Ambassador of Venezuela Bernardo Alvarez Herrera Easing Tensions Between Ch·vez, U.S. by Larry Luxner One year after Venezuelan President Hugo Ch·vez was nearly overthrown in a coup attempt that many suspect had the Bush administrationís tacit support, the countryís ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, says he wants to repair Venezuelaís damaged relations with the United States. ìWe are at a moment where, because of the complexity of the Venezuelan process and the influence of many people who donít want the United States and Venezuela to have a good relationship, there might be some differences,î Alvarez told The Washington Diplomat. ìProbably there is a perception problem.î Thatís putting it rather lightly. Ch·vez, a former army paratrooper who attempted to overthrow President Carlos AndrÈs PÈrez in 1992, was elected only six years later with the overwhelming support of millions of poor people who had never shared in the countryís enormous oil wealth. But since then, the Venezue lan presidentís heavy-handed tactics against opposition parties at homeónot to mention his well-advertised overseas friendships with dictators such as Cubaís Fidel Castro, Libyaís Moammar Gadhafi and Iraqís Saddam Husseinóhave alienated even many of his initial supporters. This year, the Venezuelan economy is expected to shrink by 10 percent as a result of continued strikes, work stoppages and sometimes violent protests orchestrated by those hoping to force Ch·vez to resign. As a result, Ch·vez has a largely negative image in the United States. But thatís simply because people arenít giving Ch·vez a chance, says Alvarez, a political appointee who worked hard to get his boss elected in the first place. ìIn Venezuela, we have had a major political transformation,î he says. ìWe used to have a two-party system that went along from 1959 until 1998, when the whole system collapsed and President Ch·vez won the election. The two traditional political parties [AcciÛn Democr·tica and COPEI] made an alliance against Ch·vez and have been against him since the beginning of his mandate.î Today, says the ambassador, Venezuelaís 26 million people have a bigger say in their governmentís policies than at any time since liberator SimÛn BolÌvar freed the country from Spanish rule and declared independence in 1821. ìWeíve developed human rights to an extent never before seen in Venezuela. There are no political prisoners in Venezuela whatsoever,î says Alvarez. ìIn the past, political parties used to talk about change, but in the end, they became corrupt. The main promise of Ch·vez and his supporters was the need for a change in the constitutional process.î In 1999, the Venezuelan people, voting in a national referendum, approved the adoption of a new constitution that changed the countryís name to the BolÌvarian Republic of Venezuela. Yet during this time, Ch·vez began antagonizing the business sector with his incendiary rhetoric. Among other things, he lashed out against the ìpredatory oligarchsî of the Venezuelan establishment, calling them corrupt servants of international capital and describing oil executives as ìliving in luxury chalets where they perform orgies, drinking whisky.î As protests against Ch·vez mounted, the presidentís popularity fell from a high of 80 percent shortly after his election to around 30 percent. Relations with the United States took a further dive after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when Ch·vez accused Washington of ìfighting terror with terrorî during the war in Afghanistan. Bilateral ties worsened following the April 2002 coup attempt, which was applauded by several mainstream U.S. newspapers, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Miami Herald and Long Islandís Newsday. In a statement to the press last month, Alvarez blamed the coup on ìofficers in the Venezuelan armyófinanced, guided and encouraged by incredibly wealthy interests, both domestic and international, and aided by a subjective and partisan national pressóterrorized, arrested and jailed our president. ìThe overthrow of the democratically elected president lasted no longer than an ordinary weekend,î Alvarez said. ìIn a continent that has faced authoritarian regimes that spanned years, even generations, this forced takeover ended, in part, because the plotters forgot an important principleóa concept that all legitimate leaders know and understand: A revolution without popular support is like a fire without air; it just burns out.î Even so, ìCh·vez does not want to have a confrontation with the United States,î says Alvarez. ìThere are some people who are trying to present us as anti-American,î he continues. ìSome people see Ch·vez as a dictator because he comes from the military. I tell them to look at his human rights record and compare that with any other country. During the former democracy in Venezuela, all economic and political guarantees were suspended for 10 years. Ch·vez has never declared a state of emergency, even in the middle of an attempt to paralyze the country.î Diehard Ch·vez Fan Alvarez, 46, is originally from the city of Barquisimeto, located halfway between Caracas and Lake Maracaibo, center of the countryís oil industry. He holds a degree in political science from the Universidad Central de Venezuela and a masterís degree in development studies from the University of Sussex in England. A longtime Ch·vez supporter, Alvarez visited Washington several months before Ch·vezís election in an attempt to persuade State Department officials to accept the coup leader-turned-presidential candidate in the event he won the election. ìAt that time, the opposition was telling voters that the U.S. would not recognize Ch·vez as president, that the U.S. would never give him a visa,î says the ambassador. Following the landslide 1998 election, Ch·vez visited President Clinton at the White House, with senior U.S. officials portraying the meeting as a success. Before his current post, Alvarez was Venezuelaís vice minister for oil and gasóan important position in a country that derives 80 percent of its foreign exchange from petroleum exports. In 2002, Venezuelaóa founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)óranked as the fourth-largest crude oil supplier to the United States after Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, providing 12 percent to 14 percent of all U.S. oil imports. Of the some 2.9 million barrels of oil produced by Venezuela every day, about 1.2 million goes to the United States, where government-owned PetrÛleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) owns a number of refineries as well as the Citgo gas station chain. But last yearís nationwide strike by PDVSA management forced Venezuelan oil production to tumble to only 150,000 barrels a day, crippling the countryís economy and driving up world prices already boosted by the prospect of war with Iraq. And even though the strike ended on Feb. 4 and production is nearly back to normal, the U.S. State Department recently warned Venezuelan energy officials that its future as a strategic oil partner is in doubt. ìConflict in Venezuela has damaged its reputation as a reliable oil supplier,î said Alan Larson, undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs, on March 4. ìIt has been clearly demonstrated that Venezuelaís democratic institutions and its reputation as a reliable supplier appear no longer matters of primary importance to President Ch·vez. We are disturbed by measures taken by President Ch·vez and the government of Venezuela that can only be seen as polarizing the conflict and eroding Venezuelaís democratic institutions.