Latin America's oil rebels rebuff EU

The leaders of Venezuela and Bolivia yesterday rejected calls that they hold back their policies on foreign investment and energy and declared that a new political era had arrived in Latin America.

"Neo-liberalism has begun its decline and has come to an end," the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, said at the gathering of nearly 60 heads of state, according to Reuters. "Now a new era has begun in Latin America. Some call it populism, trying to disfigure our beauty. But it is the ... voice of the people that is being heard."

Interest in the summit, which continues today, has been heightened by the recent decree by the new Bolivian president, Evo Morales, who announced on May 1 plans to nationalise his country's natural gas fields. Mr Morales is part of the new "pink tide" of leftist politicians who have recently been elected in Latin America.

"What countries do in their energy policy when they are energy producers like Bolivia and Venezuela matters enormously to all of us," Mr Blair said yesterday's. "My only plea is that people exercise the power they have got in this regard responsibly for the whole of the international community ... people are worried about energy supply in the future."

Since President Bush's election, Latin America - once an obsession of American Presidents - has drifted dramatically to the left, with left wing governments now controlling Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela.

Indeed, in Venezuela, Chavez could be said to be the first ever major oil producer to use his oil revenue to liberate the poor.

However, one only has to remember Reagan's behaviour towards Nicaragua, to see the danger that left wing governments on that continent face from American intervention.

And it is interesting that the leader of a supposedly left wing government led by Blair, is so keen to prove that there is a distance between himself and his possible Latin American counterparts.

Leaders such as Chavez know that they face assassination from the US for daring to suggest that there may be a different way to organise society that does not result in vast discrepancies between rich and poor.

However, it appears to be a price that they are willing to pay to uphold a principle.

A US army publication, Doctrine for Asymmetric War against Venezuela, describes Chávez and the Bolivian revolution as the "largest threat since the Soviet Union and Communism". When I said to Chávez that the US historically had had its way in Latin America, he replied: "Yes, and my assassination would come as no surprise. But the empire is in trouble, and the people of Venezuela will resist an attack. We ask only for the support of all true democrats."

Come the day, can any of us believe that a "true democrat" like Blair would be on the side of the Venezuelan underdog?

This is the joke of Bush and Blair's supposed "exporting of democracy". They only support, as their behaviour in Palestine has shown, democracies that elect governments of which they approve.

The people of Latin America have consistently voted for an alternative to capitalism, for a fairer redistribution of wealth, and for a system that takes care of it's poor rather than one which rewards individualistic endeavor.

Will they, in the spirit of democracy, be allowed to continue their brave experiment unhindered by interference from others?

I very much doubt it.

And therein lies the lie of Bush and Blair's supposed love of democracy.

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Tags: Venezuala, Chavez, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, left, wing, Latin America, US, Interference, Nicaragua,