Het Olierijke Venezuela 3

Vroeger vloeiden de petrodollars van Venezuela onmiddellijk terug naar VS, om ermee te speculeren in aandelen of onroerend goed, zoals dat nog steeds gebeurt met de petrodollars uit de arabische olieproducerende landen. Maar nu gebruikt de Venezolaanse president de oliedollars voor financiele steun aan arme Latijnsamerikaanse landen en de ongeveer 40 miljoen mensen in de VS, die onder de armoedegrens leven. Dat maakt Chavez buitengewoon gehaat bij de westerse politieke en economische elite.

'Chavez uses petro-dollars to help the poor - in America.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Hugo Chavez coasted to another six-year term as Venezuela's president on the strength of petro-dollars and promises to spread more of his country's oil wealth to the poor.
But as Chavez struggles to alleviate poverty for eight million of his own citizens, the 52-year-old leftist leader is using his oil riches in an unlikely way - by paying the winter heating bills for hundreds of thousands of underprivileged Americans.
Even as Chavez demonized the United States as an evil imperialist empire during campaign events leading to his re-election Sunday, Venezuela's state-owned oil company renewed a deal to provide 40 per cent discounts on furnace oil to 400,000 people in 15 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
The act of generosity is dismissed by Chavez's critics as pure propaganda - an attempt to embarrass the Bush administration - and it is drawing mixed reaction among Venezuelans.
''I think he is just giving the money away,'' huffs Carmen Herrara, a retiree who lives in a suburb of east Caracas. ''There is a lot of poverty in this country that needs to be solved first.''
The heating-oil program offered by Venezuelan-owned Citgo is but one element of an incredibly complex, carrot-and-stick relationship Chavez and the U.S. have with each other, one revolving predominantly around the politics and economics of oil.
Chavez won Sunday with 61 per cent of the vote.
In Washington, the Bush administration expressed hope the U.S. could improve relations with Venezuela even though Chavez called his victory another "defeat for the devil."
Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said "we hope that we could have a positive constructive relationship" with Chavez in the future.
"There are, of course, well-reported frictions on some issues. From our standpoint, there don't have to be any frictions," said McCormack, who added the U.S. was awaiting reports from international election observers before passing final judgement on the election.
Chavez had rankled President George W. Bush in August 2005 when he offered to ship emergency fuel supplies to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.'

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http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=843b9ec3-c8a3-40ef-99c0-9bb017568503&k=419