Venezuela Watch

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Chavez had backed Humala in the Peruvian polls.

During the campaign, far-left Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had been endorsing runner-up Humala, hoping to gain an ally. But, "Garcia's victory eliminates the key in the Andean chain that Hugo Chavez is forging," Peruvian political analyst Mirko Lauer said, according to the Associated Press.

Despite Garcia's victory, Humala's party has the majority of seats in Congress and won 14 out of the 24 Peruvian states, which may make things difficult for the new leader of South America's third largest country. Moderate leftist Garcia has ruled the country once before, between 1985 and 1990.

Left-leaning Die Tageszeitung notes that "satisfaction is reigning in Washington" since Alan Garcia is again Peru's President. The editorial clearly recognizes the outcome of this election as a strong counter to current political trends, but "Peruvian institutions are weak and discredited". No one knows just how far to the left Garcia will have to move in order to satisfy his voters. This will also depend on the political skills of Ollanta Humalas, who will need to prove that he is, in fact, a political force to be reckoned with.

Center-right daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung summarizes the decision as "an election that wasn't an election," since citizens had to decide between former officer Humala, who presents an insecure future and former president Garcia, who had almost lead the country into collapse 16 years ago. And "now they gave the former president the chance to get it right the second time." Parting president Alejandro Toledo leaves his successor with a growing economy, low inflation and low national debt. "But numbers aren't edible," the editorial states. So Garcia's agenda needs to include strengthening economic and foreign policy as well as "placing the responsibility for the country on those who so far have not taken part in its positive development."

Center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung is surprised at Garcia's repeat victory. The new President stands for a minority: born into a white elitist society, he received a university education, while former military officer Ollanta Humala's home lies in the somewhat underdeveloped Andes. Both candidates appealed to different parts of the population. For the winner, the situation is difficult, the paper points out. Peru's population is divided due to the century-old system of rich great land owners on the one hand and many impoverished peasants on the other. So "the new President should take the requirements of the exploited population seriously. He will not get a third chance." And, Humala and Chavez will be waiting for mistakes.

Peru had a choice between bad and worse. They have chosen bad. We can hope that Garcia has learned something since his last Presidency.

President Alvaro Uribe's government is lobbying to restrict a U.N. agency that has been the most trusted monitor of human rights violations in Colombia, according to foreign diplomats and rights activists.

The diplomats say Colombian officials are trying to remove the agency's right to publicly criticize human rights abuses and publish an annual report on one of the hemisphere's worst rights records. And with the U.N. human rights office's four-year mandate expiring in October, the agency is particularly vulnerable, they say...

Washington, meanwhile, stands out in its support of Uribe, its firmest ally in South America. Despite a March letter from 61 foreign and Colombian human rights and development organizations asking U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to support the agency's current mission, U.S. Embassy officials in Bogota said Washington won't get involved.

Chine and Venezuela, two of the biggest nations on Washington's worry list, drew closer together yesterday with the signing of trade agreements that the Venezuelan president called a "Great Wall" against American hegemonism.
A million-barrel a day oil deal and a promise by China to back Venezuela's bid to join the United Nations security council were the main fruits of a week of meetings in Beijing, ending with talks between Hugo Chávez and the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, yesterday.
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China agreed to increase its imports of Venezuelan oil, refined fuels and a hydrocarbon called Orimulsion from the current 160,000 barrels a day to 500,000 by 2009 and a million by 2016.
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According to the Venezuelan media, China has also agreed to build houses for 20,000 people as a contribution towards Mr Chávez's policy of reducing homelessness. Chinese state-controlled news agencies say Beijing will also help the South American nation build a fibre optic network, modernise a gold mine and develop railways and farm irrigation systems.
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US accused of bid to oust Chávez with secret funds

· Millions of dollars given to opposition, claim critics
· Venezuelan groups' details hidden from list

Duncan Campbell
Wednesday August 30, 2006
The Guardian

The US government has been accused of trying to undermine the Chávez government in Venezuela by funding anonymous groups via its main international aid agency.
Millions of dollars have been provided in a "pro-democracy programme" that Chávez supporters claim is a covert attempt to bankroll an opposition to defeat the government.

The money is being provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through its Office of Transition Initiatives.

7-Eleven Dumps Venezuela-Backed Citgo to Pump Own Brand
The convenience store says the split is not over U.S. furor with Hugo Chavez's remarks.
By Elizabeth Douglass and Marc Lifsher, Times Staff Writers
September 28, 2006

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez can pump books but his country's oil company can no longer pump gas for 7-Eleven Inc.

Amid a growing backlash against anti-American comments by Chavez, the Dallas-based convenience store giant said Wednesday that it was dropping Venezuela-backed Citgo Petroleum Corp. as its gasoline supplier so it could launch its own brand.

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Torrance-based Tower Energy Group will deliver fuel to most of the 7-Eleven outlets that Citgo is losing.

During a speech last week at the United Nations in New York, Chavez called President Bush "the devil" who left a lingering smell of sulfur at the podium, and he railed against the invasion of Iraq. Chavez also praised a 2003 book by retired MIT linguistics professor Noam Chomsky that was critical of U.S. foreign policy, sparking a dramatic sales increase of the book.

