Are Russia's Arms Deals to Venezuela Destablizing Central America?

Yesterday afternoon, Russia's RIA Novosti Spanish wire service reported on the arrival of the Deputy Prime Minister and Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin to Caracas, Venezuela. The reason for the trip of Russia's energy czar (and leader of the "siloviki" network of former KGB officers), according to the Kremlin news outlet, was to prepare for Hugo Chávez's upcoming visit to Moscow and a high-level inter-governmental commission to be held in St. Petersburg.

By the end of the day, Sechin had already inked many deals, conveniently for himself and for Russia, with the Venezuelan government -- Bloomberg reports that Russia and Venezuela signed wide-ranging cooperation accords on energy, military, and agricultural cooperation, including the formation of a joint venture between PDVSA-Services and Gazprom's Latin America division. What does Sechin personally get out of the trip? He took a trip with his PDVSA counterpart Rafael Ramirez out to the Orinoco Belt to see an oil field which was once owned by U.S. firm ConocoPhillips before expropriation, announcing plans to unveil another joint venture to develop it with with Rosneft in September.

Joint ventures and big-sounding cooperation agreements are a familiar sight to observers of Russia-Venezuela relations, and the two countries have even formed a $4 billion development bank. But other than arms purchases, the trade volume hasn't yet caught up. Venezuela still exports some 60% of its oil to the United States, comprising 11% of U.S. supply. The U.S. is by far their largest trade partner, and Russia's volumes don't even yet compete with China's business with Venezuela.

The reason for all this fuss, of course, is that the relationship is highly political. For the Russians, there is a clear desire to poke Washington in the eye after Vice President Joseph Biden's visit to the Ukraine and Georgia -- Sechin seems dead-set on proving Hillary Clinton right that no spheres of influence exist. More than just the immense enjoyment that Chávez must feel in passing an oil field taken directly from an American company into the hands of a Russian company, there is also a strong and growing military dimension to the relationship to the tune of $4.4 billion. A Swedish think tank estimates a 900% growth in arms purchases in the last five-year period, making Venezuela the #1 buyer of Russian arms in the world.

Hugo Chávez should be honored to have such a high ranking official from the Kremlin to help him "prepare" for his next visit to Moscow -- Sechin is estimated by many Kremlinologists to have much more clout, and many more billions, than President Dmitry Medvedev himself. Sechin is the main figure running Russia's Latin America policy, as he is rumored to be fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese from his KGB days in Africa.

Controversy seems to follow the man wherever he goes. Many point to him as being the main conspirator and beneficiary behind the Kremlin's takeover of the Yukos oil company - a multi-billion dollar daylight robbery. The Rosneft chairman has also come under fire for what many believe to be a non-sensical deal with the Chinese, passing them control of the future of Russian oil. The economist Konstantin Sonin has written that "Sechin's contract with China might go down in history like the notorious privatization auctions of the early 1990s."

The timing of his visit -- along with the high tensions over Honduras following the coup -- raises some concerns over the uptick in military hardware transfers between Moscow and Caracas. The Venezuelan President recently made several comments about doubling his orders of T-90 battle tanks from Russia. The Kremlin recently sent the battleship Peter the Great to carry out war games with Venezuela in the Caribbean. Venezuela is the only country in Latin America with a license to manufacture their own Kalashnikovs, a fact which is very worrying to the Colombian government when so many of these small arms seem to go missing. A Colombian newspaper also ran a report this month about a Venezuelan contact attempting to sell 20 Russian-made surface-to-air missiles on the black market.

What the United States may be worried about with this visit is Russia's potential acquiescence to Chávez's apparent plan to disrupt the attempts to broker a deal on behalf of former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. Under instructions from Chávez, Zelaya has ignored all advice from Arias, and made many high risk stunts, including crossing over the border for a few minutes amid teeming crowds this past weekend (Christopher Sabatini from the Council of the Americas describes Zelaya's actions as "tragic silliness"). Many observers believe that Chávez and Zelaya "need more dead Hondurans" to produce the outcome they are looking for.

There can be no doubt of two facts: this level of arms purchases by Chávez defeats the narrative that he is about protecting the interests of the poor and underprivileged of Venezuela, and secondly, there are individuals seeking improper personal enrichment through their powers of office. The grotesque level of corruption in both Russia and Venezuela should stimulate the discussion as to whether the predatory nature of both states constitutes not only an international crime, but as well a breach of fundamental human rights for which there may indeed be remedies under international law.

