Third Petro Caribe Summit

The recently concluded Petro Caribe summit in Venezuela sounded very positive and very nice.

 Hardbeatnews, CARACAS, Venezuela, Mon. Aug. 13, 2007: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has vowed to cater to the long-term oil needs of the Caribbean.

 

Chavez, meeting with several Caribbean leaders at the third Petro Caribe Summit in Venezuela, said “the Caribbean shouldn’t have problems this century and beyond.”

“Venezuela puts this oil wealth at the disposition of our peoples of the Caribbean,” Chavez said.

Maybe those of us on the margin are getting cynical in our old age but the question that we have to ask is

“What’s The Catch?”

 There are so many things about Venezuela that we would urge careful examination of any deal.:

 

1. What effect does Petro Caribe have on Venezuela’s claim on Bird Rock, that ffects the territorial claims of a number of Caribbean Countries?

2. What effect does Petro Caribe have on Venezuela’s claim on more than half of the territory of Guyana?

3. Does it involve the Caribbean in the upcoming pissing match between Venezuela and the US?

4. What happens when the Caribbean wants to express an opinion that Mr. Chavez doesn’t like?

5 . Given that there’s no discount, are the signatories just mortgaging their children’s future even more?

6. What effect does that debt burden have on a signatory’s overall credit rating?

 

We could go on….

 

What’s particularly troubling is how those who have expressed reluctance about the deal have been branded. Even our former opposition leader advised from the opposition side of the house that the Government should “Ignore the geo-political issues and just sign”  (I believe his opinion has changed along with the side of the house he’s sitting on 🙂 ). There is an old saying “He who pays the piper calls the tune”,  one day Venezuela is going to present their playlist.

 

Marginal