Chavez's slams infuriated some Americans, prompting a smattering of Citgo boycotts and provoking a Boston politician to demand the removal of a large, lighted Citgo sign that is visible from Fenway Park and has stood for decades as both a local landmark and an icon of pop culture.

"Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concern over derogatory comments about our country and its leadership recently made by Venezuela's president," 7-Eleven spokeswoman Margaret Chabris said in a statement.

Although 7-Eleven acknowledged that its affiliation with Citgo was becoming uncomfortable, rising tensions between the two countries weren't the driving force behind the end of the 20-year fuel supply deal, 7-Eleven and Citgo said.

In fact, the deal between the two companies was set to expire at the end of this month. And more than a year ago, 7-Eleven sought bids from other suppliers with an eye toward selling its estimated 2 billion gallons a year of gasoline under its own brand.

"Certainly Chavez's position and statements over the past year or so didn't tempt us to stay with Citgo," Chabris told the Associated Press.

Tim Rogers, president of Tower Energy, said that Citgo didn't lose the business because of Chavez.

"It really wasn't that," said Rogers, whose company is the biggest beneficiary of the switch. "It was more that [7-Eleven] decided that they wanted to do their own brand."

Under a new contract, Tower Energy will supply the gasoline for nearly 90% of the more than 2,100 7-Eleven sites that sell gasoline nationwide. Rogers said his company started deliveries under the contract over the last two months.

The privately owned company has supplied Citgo-branded gasoline to all the 7-Eleven stores west of the Rockies since 1992. Tower Energy continues to serve most of those 7-Elevens ?- including about 250 in California ?- but instead of Citgo gas, the supplier will deliver fuel carrying the 7-Eleven name.

Rogers said the new deal would boost Tower Energy's annual sales to $5 billion in 2007 from $3 billion this year and would more than double the number of 7-Eleven stores Tower Energy serves to 1,850. Frontier Oil Corp. of Houston and Sinclair Oil Corp. of Salt Lake City would supply the rest of the 268 stores, he said.

Citgo has been owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, since 1990, when the Latin American company bought out 50% from its partner to become the sole shareholder. Chavez became president in 1999.

Petroleos de Venezuela executives saw Citgo and its Gulf Coast refineries as a natural, relatively close destination for Venezuela's crude oil, much of which is heavy in sulfur content and more costly to refine.

Following an unsuccessful coup and an opposition-led general strike in 2002, Chavez gained more direct control of both Petroleos and Citgo. Since then, he has repeatedly threatened to sell the American company.

This year, Citgo sold its half-ownership in a major Houston refinery and announced plans to retreat from selling gasoline in several states. Chavez, meanwhile, has used Citgo to spur publicity in this country by delivering low-cost heating oil to poor communities in Massachusetts and other states.

Resentment over Chavez's harsh criticism apparently was brewing among U.S. consumers before last week's speech.

In August, several Citgo dealers in the Midwest and Southeast told the Oil Price Information Service that they blamed Chavez's constant jabs at America and his friendliness with Cuba's Fidel Castro and the president of Iran for a recent 15% to 25% drop in gasoline sales. Rogers, the West Coast supplier to 7-Eleven, said he had not seen a similar decline in fuel sales at Citgo-branded sites.

Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, which monitors fuel markets, said none of those factors caused the supply change at 7-Eleven, which is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co. of Japan. The timing of 7-Eleven's announcement ?- which came months after the switch was underway ?- is a different matter, however, Kloza said.

"This was opportunistic," Kloza said, reflecting on 7-Eleven's desire to make a very public break with Citgo. "When we were writing about this awhile ago … they were very quiet about it and there was no fanfare."

It seems to me that Chavez's antics are designed to serve political purposes. Now that I can't buy Citgo, that does not mean I'll buy Exxon or Chevron.

But where do you get it. Seven-eleven is its only distributor that I know of. Besides, our facist government might detain and render me for being an enemy combatant.

Mihos and 7-Eleven to stop selling CITGO

citgologoYarmouth's Christy Mihos owns fourteen Christy Markets here, and nine of them sell CITGO gas, or they did until now.

In yet another bold stroke Mihos got a ton of ink for his independent campaign to be governor by pre-empting any criticism for selling the gas from Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez. The Herald today reported;

Mihos' store chain cutting ties with Chavez
By Jay Fitzgerald/ Boston Herald

Gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos yesterday said he's negotiating to cancel his business contracts with Citgo over Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's recent anti-American "devil" rants at the United Nations. Mihos' action came as Dallas-based 7-Eleven said it's ending a longtime dealership relationship with Citgo, a subsidiary of a Venezuelan government-owned company.

While the giant convenience-store chain had previously planned to cut its ties with Citgo, a 7-Eleven spokeswoman said Chavez's anti-American tirades made its decision much easier. Twenty-seven 7-Eleven stores in Massachusetts will stop selling Citgo gas in coming weeks, the company said. ..