People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist)
|
Vol. XXXV
No.
25
June
19,
2011
|
Obama Imposes
Sanctions Against Venezuela
Yohannan
Chemerapally
VENEZUELA has become
the latest
country to be put under US economic sanctions for doing business with Iran.
In the
last week of May, the Obama administration announced that it was
imposing sanctions
on Venezuela’s
state oil
company PDVSA --- Petróleos de Venezuela SA --- “for cooperating with Iran’s
energy
industry.” The US State Department spokesman said dealings with Iran’s
oil
industry violated the “Iran Sanctions Act” enacted by the US Congress
way back
in 1996. “We are sending a clear message to the companies around the
world;
those who continue to irresponsibly support Iran’s
energy sector or help facilitate Iran’s
effort to evade US sanctions will face significant consequences,” said
the US
deputy
secretary of state, James Steinberg.
PRESSURE
ON IRAN’S
TRADING
PARTNERS
The Iran
Sanctions Act,
which goes much beyond the sanctions mandated by the UN Security
Council on Iran, is
similar to the Helms-Burton Act which
penalises countries trading with Cuba. In 2010, President
Barack
Obama further toughened the Iran Sanctions Act, penalising firms that
supplied
refined gasoline to Iran.
Though Iran
exports huge amounts of crude, it faces a gasoline crunch due the
western
sanctions imposed on the country from the beginning of the Islamic
Revolution
in 1979. Refineries which were due for upgradation decades ago are in a
decrepit state due to the absence of essential spare parts and
machinery.
Since the
beginning of the
last decade, Washington has been
trying to
pressurise Iran’s
leading
trading partners, including India,
with varying degrees of success, to cut off economic links with Iran.
In the
case of India, the US has been partially successful as
leading
Indian private companies like Reliance Petrochemicals which supplied
gasoline, have,
fearing reprisals from Washington,
sharply cut
down business dealings with Iran.
The former US
secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had publicly warned the Indian
government
to desist from signing big ticket deals like the Iran-Pakistan-India
(IPI) gas
pipeline deal.
As the
pressure from the
West on Teheran to scrap its peaceful nuclear programme has increased,
visiting
American officials and heads of thinktank have been consistently
harping on the
need for New Delhi to distance itself
from Iran.
Otherwise, they warned that the existing close US-India strategic
relationship
would be adversely impacted. Similar pressures were put on Islamabad
but, despite the greater leverage Washington
had over Pakistan,
the government there went ahead and signed the deal for setting up of
the gas
pipeline connecting the two countries. Both the Iranian and Pakistani
governments have said that the option for India to join in the IGI
pipeline is
still open.
OBAMA
PANDERING TO
AMERICAN
RIGHT WING
Venezuela, unlike the
two South
Asian countries, is not amenable to the US pressures. Under Hugo
Chavez,
the Venezuelan government has been following a fiercely independent
foreign
policy, enraging Washington.
Along with a core group of Latin American and Caribbean countries, Venezuela has resolutely opposed the
hegemonic
policies of the US
in the region and the world. Chavez was among the first heads of state
to
condemn the US led
NATO war
on Libya.
Chavez, like many world leaders, had initially expressed his admiration
for
Barack Obama and had expected that the new president with his emphasis
on
projecting “soft power” would be at least somewhat different form his
predecessor, George W Bush. But three years into the presidency, Obama
has shown
his real face to the world. He has launched another war in Libya, adding to the wars he has
inherited in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
In the case
of Venezuela,
Obama has taken a step which even George W Bush had second thoughts
about. Bush
Jr was of course no friend of Chavez. During his presidency, Chavez was
briefly
ousted from power in a 2002 CIA sponsored military coup. But during the
Bush presidency,
no economic sanctions were imposed on Venezuela
for its strong economic ties with Iran. In fact, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton,
had
stated a couple of months ago that there was no evidence to show that Venezuela was violating US laws in its
diplomatic and commercial dealings with Iran. But facing
re-election, Obama
has been pandering to the American right wing, especially the Jewish
lobby,
which would like America
to
declare another war, this time against Iran. “Sanctions against
the
Fatherland of Bolivia!
Imposed by the Gringo imperialist? Well, Welcome Mr Obama, don’t forget
that we
are the children of Bolivar,” Chavez said on his Twitter account. Simon
Bolivar,
the liberator of Latin America from
Spanish
colonialism, is the icon of the Venezuelan revolution.
WHY
US IS UNHAPPY
WITH
VENEZUELA
The
presidential elections
in Venezuela,
scheduled next
year, could be another factor for Washington’s
heightened interest in targeting the revolutionary government. The
Obama
administration has been openly funding the right wing opposition in Venezuela.
Since Obama took over, 40 million dollars have been channelled to the
opposition parties and media conglomerates. Obama’s 2012 budget
specifically
allots an additional 5 million dollars in aid to Venezuelan “civil
society” ---
a code word for the rabid right wing groups and the influential media
outlets
they control.
