Paraguay claims a Venezuela funded “cruel lobby” is discrediting the country in OAS

The Caribbean countries that depend economically from Venezuela have become a “cruel lobby”, strongly pressing to have Paraguay sanctioned by the Organization of American States claims that country’s representative.

Chavez and some members of Petrocaribe are hounding Paraguay Chavez and some members of Petrocaribe are hounding Paraguay

“They belong to the so called Petrocaribe and are economically dependent on Venezuelan oil and funds and have been constantly lobbying to have Paraguay sanctioned”, said Paraguayan ambassador before OAS, Hugo Saguier Caballero.

“The organization Petrocaribe is directly targeted to these Caribbean countries, some of which couldn’t survive without the aid from Venezuela and they are doing their utmost to discredit Paraguay, its constitutional process and current authorities”, claimed the ambassador.

Petrocaribe is a Caribbean alliance with Venezuela to purchase oil on conditions of preferential payment and includes 17 country members from the Caribbean, Central America plus Guyana and Suriname.

Paraguay seems to be subjected to some kind of “international impeachment” for recent events and “these countries want the OAS to sanction us”.

But “in this political international impeachment, different ideas and ideologies are at stake, and that is why we have the strong support from some countries that are well aware that this is not about whether the impeachment of former president Lugo was correct or not. Here there is a vicious attack linked to ideologies and different policies that consider they have lost the bastion they held in Paraguay” underlined Saguier Caballero.

An OAS fact-finding in-situ mission visited last week Paraguay and reported its findings to the Permanent Council which still has to decide on the situation. The process has been delayed because the new president of the council, the ambassador from Jamaica only arrived in Washington this week.

Mercosur and Unasur have suspended Paraguay until next year’s elections arguing that there was a “democratic rupture” and even a “congressional coup” by the way Lugo was removed from office and replaced by current president Federico Franco.

However United States, Canada and other OAS members have yet to express their position regarding events in Paraguay and have stated they will wait for the results of the OAS report which has been distributed among member countries.

Although the whole impeachment process could have some questionable angles it kept strictly to what the Paraguayan constitution dictates.

The same can’t be said of Mercosur and Unasur summary decisions to suspend Paraguay, particularly since taking advantage of the absence of Asuncion, the rest of Mercosur members hastily bur controversially approved the incorporation of Venezuela as full member of the group, when these decisions must be taken on a strictly consensus basis.

Uruguayan president Jose Mujica said that “politics prevailed over procedures” and sometimes “these things must occur” for the good of organizations.

The Paraguayan congress was totally contrary to the incorporation of President Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela whom they consider a ‘non democratic leader’.

Chavez announces fund in support of Venezuelan business to export to Mercosur

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced the creation of a strategic fund geared to support public and private exports to Mercosur, following his confirmation that he will fly to Brazil for the formal incorporation of his country as a full member of the block that also includes Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and suspended Paraguay.

 “We faced all kinds of obstacles”, claimed the Venezuelan president.

“I’ve ordered the creation of a strategic fund of several hundred million dollars to support Venezuelan private companies with an export oriented profile and also government corporations”, said Chavez speaking on national television.

Venezuela is expected to be formally admitted to Mercosur as full member at the end of the month in Rio do Janeiro. A decision which is considered controversial since it was agreed following Paraguay’s suspension, the only country which continued to veto the incorporation, and under Mercosur rules all decisions, even more when referred to new members, must be agreed by consensus.

Paraguay was suspended from Mercosur following the political impeachment and removal of President Fernando Lugo. The sanction is extensive until new elections are held scheduled for April 2013.

“We faced all kinds of obstacles, a thousand obstacles, the last of which that authoritarian pro-yank enclave and enemy of South American integration which was encysted in the Paraguayan Senate: they were asking millions of dollars to say yes, but that didn’t happen because I won’t be blackmailed”, said Chavez.

“I would have liked the (incorporation) process not to have evolved this way, but Paraguay was suspended and the only obstacle in the way, for years, was out”.

Finally Chavez emphasized that Mercosur opens doors and great opportunities for Venezuelan production, for the economy to keep growing: “Are we going to Brazil? Of course we are delighted to attend the ceremony in Rio do Janeiro, a historic event”.

Venezuela to Host Russian Helicopter Repair Center

Russia is planning to open a helicopter repair center in Venezuela later in the year, a senior official with Russia's state-owned hi-tech conglomerate Rostechnologii said on Monday.

“We expect to open the first line of a helicopter repair center in South America, namely in Venezuela,” said Sergei Goreslavsky, who is in charge of the company’s foreign operations, to journalists during an international machinery forum in the town of Zhukovsky, near Moscow.

The repair center is expected to become fully operational within two or three years, he added. It will serve Russian-made helicopters purchased by Venezuela as well as other South American states.

Goreslavsky added that top-selling Russian carmaker, AvtoVaz, was also expected to sign an agreement with South American partners during the forum, to promote its cars in regional markets.

The “Technologies in Mechanical Engineering 2012” forum, which involves approximately 200 Russian companies, as well as more than two dozen firms from Austria, Armenia, Belarus, Germany, India, Italy, China, Singapore, Ukraine and France, will run until July 1.