Has Bush Planned Coup in Venezuela?

Populist President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela might be a little nervous now, based on past history. Early last month, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon and the US State Department held a two-day meeting on US policy toward Venezuela. Similar meetings took place in 1953, 1963, and 1973, before coups in Iran, Vietnam, and Chile (as well as before coups in other places such as Guatemala, Brazil and Argentina).

In a article entitled “The Scent of Another Coup” (San Francisco Examiner, Dec 2001), writer Conn Hallinan explains that the recent cause of US ire toward Chavez came after Chavez questioned the value of bombing Afghanistan, calling it “fighting terrorism with terrorism.” Chavez also sharply condemned the 9-11 attacks.

But Hallinan speculates there is a second motive for a potential coup. The Chavez government is presently trying to change the 60-year-old agreement with foreign oil companies that charges them as little as one percent in royalties. Venezuela has 77 billion barrels of proven reserves, and is the US’s third biggest source of oil. It is also a major cash cow for the likes of Phillips Petroleum and ExxonMobil.

Hallinan writes that “A larger slice is desperately needed in Venezuela. In spite of the fact that oil generates some $30 billion each year, 80 percent of Venezuelans are, according to government figures, ‘poor,’ and half of those are malnourished. Most rural Venezuelans have no access to land except to work it for someone else, because two percent of the population controls 60 percent of the land.”•