The Obama
administration
has other reasons to be unhappy with the developments in the region.
Due to the
initiatives by Chavez and the many likeminded leaders who had since
risen to
power, regional integration has received a fillip. Trade ties between
the
countries of the region have increased tremendously --- slowly but
surely
replacing the traditional economic links with the US.
Most of the Latin American
countries are cold to the idea of a free trade pact with the US. China, Russia
and even Iran have
started doing
business in a big way in Latin America,
once
the exclusive preserve of the American empire. Even close allies of the
US like Colombia
have started distancing themselves from Washington.
After the election of Juan Manuel Santos as the new president of Colombia, relations with Venezuela,
its
immediate neighbour, have dramatically improved. Bogotá, which under
the
previous president, Alviro Uribe, blindly looked up to Washington for
guidance,
seems to have now opted for friendship with Caracas.
Santos and
Chavez recently
played a key role in facilitating the return of Manuel Zelaya back to
Honduras
in the last week of May. Zelaya was ousted from the Honduran presidency
in a
military coup in 2009. Under the agreement, the Honduran government
agreed to
allow Zelaya to function freely and participate in the politics of the
country.
As a quid pro quo, Honduras was readmitted into the Organisation of
American
States (OAS) after its suspension from the organisation in 2009. The
majority
in the international community had refused to recognise the legitimacy
of the
Honduran government after the military coup. The Colombian president
publicly
praised the role of Chavez in bringing about national reconciliation in
Honduras.
VIOLATION
OF
SOVEREIGNTY
Under the
sanctions
imposed by the Obama administration on Venezuela, the PDVSA, which is a
significant contributor to the oil driven Venezuelan economy, is barred
from
competing for the US government contracts and prohibited from seeking
aces to
the US Export-Import Bank. The sanctions, however, do not affect the
PDVSA
subsidiary, CITGO, which owns oil refineries and gas stations in the
US. These
days CITGO supplies 1.4 million barrels a day to the US, which is
significant, as
it amounts to 10 per cent of America’s annual oil imports. The American
economy
continues to be heavily dependent on the Venezuelan crude. Despite the
ups and
downs in the relationship between the two countries since the late
nineties,
the oil trade between the two countries has never been adversely
impacted so
far.
But Chavez
has warned that
if push comes to shove, he will retaliate by cutting off Venezuelan oil
from
the American market. Washington and Caracas are currently engaged in a
diplomatic tug of war involving Obama’s choice of ambassador to
Venezuela. The
Venezuelan government has refused to receive Larry Palmer as the
American envoy
because of his stated views on Venezuela. In remarks to the US Senate
Foreign
Relations Committee last July, Palmer had made disparaging remarks
about the
government of Venezuela. He had said that Venezuela is supporting the
leftist
rebels in Colombia and said that the country poses a danger to
America’s
national interests.
Sparing the
CITGO while
imposing sanctions on the parent company has in no way appeased the
Venezuelan
government. Senior government officials including the petroleum
minister,
Rafael Ramirez, have described the US action as a gross interference in
the
domestic affairs of the country and a violation of its sovereignty.
Joined by
ordinary Venezuelans, PDVSA workers have already staged two massive
demonstrations in the last week of May in the capital Caracas to
protest
against Washington’s latest provocations. The PDVSA is no ordinary
state
institution. It is directly involved in running hospitals and schools
in the
poor neighbourhoods. The PDVSA has also used the money it has gained
from high
oil prices to fund social programmes. In his speech at a protest march
on May
29, the Venezuela’s oil minister said that the PDVSA symbolises
“universal health
care, free education and food cooperatives.” Venezuela’s oil, he said,
“brings
justice to our people.”
FOR
MONOPOLISING
THE
WORLD OIL SUPPLY
Ramirez said
that the real
motive of the US in targeting PDVSA was to monopolise the world’s oil
supply.
He said that it was not an accident that Libya was singled out for
invasion
among Arab countries. He pointed out that Libya was the biggest oil
producer in
Africa. He said that oil is the real motive of the US to single out
Iran as
well. The nuclear issue is only a pretext, Ramirez emphasised. Iraq
too, the minister
added, was invaded for its oil. Member states of the regional grouping,
the
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America (ALBA), expressed their
“indignation and rejection” of the US government’s actions against
Venezuela.
The eight-member grouping, which includes Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador and
Bolivia,
called for a “definitive end” to the US acts of aggression against
Venezuela.
In a separate
statement,
the government of Ecuador has described the US government’s decision as
a
“violation of international law.” Chilean parliamentarians said the US
action
was an aggression not only against Venezuela but “against all Latin
American
countries.” The Chilean legislators said that the US policy towards
Venezuela
and other OPEC nations like Iraq, Libya and Iran “has only one name,
one
objective, one common denominator --- oil.”