î Alvarez, however, has a different take on things. ìEven people who criticize our government have to recognize that we have a rational and consistent oil policy,î says the diplomat, who for a while was head of Venezuelaís delegation to OPEC. ìIt has been a historic position of Venezuela not to use oil as a political weapon internationally. Even during the Arab oil embargo [of 1973 to 1974], Venezuela never stopped production.î The ambassador adds, ìThere was no PDVSA strike in Venezuela. It was more of a walkout. Medium- and high-ranking managers abandoned their jobs because they want to pressure the president to resign or call for early elections. They abandoned their jobs for political reasons. Imagine if the managers of Exxon decided that they didnít like President Bush and tried to paralyze the countryís oil production. Do you think people who do that are real managers?î Alvarez cle arly shows little sympathy for those thousands of ìunpatrioticî PDVSA officials who walked off their jobs, causing an estimated $2 billion in losses for the oil industry in an attempt to ìblackmail a legitimate and constitutionally elected government.î Nor does he hide his hostility toward opposition Venezuelan newspapers and television stations, which he says have worked tirelessly to bring down the Ch·vez government. ìThe role of the media has taken on the role of political parties in Venezuela,î says Alvarez. ìWhen you have all four private TV channels presenting only political advertisements from the opposition, what does that tell you? On April 11, 2002, the president was detained, and on April 13, the armed forces restored him to power. During that time, TV channels were broadcasting only Tom and Jerry reruns. It gives you a clear indication that they were involved in the whole coup díetat.î Improving Bilateral Relations Washingtonís displeasure with Ch·vez isnít limited to his actions at home. The Clinton administration was not amused when in 2000 the Venezuelan leader became the first head of state to visit Iraq since the Gulf War. Following a meeting with Saddam Hussein, he called the Iraqi dictator a ìbrotherî and promised to help end U.N. sanctions against Baghdad. Another issue that particularly irks the United States is the close personal friendship between Ch·vez and Fidel Castro. Many of Ch·vezís strongest critics accuse the Venezuelan president of wanting to set up a communist dictatorship modeled after Castroís Cuba. In a Feb. 27 editorial, The Washington Times warned that ìthe current Venezuelan government is not merely a left-wing populist regime, but may be evolving into a police state. If Mr. Ch·vez does not pull back into constitutional government, it will be a tragedy for the Venezuelan people and the beginning of a substantial foreign policy danger for the hemisphere.î Comparisons between Ch·vez and Castroóboth of whom usually appear in public in their military uniformsóare invariable and are underscored by the fact that last year, Venezuela was Havanaís largest trading partner thanks to a program under which Cuba buys up to 53,000 barrels of oil a day under preferential terms. Alvarez points out, however, that Venezuela never supported the U.S. embargo against Cubaóeven before Ch·vez came alongóand it has no intentions of doing so now. ìWe have friends all over the world, and we respect the sovereignty of other countries to deal with their own internal issues,î he says. ìOf course, the Cuban-American community has a great deal of influence in the United States, and they try to distort what is a normal relationship between two countries that have historical ties. They say we are giving away oil to Cuba. This is complete nonsense.î In late March, Iraqís ambassador to Venezuela, Taha Al-Abassi, called on the worldís oil producers to halt shipments to the United States and Great Britain and proposed an international trade boycott to protest the war against his country. Meanwhile, Ch·vez repeated sharp condemnation of the war, questioning the right of the United States to launch such a massive assault, which he said was killing innocent civilians. Nevertheless, Alvarez says, ìOur policy is that we have been a reliable supplier to the U.S., and we have never stopped. Our responsibility is with the world and the consumer, and we will be there to provide oil.î Alvarez says that ever since the Bush administration launched its energy policy in 2001, Venezuela has promoted ties with the United States ìnot only at the federal level, but at the state level as well.î Since 1970, he says, Venezuela has been an international affiliate of the U.S. National Energy Council (along with the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland). ìWe want to find ways of improving the relationship between Venezuela and oil-producing states,î such as Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska. Along those lines, Alvarez says his countryís new hydrocarbons law has opened 100 percent of the Venezuelan natural gas sector to private investment. Three exploration licenses have already been granted to international consortia, including one to Chevron-Texaco, which predicts that by 2015, the United States will have a deficit of 38 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year. Venezuela, with its 100 trillion cubic feet of reserves, can easily supply that demand. ìWhat weíd like to do is use the energy investment momentum to encourage other opportunities. The traditional approach was to produce only oil, but we want to industrialize the oil and gas industry. For example, we are discussing the building of an olefin plant with Exxon-Mobil that will allow Venezuela to rapidly grow in the plastics sector,î Alvarez says. But significant new investment from the United States isnít likely to flow into Venezuela until the political situation calms down. And given this countryís bitter opposition to Ch·vez, that probably wonít happen as long as Ch·vez remains in power. In the meantime, says Alvarez, ìWe have a strategic relationship with the United States. We have many more coincidences than differences. My mission is to enhance the coincidences and manage the differences.î Larry Luxner is contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.