Venezuelan crisis puts world oil in jeopardy

Venezuela's multi-industry strike — whose members sought a referendum on the presidency of Hugo Chavez — ended Feb. 2, leaving only the oil industry on strike and world energy prices in the balance.

Richard Brand '02, a Wilson School major who predicted Venezuela's crisis in his senior thesis, said the country's future is uncertain.

"If an election were held today, I don't think anyone could say whether or not Chavez would win," he said.

The oil industry — for which production is down from more than three million barrels a day to roughly 1.7 million — remains the only industry on strike because Chavez is keeping the national oil company going by replacing the workers with his own supporters.

Analysts predict that if the strike continues, U.S. oil prices will rise twenty cents by the spring.

"I'm sure that the U.S. government has had close relations with the opposition leaders," said Ana Maria Bejarano, a visiting Latin American Studies professor from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota who wrote her doctoral dissertation on democracy in Venezuela.

"Though the U.S.'s role in Venezuela has in no way been like the roles it played in Nicaragua or Chile, it has been quietly backing the opposition. Yet they have been very careful not to risk confrontation with Chavez given current tenuous relations with the Middle East and hence a tenuous oil supply," she said.

Now that the first referendum has failed, opposition leaders with diverse goals need to establish a concrete, common alternative with which to oppose Chavez's regime.

Support nonprofit student journalism. Donate to the ‘Prince’. Donate now »

As of yet, no unified solution or alternative presidential candidate has been proposed. The opposition's lack of security and unity has caused many members of Venezuela's lower class to continue with their support of Chavez.

Chavez also continues to have the backing of the military, except for small factions.

The Democratic Coordinator — a loose group of various anti-Chavez movements — may attempt the second type of referendum permitted by Venezuela's constitution, in which it would try to garner enough support to revoke Chavez's presidency.

But until the movement provides a viable alternative, the people are unlikely to comply.

In the beginning

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Tensions have been mounting against Chavez since 2000, when Chavez — who first attempted to seize power in a 1992 coup — oversaw the rewriting of the country's constitution. In what the president dubbed the "Bolivarian Revolution," Venezuela was officially renamed the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in honor of the country's liberator, Simon Bolivar.

The constitution altered the presidential term and the supreme court. Chavez appointed supporters to judicial positions, as well as to other government offices.

His six-year presidential term officially began Aug. 12, 2000, though he had already been in office for over a year.

The Venezuelan economy has been gradually slowing since 1999, when the price of oil, an export which accounts for more than 50 percent of the country's GDP, began to fall.

Many feel that the growing poverty levels and economic slowdown have been aided further by Chavez's interactions with figures including Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein — scaring away foreign investors.

A man of the people

Chavez presented himself as a man of the people, unconnected with any traditional political group or social elite. He appealed to Venezuela's lower socioeconomic classes with his populist speeches and his promises to end government corruption and provide better conditions for the working poor.

Chavez opposed the free market economic policies, toward which Venezuelan politicians had been looking for the past twenty years, and instead favored a more government-supported economy.

He entered office with the support of 65 percent of the electorate — only opposed by Venezuela's small middle and upper classes, many of whom were prominent players in the oil industry.

The growing political and economic dissatisfaction in Venezuela has coalesced over the past two years into anti-Chavez movements in various political and economic sectors, united as the Democratic Coordinator.

In April, Chavez was ousted from power for two days by a small coup. Pedro Carmonas of the Venezuelan business association Fedecarmas was appointed interim president but lost military support after trying to shut down the government.

In December, the Democratic Coordinator called for a referendum on Chavez's presidency and called a multi-industry strike in an attempt to force Chavez from power. However, the referendum was declared unconstitutional by the Venezuelan supreme court — and the strike has failed to have the impact that the opposition intended.

"Venezuelan society has become so polarized under Chavez that I am surprised it has resisted violence for this long," Bejarano said. "Ultimately, the breaking of factions within the military will determine whether or not this violence will become civil war."