Phillips Petroleum and ExxonMobil. Chevron Texaco and Occidental Petroleum are two other major oil companies with interests in Venezuela and Colombia."
The mantra of complaints against Chavez Frias who had been elected in record landslide votes in 1998 and 2000, included his Bolivarian reforms to "take from the rich and give to the poor;" his refusal to allow US planes to fly over Venezuelan territory for its war in Colombia; his opposition to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA); and his leadership in OPEC where he works for a fairer deal for Venezuela and other oil-producing countries by pushing up oil prices. (In the process, Venezuela dropped below Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico in supplying oil to the US). Also particularly rankling to the Bush administration with its abundance of right-wing Cubans, is Chavez Frias' sale of oil to Cuba in exchange for medical care.
Venezuela has been receiving about half of its revenues from the state owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). So providing more for the country's poor multitudes necessarily meant maximizing the gains from Venezuela's rich national resource, oil. This entailed altering the 60-year-old agreement with foreign oil companies "that charges them as little as one percent in royalties," plus handing them huge tax breaks, according to the London Guardian. The giant transnational oil corporations and business interests, coveting all that black gold, had far different plans. Not surprisingly, the PDVSA figured heavily in all the intrigue and machinations leading to the coup. "Opposition business leaders have said openly that they want to depose Chavez Frias "so they can boost oil production or even privatize the country's cash cow [PDVSA] ... they have been enraged ... over Chavez Frias' efforts to take resources from the rich to aid the poor, who represent 80% of the population," says Newsday writer, Letta Tayler.
As he donned his Presidential sash (ordered months before from Spain) and dined sumptuously with his co-conspirators, the 48-hour usurper, Carmona, moved almost instantaneously to turn around Chavez Frias' Bolivarian policies and consolidate what amounts to an "oiligarchy." Within 48 hours, he dissolved the parliament and the supreme court, dismissed all mayors and governors, stopped the shipment of oil to Cuba, and started a massive wave of repression across the country. But there is more...
Click above link for complete article.
International Center for Justice & Peace director Karen Talbot writes: The power elite in the United States has never been happy with democratically-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, but it took the Bush administration to turn up the heat against him.
Matters reached a boiling point in April 2002 with the coup d'etat against Chavez Frias which surprisingly lasted only two days as millions of Venezuelan poor came to his defense.
Many of the details about the ousting of Chavez Frias and his replacement by corporate mogul Pedro Carmona Estanga, during those 48 hours, have yet to be sleuthed out, but key evidence implicating Bush and his cohorts has already accumulated.
The primary clues are revealed in the repeated criticisms of Chavez Frias by Washington -- echoed in the commercial media -- and its immediate virtual endorsement of the Carmona regime by its failure to condemn the coup. In this stance, the US stood alone. The unmistakable backdrop behind the US position is Venezuela's status as the 4th largest oil-exporting country in the world, and currently the third largest source of US oil imports.
"Venezuela is a major cash cow for Phillips Petroleum and ExxonMobil. Chevron Texaco and Occidental Petroleum are two other major oil companies with interests in Venezuela and Colombia."
The mantra of complaints against Chavez Frias who had been elected in record landslide votes in 1998 and 2000, included his Bolivarian reforms to "take from the rich and give to the poor;" his refusal to allow US planes to fly over Venezuelan territory for its war in Colombia; his opposition to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA); and his leadership in OPEC where he works for a fairer deal for Venezuela and other oil-producing countries by pushing up oil prices. (In the process, Venezuela dropped below Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico in supplying oil to the US). Also particularly rankling to the Bush administration with its abundance of right-wing Cubans, is Chavez Frias' sale of oil to Cuba in exchange for medical care.
Venezuela has been receiving about half of its revenues from the state owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). So providing more for the country's poor multitudes necessarily meant maximizing the gains from Venezuela's rich national resource, oil. This entailed altering the 60-year-old agreement with foreign oil companies "that charges them as little as one percent in royalties," plus handing them huge tax breaks, according to the London Guardian. The giant transnational oil corporations and business interests, coveting all that black gold, had far different plans. Not surprisingly, the PDVSA figured heavily in all the intrigue and machinations leading to the coup. "Opposition business leaders have said openly that they want to depose Chavez Frias "so they can boost oil production or even privatize the country's cash cow [PDVSA] ... they have been enraged ... over Chavez Frias' efforts to take resources from the rich to aid the poor, who represent 80% of the population," says Newsday writer, Letta Tayler.
As he donned his Presidential sash (ordered months before from Spain) and dined sumptuously with his co-conspirators, the 48-hour usurper, Carmona, moved almost instantaneously to turn around Chavez Frias' Bolivarian policies and consolidate what amounts to an "oiligarchy." Within 48 hours, he dissolved the parliament and the supreme court, dismissed all mayors and governors, stopped the shipment of oil to Cuba, and started a massive wave of repression across the country. But there is more...
Click above link for complete article.