A version of this article was published on www.robertamsterdam.com.

Follow Robert Amsterdam on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robertamsterdam

Comments

[newsbrowser]

It is not surprising that Igor Sechin is former KGB. Putin, himself, is a veteran of the KGB, which
now controls Russia with an iron fist , under its new moniker, the FSB. The FSB is responsible
for many murders, inside and outside of Russia, The most well known example of this,
is the murder by polonium 210 of Alexander Litvinenko, the FSB defector, who was killed in
London in 2006. Venezuela is to Russia now, what Cuba was to the USSR, and as such,
Venezuela represents a threat not only its South American and Central American neighbors,
but to the United States, itself.

[StanMann]

"Corruption at all levels of the American economy and government make the Russians and Venezuelans look like pikers"

There is an underestimation on your statement, although I can understand why many americans would feel this way. The Russians opened a flood gate of crime, criminal rings, corruption of our businessmen, they are only doing the same there.

Sleepy Americans, busisnesmen caught up in greed, selfishness and American easy to be corrupted.

[JamesOctopus]

If I were Chavez I'd been arming myself too. Anyone who's so much as peaked at the history of US involvement in Latin America should know that any democratic­ally-elect­ed, left-learning government should watch its ass. We seem to prefer a right-wing dictatorship any day. A lot easier for multinationals to pilfer.

[KDog76A]

Chavez just suppressed free speech in Venezuela for the "common good"... so much for democracy.

[S1m0n]

The Honduran "Government" you accuse Chavez of seeking to overthrow is a military dictatorship imposed by coup after the overthrow of an elected government*. Overthrowing these is what's supposed to happen.

*As far as excuses go, the honduran junta's stated rationale that they were forced to launch their coup because the president planned a referendum which the plotters knew they'd lose could not be more blunt about this so-called 'government's' lack of democratic support.

[werehawk]

Simon:

The Honduras coup does not fit the hallmarks of classic latin american military coup by any longshot if anything it is closer to the incident in Guatemala that led to Serrano Elias being deposed in 1993 only in this case the opposition leapt to early...

And I'm pretty familiar with the real coups having lived in Guatemala 1972-2003 through a whole series of coups putsches. I still dislike Marimba music. One of the hallmarks of Guatemalan coups was chain broadcasting of Marimbas on all radio and TV stations.

In any case the current Honduras imbroglio looks to me more like a case in which one branch of the government in Honduras tangled with the other two and lost badly. If the Honduran coupists had thought things through they could have handled things very differently. In any case the leadership of this coup is all civilian. Not a single military leader has any politcal power beyond being minister of defense.

In fact the already tense situation in Honduras prior to the coup was exacerbated by Venezuelan meddling. Chavez has been systematicly undermining governments all over Latin America by giving handouts to power hungry politicians so long as they parrot his lines and enact policies that are leftist.

The caudillo has returned in Latin America and he is coming form the left field this time around.

[writerjohnny]

Corruption at all levels of the American economy and government make the Russians and Venezuelans look like pikers. More to the point the great majority of military hardware and arms of all types around the globe originate with the American military industrial complex. Sorry but the assertion that we can arm ourselves to the teeth both individually and as a nation while we can restrict what other sovereign entities can do in this area is sooooooooo last century.

[werehawk]

Hah...

U.S. corruptos are far subtler than the Russian thuggish types and the blatant nepotistic Venezuelan brand. Here they hit you with a tax audit or some other piece of governmental nastyness.

All said and told I'd far rather tangle with the U.S. type than to try and deal with the Russian type...Far less likely to show up lying in an alleyway as more than one Russian has. Or be the victim of a Chavista mob in Venezuela fired up by a government official.

[KDog76A]

". More to the point the great majority of military hardware and arms of all types around the globe originate with the American military industrial complex"

wrong mosdt of the arms around the word are coming from China, get over yourself

[raaf]

What's this Robert Amsterdam guy doing here? Is he paying HP to get his drivel up here? He belongs at Fox News.

