Raul Castro to visit Venezuela in first presidential trip
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| Published on Saturday, December 13, 2008 |
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By Matthew Walter
CARACAS, Venezuela (Bloomberg): Cuban President Raul Castro will visit Venezuela, the Caribbean nation’s biggest trading partner, on Friday in his first trip abroad since formally taking over from his brother, Fidel Castro, earlier this year.
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| Cuban President Raul Castro. AFP PHOTO |
Raul Castro, 77, will meet with President Hugo Chavez in Caracas, signaling the two countries will maintain strong ties even as a 72.7 percent plunge in the price of Venezuelan oil exports since July diminishes Chavez’s ability to maintain aid to Cuba.
“The relationship has always been between Fidel and Hugo Chavez, not Raul,” said Jose Azel, a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban- American Studies. “Raul is signaling that he needs Venezuela desperately. Ideologically the ties are going to remain strong.”
Venezuela, the biggest oil exporter in Latin America, sends Cuba 90,000 barrels of oil a day in exchange for services from thousands of Cuban professionals, including doctors, agricultural specialists and athletic trainers that Fidel Castro has sent to live in Venezuela since their agreement started in 2000.
“Welcome, President Raul, comrade, companion,” Chavez said during a speech December 10, announcing the president’s visit. “Raul Castro honours us with this visit.”
Cubans have also helped Venezuela install more than 800 solar energy generators in remote communities, swap 78 million light bulbs for energy-saving lamps and create a system that has identified and treated 337,000 disabled people, said Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s oil and energy minister, at a summit today in Caracas of Cuban and Venezuelan government ministers.
After the visit in Venezuela, Castro is expected to attend a summit of Latin American leaders in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. With Chavez’s oil wealth on the wane, Castro is seeking trade and investment opportunities with Russia, China, Iran and Brazil. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao both visited Cuba last month.
“Cuba is certainly looking for alternative help,” said Azel. “Raul Castro recognizes that with the price of oil going down as dramatically as it has, Chavez may not be in the same position to provide as much help as he has until now.”
US President-elect Barack Obama said during his campaign that he would loosen restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba. That may open the door to a thawing of US-Cuban relations, said David Scott Palmer, a professor of international ties and political science at Boston University.
“That will begin a slow process of step-by-step improvement in relations,” Palmer said. | | | | Reads : 954 | | | |
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