Jim writes: > In any event, history -- i.e., the 1973 Chilean > coup -- doesn't repeat itself.
I would say it does but each time differently. There seems to be lots of CIA involvement in Venezuela. Of course, this is not to deny that Venezuela is a country with a social system with which Chavez, CIA and other social actors have to work. Below is from Stratfor, from those former CIA agents, that is. Sabri Venezuela: Oil Strike Situation Becoming Critical 22 March 2002 Dissident managers at Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) said that 75 percent of white-collar workers participated in a sick-out March 21. PDVSA employees have for three weeks been protesting against the appointment of new company president Gaston Para and five directors they view as unqualified and as having got their jobs only due to their ties with President Hugo Chavez. Chavez threatened "to militarize" PDVSA if strikers interfere with the country's oil exports. National guard presence has increased at oil installations around Venezuela. However, the military lacks the technical skills to run a major oil concern. Most PDVSA workers are protesting Chavez's politicization of the oil industry. Their tactics include slowing domestic gasoline deliveries and crude exports to Cuba, home of Chavez's ideological ally Fidel Castro. Chavez's fear is that PDVSA employees will damage the firm's infrastructure through sabotage. Strikers have not yet targeted production capacity. The situation is becoming critical. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States triggered a global recession that sent oil prices -- and Caracas' income -- plummeting. PDVSA's oil sales supply 80 percent of Venezuela's foreign hard-currency earnings. A drop in such income would be problematic for any oil state, but this is doubly true for Venezuela. The president's sagging "Bolivarian revolution" has led him to milk PDVSA of its investment capital to bolster his own flagging popularity. That in turn has diminished the oil giant's long-term production and refining capacity to the point that it has resorted to purchasing Ecuadorian oil to fulfill supply contracts. STRATFOR estimates it would take five years to repair the damage. But the threat to Venezuelan oil infrastructure would not necessarily end if Chavez were removed from power, which could very well happen by the end of the year. The president is a strong backer of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group. Should Chavez be succeeded by a more pro-U.S. and anti-FARC leadership, Colombia's rebels could find Venezuelan oil infrastructure an attractive a target.
