Castro and Chavez aim to boost Latin America's left wing alliance

by Rigoberto Diaz

Friday, April 29, 2005

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez launched a visit to Cuba Thursday to bolster economic cooperation critical to the survival of President Fidel Castro's communist regime, amid rising tensions between the left-wing allies and the United States.

Chavez arrived in Havana late Wednesday to a warm personal welcome from the communist leader. It is Chavez's 12th visit to Cuba since 1999 and it was the first time Castro, 78, went to the airport to meet a foreign leader since he suffered a serious fall October 20.

The leaders are due to open a Havana office of Venezuela's state-owned oil giant PDVSA and another office of the Banco Industrial de Venezuela (BIV).

Venezuela supplies oil at favorable rates so Castro can keep the island's oil-fuelled power plants running -- literally keeping Cuba's lights on and its economy afloat.

Castro and Chavez will also tour a Venezuelan products fair and the two countries will sign agreements to set up an experimental seed bank; opening the BIV office; opening the PDVSA office and launching a joint venture to produce solar panels, Venezuelan sources said.

They will also launch a scrap metal company, a publishing concern and a joint record label, officials said.

The two leaders also are expected to discuss and condemn the prospects of a terror suspect getting asylum in the United States.

Cuban-born chemist Luis Posada Carriles was sentenced to prison in Panama for trying to assassinate Castro in 2000 and is wanted by Venezuela for blowing up a Cuban passenger plane that killed 73. He was pardoned from prison in 2004 and reportedly made his way to Miami via Mexico.

Cuban authorities also want Posada Carriles in connection with a 1997 string of Havana hotel bombings. An Italian tourist was killed in one.

Carriles deserves asylum because he has "supported the interests of the United States for approximately four decades," his Miami lawyer, Eduardo Soto, has argued. The US State Department has declined comment on the politically sensitive case.

Castro and Chavez have lambasted the United States for, they say, spouting anti-terrorism rhetoric while sheltering what they consider a terrorist.

"Let's see if a country that invades others, that bombs cities in Iraq and Afghanistan, grants asylum to this terrorist" Posada Carriles, Chavez said prior to arriving in Cuba.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on her first major tour of Latin America, on Wednesday accused Chavez of having a "destabilizing" influence over Venezuela's neighbors. A day earlier she called for "a free and completely democratic Venezuela."

Far from dropping his anti-American rhetoric, Chavez, who was elected, criticized Rice's visit to Latin America, calling the US official "an imperial lady moving across South America."

Enhancing development is also on the agenda for Castro and Chavez.

Chavez is backing a proposed regional trade pact which he contends promotes commerce as well as regional cultural identity. Since 2000, cash-strapped Cuba has received 53,000 barrels of oil a day at a favorable credit rate. In exchange, Havana provides Caracas assistance in health care, literacy, sports and social organization work.

Though oil-rich, poverty in Venezuela grew from 43 percent to 54 percent of the population during Chavez's first four years in office, according to Venezuelan government data.

  Back...

  Most popular articles: viewed, printed and e-mailed

  Printable version