Left-leaning loony and Venezuelan president Hugo “Don’t call me ‘hew-go’” Chavez had offered his services to mediate between the Columbian government and its home grown rebellion, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, or FARC. These offices were useful in freeing a number of hostages held by the FARC for the last several years, at least until Chavez got a little out of bounds and started meddling around inside the senior ranks of the Columbian military, bypassing the elected government.
Given Chavez’ history of using the army to incite revolt against established governments at home, Columbian president Alvaro Uribe was justifiably alarmed and questioned the Venezuelan’s president’s neutrality, if not his sanity. In response, Chavez “froze out” Uribe from further dispensations of the petrobucks he’s using in an attempt to gain influence throughout South America.
FARC is a Communist movement with historical aspirations of freeing the Colombian peasant class from the depredations of landowners, although in the last several years it has evolved into little more than a criminal enterprise using narcotic profits and terroristic tactics to finance its own continued existence. Columbia recently struck a blow against the FARC by killing a senior member of its secretariat in neighboring Ecuador, one Raul Reyes.
In response today “Don’t call me ‘hew-go’” has ordered thousands of his army troops with tanks to the Columbian border, sharply elevating regional tensions:
Colombia’s defence minister had described the death of Reyes as the “biggest blow so far” to Farc.But Mr Chavez described the strike as “a cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated”.
He said Colombia “invaded Ecuador, flagrantly violated Ecuador’s sovereignty”.
Mr Chavez addressed his defence minister, asking him to “move 10 battalions to the border with Colombia for me, immediately” – a deployment likely to involve several thousand soldiers.
“The air force should mobilise. We do not want war. But we are not going to let them… come and divide and weaken us.”
“Us” being the transnational socialist movement of course, for those who grew of age after the Berlin Wall came down and unfamiliar with the rhetorical flourishes of a long-gone, little mourned era. This demonstration of fraternal solidarity should help to dispel any lingering illusions of Chavez’ neutrality between the elected government of Colombia and the FARC rebels.
Washington has responded to Chavez’ serial provocations largely by deigning to ignore them, even as Venezuela’s arms purchases raise regional eyebrows: Claiming that he needs the weapons to defend against American imperialism, the world’s fifth largest oil exporting country has spent more money on weapons purchases than Pakistan, China or Iran, even as its people suffer episodic shortages of basic necessities and its increasingly unstable economy trends towards a meltdown.
It’s been tempting to view the Venezuelan president as just another petty tyrant in a part of the world occasionally given to suffering fools. But Chavez is smart enough to see that his goal of turning the region into a hostile bastion of anti-American socialism as a vehicle for infinitely extending his personal power may be slipping through his fingers. The caudillo may decide not to give up his dream without a fight, even if that means starting one.
There are real and systemic problems in many South American societies, problems of internal security, economic malaise, social injustice, class stratification and even ethnic animosity. It’s not terribly surprising that peoples who feel that they have little stake in their nation
Lex, you said, “Venezuela recently struck a blow against the FARC by killing a senior member of its secretariat in neighboring Ecuador, one Raul Reyes.” I think you meant Colombia struck a blow, not Venezuela. Otherwise, great post and it’ll be interesting to see how this’ll play out.
Right you are, and thanks!
Carlos Hathcock, where are you now that we need you again? RIP Sarge!
CITGO is owned by the Venezuelan gov’t, and the earnings controlled by Hugo. I make it a point not to buy my gas there.
And when the collapse comes, as it certainly will, if not sooner than later, the U.S. will flood the area with aid and advice… Just as it always has done and the oil workers will come back to the country.
Is there some different scenario we could try this time?
Colombia has long been a fragile democracy, with most of the problems Lex listed in his next to last paragraph. I am not sure if nationalism will triumph over economic/class/ethnic divisions to unite against their wacky neighbor’s grand ambitions.
Their military seemd to me (when I had contacts with it many years ago) to be highly stratified, extremely oppressive, careless with their gear and its maintenance, and not totally loyal–perhaps with good justification.
Still, the Colombians are better off than the once prosperous, now suffering Venezualans.
Ditto on avoiding CITGO.
Oh, believe me, I would walk to the next service station rather than fillup at a CITGO.
Interesting,I found CITGO stations in abundance in Pensacola….
Hmm, I must ask my Colombian next-door neighbor what he thinks about this.
Colombians remind me of some of my people back in South Carolina, like the ones in Edgefield County, of whom it was said, “Nice people, but they’ll kill you if crossed.”
Colombians ain’t scared of a bit of killin’ and dyin’, if their history is any guide.
And that was before the cocaine boom.
You could drive by a hundred CITGO stations, and you’d probably still be buying gasoline refined from Venezuelan oil. Venezuela is our 4th largest importer of crude, and it gets refined everywhere from Chevron to Exxon and all the others, give or take. I’d wager that fully a third reading this right now have gasoline derrived from crude out of HewGo-Land. Besides, isn’t it a bit wierd boycotting a gas company that is saying it is going to stop importing to us? Fact is, you may THINK your buying a brand of gasoline, really what you are buying, is the proprietary additives each brand injects into the gas at the loading racks… I know, I watch it happen everyday. I would’nt place too much thought on brand loyalty.
You want to fix the problem? Get the tree huggers to quit their whining, and let us drill in ANWR, off the California coast, and in the Utah/Colorado area where there are vast quantities of shale oil (which some will say is not cost effective to extract, however, those modeling statistics where based on $30/barrel oil, last I checked it was over triple that rate). Oh yeah, and Canada, our LARGEST importer, they have so much oil, it’ll take us roughly 400 years to consume it all. So, maybe we quite worrying about Hew-Go, and send all the tree huggers to Venezuela.
Oh yeah, and Canada, our LARGEST importer, they have so much oil, it’ll take us roughly 400 years to consume it all.
Of course they have already obligated a substantial portion of those reserves to China…
Babs,
CITGO is franchised on many of the east coast Naval Air Stations and Naval Stations!
b2
Dictators often resort to war whenever the domestic political situation becomes fragile. They see the opportunity to fan the fires of nationalism and divert the attention of the people away from domestic issues that are unpopular. Remember what happened when the Argentine economy was going South and the generals wanted to change the national focus. Suddenly it was time to “reclaim” the Falklands.
If hostilities break out let’s hope that the Columbians quickly bloody Hugo’s nose and the people of Venezuela decide that they’ve had enough of that buffoon.
“Of course they have already obligated a substantial portion of those reserves to China…”
Not a “substantial” portion, yes they do have some agreements, but it ain’t over yet. It does make the current Administration nervous, and China has been shopping around to ALL the major oil producers.
I spoke to my Colombian neighbor. His words were, IIRC, something like “Somebody needs to do something about that guy.” He spoke with a frown and a serious demeanor.
Gateway pundit has a good post up about documents found on Reyes saying that Hew-go and his compadre in Ecuador have been secretly funding FARC for years (since the early 90’s IIRC). I also heard that they [Venezuela] have deployed fighter jets to the border as well.
This could get really really ugly.
Jim C
Y’know, I don’t think I’d mind very much if the Colombians stimulated their brains with their native Andean nasal salts, and just conquered the living dog poo out of Venezuela. Prolly very improbable, considering the disparity of forces and money, but, yup, desirable.
This could get really really ugly.
And we aren’t in a position to do anything about it….
What did Ecuador have to say about this?