CARACAS: Venezuela’s political crisis, marked by a 16-day-old general strike, has become a threat to US interests, particularly the security of its petroleum supplies, just when Washington is preparing for a war in the Persian Gulf region, home to 65 per cent of the world’s oil reserves.

The political opposition launched the strike Dec 2 to demand a referendum on whether President Hugo Chavez should remain in office. The protest has paralysed industry, a portion of the retail sector and services, and his hit the state-run oil giant Petrsleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

Venezuela holds an estimated seven percent of the world’s petroleum reserves and has the capacity to extract three million 159-litre barrels of oil a day.

The only Latin American member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), it produces 2.8 million barrels a day and exports 2.4 million barrels. The United States imports more than half of that total, 1.5 million barrels.

The United States consumes approximately 15 million barrels of oil a day in the periods of highest demand, such as the winter season. Ten million barrels of the daily supply are imported. As such, Venezuelan oil constitutes 10 per cent of the total consumed, and 15 per cent of the total imported.

Washington “cannot make the decision to go to war (against Iraq) as long as the conflict continues here,” said Anmbal Romero, expert in national security and defence and political science professor at Simon Bolmvar University.

Humberto Caldersn, a former Energy minister of Venezuela, noted that “it is unlikely that the actions planned against Baghdad could be moved up in circumstances that imply the absence of five million barrels of oil a day from the world market,” in other words, the combined output of Iraq and Venezuela.

Those five million barrels represent 6.6 per cent of the 76 million barrels of petroleum the world consumes each day, he said.

A similar percentage disappeared from the market in 1979 when Iran’s Islamic revolution erupted, “and the outcome was that the price doubled, from 12.70 to 26 dollars a barrel,” pointed out Caldersn, who has also served as president of PDVSA and as minister of foreign relations.

“Venezuela for the first time is part of the problem and not part of the solution,” said Josi Toro, a former PDVSA executive. “We were the secure supplier of petroleum during World War II, the post-war crisis and the during the escalations of the Middle East conflict.”

There are three requirements for being a secure and reliable supplier: “first, one must have abundant oil supplies, second, there must be regional geopolitical stability, and third, the country must be politically and social stable, and Venezuela today is not,” comments Alberto Quirss, another expert and former oil industry executive.

The country’s importance as an oil supplier apparently prompted Washington to react, as the George W. Bush administration is urging Chavez and the opposition — led by trade unions and business associations, and by PDVSA executives — to find a way to resolve the conflict.

Political observers from across the region have mentioned the possibility that Chavez, with his hands on the petroleum spigots, could emerge as the focal point of a Latin American leftist resurgence pitted against the United States.

This hypothesis arose in the wake of electoral victories by the left: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to the presidency in Brazil, Lucio Gutiirrez to the presidency in Ecuador, and Evo Morales coming in a close second place in Bolivia’s presidential elections.

Meanwhile, leftist parties in Argentina and Uruguay are doing well in the polls.

“Whoever has eyes to see, look at what the people are doing, in Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela,” Chavez himself said during a recent press conference.

Last month, US senator Henry Hyde, of the ruling Republican Party, urged Bush to give the opposition in Venezuela the clear support of the United States in order to prevent Chavez from becoming part of a new “axis of evil” in Latin America, which would include Cuba.

But, says university professor Romero, “we shouldn’t exaggerate. Chavez does not have the capacity to become a destabilizing force in Latin America.”

“There is no way for that to happen. Look at (Brazil’s president-elect) Lula and his meeting with Bush,” added Romero, referring to the constructive climate of the encounter between the two last week in Washington.

Gutiirrez, Ecuador’s president-elect, has also been received in Washington, something that Chavez has not achieved since he was first elected president in December 1998.

When a group of military commanders ousted the Venezuelan president from power for two days in April, the White House received accusations — from inside and outside the United States — that it had played a role in the failed coup.

As such, in the double context of last month’s legislative elections in the United States and the potential attack against Iraq, “Washington opened a window of opportunity for Chavez to have here a reliable oil supply and a moderately presentable democracy.”

Currently, the United States supports the efforts of Cisar Gaviria, secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS), as mediator of the formal talks between the Chavez administration and opposition leaders.

Last week, the White House suggested that early elections — as the opposition is demanding — could be a solution to the crisis.

And in recent days, with the oil industry executives at the forefront, the demands are for Chavez’s immediate resignation.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.