MIAMI, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Peru’s decision to grant asylum to a Venezuelan oil worker instrumental to the 2002 nationwide strikes in Venezuela could strain fragile relations between the South American countries, according to experts.
Earlier this week Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde said his country had taken in Carlos Ortega, who led the months-long general strike in 2002-2003 that was believed to have cost the continent’s largest petroleum producer some $10 billion.
Ortega was the one-time head of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, which along with other workers’ unions effectively ground Venezuela’s economy to a halt in an effort to force President Hugo Chavez from power.
He’s also been linked to the failed coup attempt in April 2002 that removed Chavez from power for a few days before the military-led effort was reversed.
Ortega’s emergence in Peru after a year of exile in Costa Rica, followed by an escape from a Venezuelan prison in August 2006, could reignite tensions between the countries that in recent months appeared to have tempered.
“I hope that diplomatic problems don’t arise from this decision,” Belaunde said this week.
That possibility is likely, said Julia Sweig, director for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, particularly now as the center-right Garcia is seeking to further distance himself and Peru from Chavez.
“Tweaking Chavez is one way of tweaking his anti-Chavez credentials in Peru,” Sweig told United Press International.
Last year the nations withdrew their respective ambassadors after Chavez publicly endorsed Peruvian President Alan Garcia’s opponent in the 2006 presidential election.
The rekindling of the row comes as Chavez has set his sights on expanding his country’s petroleum-based influence throughout the region so as to lessen Latin America’s dependence on the United States.
Though Peru is self-sufficient in its gas production for domestic use, it imports oil. Neighboring Ecuador remains Peru’s No. 1 supplier, but Venezuela’s state-run oil and gas firm PDVSA also counts Peru as a client.
Chavez would likely want to keep Peru on the PDVSA customer list, though he might find the country’s business expendable in light of recent developments with Ortega and efforts at home to nationalize the industry.
In May, Chavez assumed majority control of the Orinoco River oil reserve, a move that added an additional $800 million to state coffers, Chavez said. The extra revenue will go toward social programs for poor Venezuelans, Chavez said, as well as toward education and defense.
But the company that made many millions wealthier practically overnight also faces its share of setbacks.
In July, Luis Vierma, exploration and production vice president at PDVSA, said Venezuelan oil faces a "significant operational emergency" if it does not increase the number of rigs operating in the country and that the state firm fell short of its 2007 goal of getting 191 rigs online in 2007 and producing some 3.3 million barrels per day.
So far, he said, 112 rigs were online as of July, and by the end of the year their numbers would only likely increase to 120. "Venezuela is moving toward technological independence, but it will take a long time," said Vierma.
--
(e-mail: [email protected])
