What
do you demand now, what is your response to that? PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: Well
as a matter of fact, Robertson is not acting alone. He’s just conveying, in a
perhaps desperate manner, the thinking of those people closer to Mr. Bush. This
is the voice of the most radical - of the extreme right wing in the U.S., I am
totally convinced that is the situation with Mr. Robertson. And as you can see,
so far there has been no reaction by the U.S. government in this regard. There’s
nothing being said about these terrorist remarks that is in full breach of
international law and breaches the laws of the United States. But it’s not
only Mr. Robertson here. For some time, for some months, people who participated
in a coup attempt in Venezuela and are living here in the United States. And
from TV stations in this country these people are calling for my assassination.
A week ago, in another TV show, people in
uniform, in fatigues, like terrorists. Venezuelans and Americans and Cubans
exiled in the United States, and a former agent of the CIA, very recently said
on TV that Chavez should be dead already. That Robertson is right. So this is
the desire and the voice of the ultraconservative right-wing elite of the United
States. They threatened Chavez. Chavez is nothing. Who is me? I’m nothing.
They are threatening the world. That is serious. They invaded Iraq. Without any
reason whatsoever. They violated international law and are ignoring the rules of
the U.N. Terrorists bombard complete cities, such as Fallujah, Baghdad, innocent
women and children. Now, history is long. Hiroshima for instance-- Nagasaki,
Grenada, Haiti, Panama, Santo Domingo. No, that is not - they do not represent
the people of the United States. They are part of the imperialist dictatorship
that the U.S. people are suffering today. MARGARET PRESCOD: Mr. President, on
behalf of KPFK, Pacifica Radio in Southern
California, welcome to the United States. We have been waiting for this moment.
Many people in the United States have been shocked at the racism they have
witnessed against low income people in New Orleans and the other gulf cities and
we wonder how Venezuelans view what has happened. And also you are clearly
working to unite people of color throughout the world. You are the first Latin
American president we know of who identifies as black and indigenous, and this
breaks a long tradition of racism in the Americas. You’ve also identified with
the people of Haiti who are fighting to defeat a brutal coup against their
president how crucial do you think the defeat of all racism is to making the
fundamental economic and social changes needed to save the world from the
destruction of the market? PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: When we were children, we
were told that we have a motherland, and that motherland was Spain. However, we
have discovered later, in our lives, that as a matter of fact, we
have several motherlands. And one of the greatest motherlands of all is no
doubt, Africa. We love Africa. And every day we are much more aware of the roots
we have in Africa. Also, America is our motherland. Africa, America - and
Bolivar used to say that we are a new human race in Latin America, that we are
not Europeans, or Africans, or North Americans. That we are a mixture of all of
those races, and there is no doubt that Africa resounds with a pulse like a
thousand drums and happiness and joy. But, also there’s a lot of pain when you
think of Africa. Yesterday, I met with the president of Mozambique, because
fully aware of these roots and these realities, we have designed an agenda for
Africa in Venezuela. And we have spoken to other South American leaders. Lula
for instance, is fully aware of the African roots of brazil and South America,
and I want to share the African agenda with other leaders in South America, but
Venezuela has also it’s own African agenda. In the case of
Mozambique. The life expectancy in Mozambique is 38 years old, and going down,
because AIDS is causing havoc in the population. It’s terrible, it’s a tragedy,
it’s a million Katrina’s hitting this country. The president of Mozambique told
me the number of children, orphaned children, whose parents have died as a
result of AIDS. The teachers are dying, the doctors are dying. That’s a tragedy,
and it’s a disgrace, and that’s why it hurts. It hurts so much to see the U.N.
opening its doors to listen to speeches and speeches and more speeches, while at
the same time, every year a population equivalent to Argentina today, or
Columbia die of hunger, or Venezuela die of hunger, and those deaths could be
avoided. Most of them are children, little girls, little boys, and most of them
are in Africa. So, we need like a shaking of the world. To shake up the world.
That’s why when people talk about my style-- my style - that’s why the speech I
delivered yesterday before the United Nations
Assembly – because it doesn’t work! It’s not working. If we reduced the
military expenses in 10 percent of the world, we would have enough money to save
millions of lives in this world. In Venezuela, with the little resources - few
resources - we have initiated a program to bring food to feed the poor people in
Venezuela, and we are covering today 15 million people in Venezuela - receiving
this food distribution and assistance. And most of them receive this food for
free, and others a percentage, they have to pay only 50 percent of the total
amount for the food they eat. Of course this is possible only if the people
themselves, participate and with a new awareness. Racism is very
characteristic of imperialism. Racism is very characteristic of capitalism.
Katrina is – indeed, has a lot to do with racism - no doubt about it. Hate
against me has a lot to do with racism. Because of my big mouth, because of my
curly hair. And I’m so proud to have this mouth and this hair, because
it’s African. So we need a new morality, a new ethic at this point. And from my
Christian point of view, we need a revolution of the ethic. And in the political
and economic fields we need to take back the flag of socialism, in my view - in
order to be able to defeat - with the will of the people, with the participation
of the people – to beat those ominous phenomenon such as racism.
