http://www.workers.org/2005/world/venezuela-1208/
In Massachusetts and New York
Venezuela sells oil to poor at discount
By Evan Sarmiento
and
Bryan G. Pfeifer
Boston
Published Dec 1, 2005 1:26 AM
In a resounding gesture of humanitarian internationalism, CITGO, a wholly owned
subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, began shipping 12 million
gallons of discounted home-heating oil for 45,000 low-income families and local
social-service organizations in Massachusetts during the week of Nov. 27.
Venezuela President Hugo Chávez
A similar program is underway in the Bronx, N.Y., and preliminary discussions
regarding possible CITGO heating oil subsidies are taking place in Maine and
other parts of the U.S. where blistering cold weather is a factor.
Due to Big Oil's price gouging and restriction on production, home heating oil
costs are expected to increase 30 to 50 percent this winter. Venezuela's offer
will help thousands of working class and oppressed people who would have been
unable to adequately heat their dwellings and thus risk dying from the cold.
The Massachusetts contract signing took place at a news conference Nov. 22 at
the home of Linda Kelly and Paul Kelly in Quincy, Mass. The couple has three
children, one with diabetes. Linda Kelly has multiple sclerosis. The Kelly
family became eligible for the PDVSA oil subsidies because their state fuel
assistance ran out last winter.
"He's doing the right thing," said Linda Kelly of Venezuelan President Hugo
Chávez, who arranged the subsidies. Chávez first pledged this life-saving
assistance in a meeting with the Rev. Jesse Jackson in Caracas in August.
"There were people who were going to freeze to death.. This is huge," said
Kelly.
The discounted heating oil will be available to Massachusetts households
receiving federal fuel assistance who have used up their $550 annual federal
subsidy. Families would pay about $276 for a 200-gallon shipment, a savings of
about $184. The shipment will last about three weeks.
CITGO will deliver the oil, and Citizens Energy, a non-profit organization
providing subsidized oil to Massachusetts residents, will distribute it. Then
about 350 local dealers will deliver approximately 75 percent of the oil to
local families. Mass EnergyConsumer Alliance will distribute or sell the
remaining quarter to homeless shelters, food banks and low-income groups.
Venezuela has arranged for 285,000 barrels to be shipped to Massachusetts
within the next few weeks at a 40 percent discount.
"This program represents the fulfillment of the promise made to people in the
United States by our President, Hugo Chávez," said Venezuelan envoy Bernardo
Alvarez Herrera at the Quincy news conference. "We are committed to working for
a hemisphere with less poverty and more development, whether by teaching 1.5
million adults to read in Venezuela or helping Massachusetts residents through
a long winter."
All the major U.S. oil corporations were asked to participate in similar
agreements; they all refused despite record-breaking profits in 2005 arising
from their decision to reduce production during and after Hurricanes Katrina
and Wilma. This decision drove up prices.
The companies have also benefited from billions in federal subsidies. Most of
Big Oil's losses incurred when refineries, pipelines and other infrastructure
were destroyed in the hurricanes are expected to be recovered through insurance
as well.
According to Standard & Poor's, ExxonMobil, the world's largest publicly traded
oil corporation, just had its highest-ever quarterly profit, $9.92 billion, up
75 percent from its 2004 third quarter. ExxonMobil also set an indus try record
of $100.72 billion in sales. BP-Amoco, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Marathon and
Royal Dutch/Shell also had record profits.
In contrast, President Chávez has vowed to set aside 10 percent of all the oil
that CITGO refineries produce for his own country's oil-for-the-poor program.
Thus far, Venezuela is providing subsidized or discounted oil to more than 20
nations in South America, the Caribbean and beyond.
Big Oil profits as the poor die
It is testament to the miserable state of affairs in the United States, where
profits are placed before human beings, that poor people have to turn to an
underdeveloped country like Venezuela, still struggling to industrialize after
decades of neocolonialism, to get discounted oil.
Each year in the United States an average of 689 people die from hypothermia, a
preventable medical emergency caused by prolonged exposure to cold
temperatures, says the federal Centers for Disease Control.
Hypothermia-related deaths are preventable. A disturbing report from the
Southern Medical Journal revealed that 61.5 percent of such deaths last winter
were among African Americans. The CDC confirmed the Journal's findings,
admitting that insufficient access to heat kills African Americans and [EMAIL
PROTECTED] at a higher rate than whites.
Bolivar's dream resurrected
Venezuela's gesture of genuine internationalism, which embraces the working
class and oppressed of the U.S., is fundamental to the constitution of the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This document guarantees economics of
solidarity and mutual aid, rather than the free trade and neoliberalism that
are used to ransack underdeveloped nations, steal their natural resources and
put profits in command, resulting in whole countries mired in poverty.
Mutual assistance is part of Venezuela's foreign policy. Venezuela has
championed the Bolivarian Alternative for the Amer icas (ALBA in its Spanish
initials) as opposed to the U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA). Chávez's internationalist use of oil wealth threatens the very essence
of neocolonialism in South Amer ica as ALBA embraces integration, deve lopment
and hemispheric unity as opposed to wholesale imperialist plundering.
The U.S. government and Big Oil are, of course, worried about these
developments. They claim that Chávez uses "oil as a weapon" to undermine U.S.
foreign policy. Venezuela is not using oil as a weapon, but is using it within
the context of South American integration and "21st century socialism,"
attempting to encourage U.S client states to shake off the influence of
imperialism.
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