[Peric Overde]

And of course, I guess you got interrupted when you were about to explain to us why what he says is wrong, am I correct? You should try again. The only two sentences that got published from what surely was going to be an essay disputing Mr. Amsterdam point by point makes you look like you are marginally reaching the limit of the IQ scale that makes you functional. Please, do yourself a favor and show us that you indeed can think.

[Squaker]

How does purchasing weapons "defeat his narrative" about poverty?
You say there is "no doubt" that it does, however there seems to no relation between the two things at all.

The weapons are for security of the country from hostile foreign powers such as Columbia and the United States who are trying to end democracy in Venezuala
You should be aware of this Mr Amsterdam, after all you supported an attempt to overthrow their democracy only a few years ago

[ElCapitanAmerica]

First, there is no country in this planet called "Columbia". One last time guys, "COLOMBIA" ... "COLOMBIA".

What's hypocritical is that Chavez has been wasting lots of money arming himself for no real purpose, yet when Colombia does a deal to give access to some of its bases to the US, Chavez declares that action "unfriendly". How can he say that when Colombia hasn't been complaining about his military exercises and arm deals with Russia? (his answer was that Colombia doesn't have a conflict with Russia, but Venezuela does with the US, somebody please let president Obama know about that).

Today Chavez "froze" diplomatic relations with Colombia further escalating the situation. This after Colombia asked Venezuela to clarify why FARC "rebels" had in their possession rocket launchers with serial numbers indicating they belong to the Venezuelan military (these numbers have been confirmed by the Swiss and they also demand an explanation). Instead of Chavez acting like an adult and launch an investigation, he does this.

I don't know who Mr. Amsterdam is and what his agenda is, but that doesn't mean there aren't issues that need to be discussed when it comes to the irresponsible actions caused by the cult of personality of Chavez and his destabilizing nature in the region.

[Peric Overde]

Oh Boy! How do you manage to pack so much BS in such a short post? Unbelievable!

Hugo Chavez is constantly with a verbal diarrhea trying to convince everyone that he is the Robin Hood of Venezuela. That he is the only one that cares about the poor and about Venezuelans in general. But, is he?

About 12,000 people die in Venezuela annualy because of crime; yet, there is no effective police force. Hospitals are in shambles with doctors fleeing the country because of working conditions. Sixty to seventy percent of the population can be considered poor. So, why does a country where these conditions exist need to spend billions and billions of dollars in weapons to thwart some imaginary threat?

There has never been a confrontation with Col-O-mbia (NOT Col-U-mbia which is in the USA). There will not be one. This is just the proverbial imaginary enemy that wants to destroy the revolution.

The USA will not invade. This is again part of the Communist boogie man. And, to be honest, if they did, what could 25 Russian fighters accomplish?

So, yes, there is a contradiction between Chavez discourse and his real intentions.

By the way, Chavez is already doing the best job at destroying democracy. It is not necessary for the USA -or anyone, really- to do anything in that regard. I am also anxiously waiting for you to show us proof backing up your statement that Mr. Amsterdam supported a coup in Venezuela.

[Squaker]

LMAO two in a row who correct grammar and spelling errors
not usually a sign of a good policy position

Why do you oppose democracy in venezuala again?
And why do criticize them for having a relatively small amount of weapons?

I just don't understand why you guys don't just say what you really think
You oppose his economic policy. it has nothing to do with weapons or democracy
If you guys were more honest, maybe you would start winning elections

But then again your views on economics are pretty horrible, so maybe not

[BillyHewitt]

When Bush and Clinton mafias started the FTAA program in 1991 they outsourced my good paying jobs (4 separate manufacturing jobs in 12 years) to communist China and Mexico and Honduras. It did not benefit anyone except the multinational corporation owners whom made $BILLION profits. In Honduras the dictators agreed to sweetheart contracts with FTAA companies and forced 70% of the Honduran population into poverty and hunger. President Chavez was the only person that stood up to these gangsters and he has saved 3 million American good paying jobs by doing so. The neo cons and neo con media have all sworn to get Chavez so they can outsource 1 million more good American jobs to Honduras. If the military junta remains in Honduras 1 million American jobs will be outsourced to Honduras and the FTAA companies in America will become rich at the expense of the American worker and Honduran worker. It is essential that Honduras workers and American workers unite to stop these gangsters.