AMY GOODMAN: Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in his first interview in the
United States. [break] JUAN GONZALEZ: Mr. President, welcome. Bien venido
a los Estados Unidos. Your democratic revolution has a different aspect to it,
in that your rich in oil, and the world badly needs oil. What do you do in Latin
America to use oil as a weapon to assist the poor. Can you tell us a little more
about what you are offering to the communities of the United States who are also
suffering from high oil prices. PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ: This is the result of
our awareness, that only through integration we can advance and we can progress
among Latin American countries, breaking the paradigm of capitalism, of free
trade, and neo-liberalism. In the year 2000, we started a cooperation program
especially with the Caribbean and Central American countries, and some of the
South American countries, with the Caracas Energy Accord, and there for the
first time in history we included Cuba, because
Cuba is considered like a country that is not part the Americas, and we think
it is part of the Americas; Jamaica, nicaragua, grenada, many countries. This
mechanism includes the sale of oil and oil by-products with a discount of up to
25 percent. This discount becomes in the end a donation we give these countries,
however, when the price of oil, starts increases, in the year 2000 we signed the
Caracas Accord and the price at that time was 20, 25 dollars a barrel. When we
realized that the prices started to increase and it goes beyond 40 and beyond
50, and I doubt very much the price is going to drop any time soon because this
is part of the structural crisis, the world has to face it, it is a reality.
There is a drop in the oil reserves, there is an increase in consumption and
demand. The refining capacity is low. The consumerism of the world is
unbearable. The world of the U.S. people must come to understand, how this
country with 5 percent of the world population only,
consumes 25 percent of the oil and the energy of the world. I mean that type of
consumption is totally unbearable and this planet cannot stand it any more. When
we realized that the price of oil went up beyond 50 dollars, we initiated
another cooperation scheme. We have created, therefore, Petrocaribe and we are
going to start with small Caribbean and Caricom countries, and the larger
Antillas such as Cuba, Jamaica, and Dominican Republic. So we’re now
providing, first we’re ensuring the supply of oil, direct supply of oil from
state to state, in order to avoid the speculation of multinationals and traders.
They buy gasoline in Venezuela and then they go to a Caribbean country, and they
charge double so we are selling the products to the states directly. We are not
charging for freight, we assume the cost of freight. But apart from that, this
discount is not of 25 percent it goes to 40 percent of the total, and this money
will be paid back in 25 years time, with 2 years of grace
and 1 percent interest rates. So if you make all of the mathematical
calculations, the donation percentage is almost 70 percent because it’s a long
term adjusted 1 percent. So what Venezuela’s doing is supplying 200,000 barrels
of oil to the Caribbean and other Central American and South American countries
such as Paraguay, Uruguay and smaller nations in South America. 200, 000
millions of barrels, if you apply calculations, mathematical calculations by 1.5
percent of our GDP, 1.5 percent of the GDP is devoted to this cooperation. It
means we are financing these sister nations that next year will reach 1.7
billion dollars a year, in 10 years is 17 billion dollars. It’s a way for us to
share, to share our resources with these countries. And what about the us
population? Well after many meetings with the U.S. citizens, we decided to
propose a scheme for poor populations and low-income populations in the us.
We’ve seen that poverty in the us is growing everywhere. It’s close to 11
percent poverty according to some estimates and instead of the figures you have
to go deeper into it because if you see Katrina, and you saw what’s happened,
100,000 people were abandoned and they are abandoned, and they’re just
surviving. So here we have CITGO, this oil company. We have the CITGO company
here in the United States. This is a Venezuelan company, so let’s have a look at
the U.S. map the distribution area of CITGO in the U.S. We are present in 14,000
gas stations in the U.S., and here we have a different refineries, asphalt
refineries, eight refineries that we have in the U.S., the plants for filling
units, the third, refineries, terminals, and so on. We want to use these
infrastructures to help the poor populations. We have made some progress. We
have given instructions to the president of CITGO, Felix Rodriguez. We want that
up to 10 percent we refine here. We supply every day to the us 1.5 million
barrels of oil, crude and product and we refine, here, close to
800,000 barrels a day refined here in the us. So we would like to take 10
percent of what we refine those products and to offer these products in several
modalities to the poor populations. And the pilot project will be starting in
Chicago we are already operating in Chicago. Well let’s hope that there’s not
going to be any obstacle by the government opposed to this project being
implemented, but we will be working in those poor populations. We have some
allies, local partners and we have a number of communities, and we are going to
donate some heating oil, because the winter is close, and for the school
transportation to school, for the Mexican neighborhood which is the largest in
Chicago, La Villita, is the name of this neighborhood with close to 900,000
inhabitants, and so there are other neighborhoods with Hispanics and Latinos.
October, the 14th we’re going to start with these pilot projects with small
communities and schools, but there are other pilot projects that will start
in November in Boston, and here in New York. So different modalities, with
local authorities, mayors, organized communities, religious groups. So we are
very pleased to announce this. And to help just with a drop, and a grain of
contribution to help these low-income populations, Blacks or Hispanics or also
White population so we’re just starting with this project.
AMY GOODMAN: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speaking in his first interview
in the United States.