Chavez refuses to raise oil production 08/18/00

CARACAS -- Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez says his country will not increase its current oil production of 2.9 million barrels a day.

Chavez made the announcement shortly after returning from his controversial visit to Iraq and other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

In a nationally televised news conference late Thursday, the newly re-elected head of state reaffirmed his commitment to maintaining current OPEC oil production quotas of 25 million barrels a day.

The oil price has increased sharply in recent months due to scaled down OPEC production.

On the domestic front, Chavez said he will continue,what he calls the "peaceful revolution" to deal with the country's problems.

Chavez returns to Venezuela with high popular support,a majority in the uni-cameral legislature, and an impending cabinet shuffle expected to further consolidate the charismatic president's personal vision as the sole blueprint for further reforms.

Questions today focused on whether Chavez would use his house majority to push through what are known as "enabling laws". The laws can be passed with the support of two-thirds of the nation's National Assembly, and allow the president to sign legislation without parliamentary debate.

The move is unpopular among those who say the self- styled revolutionary already has too much power concentrated in his hands. But Chavez is resolute.

"It is a definite possibility," he says, adding that the enabling laws are only intended to fast track what he calls "emergency reforms" to address the problems of insecurity, unemployment and poverty that have greatly increased in Venezuela in recent years.

President Chavez also dismissed U.S. criticism of his OPEC tour, which included an historic visit to Bahgdad and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"I never thought it would become so polemical," Chavez said, adding it was an obligatory stop on the nine-day tour of oil producing states.

Chavez used the trip to extend personal invitations to the OPEC leaders he hopes will attend the OPEC President's Summit set for the end of September in Venezuela's capital city of Caracas. But his voyage to Iraq made him the first world leader to meet with President Hussein since U.N. sanctions were imposed almost ten years ago.

The U.S. government calls the Iraq trip "concerning" and "inopportune". Chavez remains defiant, saying Venezuela is a sovereign state and that others should mind their own business.

"I'll go to hell and visit the devil if I want," he says, with his characteristic bravado.

But some at home worry Chavez' sympathy towards Iraq, which he says has "suffered enough" under U.N. sanctions, will weaken relations with Washington.

The Unites States is Venezuela's largest trading partner and the number one consumer of Venezuelan oil.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 18, 2000