From today’s New York Times:
[ol]
[li]How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil[/li][li]Looming Transition Ignites Deadly Clashes in Congo[/li][li]Burundi Killings Could Ignite Wider African Crisis, U.N. Report Warns[/li][/ol]
I will focus on Venezuela most but the other two are relevant, as I will explain. This is a brief extract from the Venezuela article:
Throughout the 1950’s through the early 2000 the cry was “Yanqui go home.” Venezuela elected an aggressively anti-Western, populist Hugo Chavez as President in 1998. He promptly shoveled oil revenues into revolutionary schemes and pot-stirring throughout Latin America. His resources swelled as oil prices lept from under $10 per barrel in late 1998 to $146, at one point, in 2008. Between 2006 and late 2014 prices treaded between $60 and $110 a barrel, with occasional spikes up and down from those levels. Since just after Thanksgiving 2014 the prices tumbled to a current range between $35 and $55 a barre, again with occasional short spikes higher and lower. This graph provides an excellent snapshot of oil prices from 1946 to 2015.
Now all three of the countries about whom I have linked articles in one day’s paper, that of September 21, 2016 are in deep crisis. Except for the “tiger countries” of South Korea, Taiwan, and Canada, Australia, New Zealand Singapore, Israel, Chile, Costa Rica Ireland, Iceland and to a lesser extent India, most countries that gained independence from the second half of the 19th Century on are, objectively, not doing well. I may have omitted some countries but the overall picture is accurate.
These countries are wracked by war, famine and corruption. The growth of the U.N. and multilateral aid has made life extremely lucrative for the leaders.In fact, while Venezuela, Congo, Burundi and other countries in deep crisis shake their tin cups, they should be asked to bring back some wealth from dictators’ Swiss bank accounts. It is all well and good for leaders such as Chavez and now Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to make threats directed at the United States. But why should we lift a finger while being vilified? And make no mistake; “U.N. aid” is Western aid stripped of preconditions and safeguards. See Top Ten Providers of Assessed Contributions to UN Budgets. The top ten contributors are all Western democracies, including the U.S., U.K., Japan, German and Canada. None o the very wealthy oil producing countries are there.
This should not come as a shock. This is the colonial system but with the West getting no benefits and the dictators getting unfettered access to funds, to steal and kill. My position is that there should be no aid, without serious restraints on how the money is spent. And in the case of Venezuela, no privatization of the oil industry, no aid. Full stop.