Oil and Terror in Venezuela:

...Colonel Perez Jimenez and his clique then repeated their actions of November 24, 1948: They staged an?other coup d'etat, deported and jailed the opposition's chiefs, and packed a Congress formed of "agents of the police," as Time magazine called them...

...The skyline of Carneas is like a dream, its politics a nightmare...

...So much is this the case that the military regime has become untouchable, and must be appeased and praised in all pos?sible ways...

...This makes anything written about about Venezuela controversial, and this article is no exception...

...The Wall Street Journal makes constant ref?erence to the little country of 5 mil?lion inhabitants which, with its fab?ulous reserves of petroleum and iron, is a Mecca for investors of capital and seekers after concessions...

...2. The international oil cartel is making such exceptionally large profits that resentment is mounting against the investing firms...

...During those three years, some 63 cents of every dollar earned by petroleum ex?ports returned to the Venezuelan people...

...all grievances were settled by normal collective-bargain?ing procedures...

...Members of the Na?tional Guard broke into the workers' houses to seize the foodstuffs the strikers had on hand...

...The Venezuelan Government, it must be noted, lost the elections of November 1952 by a vote of two to one...

...last April 27, Venezuela is "a nation which has excellent reserves of iron and which seems to be making mountains of money with petro?leum...

...Mail in the Dutch West Indies is confiscated, and the exile periodical Informacion Venezolana is not allowed to cir?culate there...

...The best people of Venezuela are fighting the dictatorship...

...The re?sult: exaggerated profits for the companies exploiting the country's riches...

...Those who do say more are the Caracas police and their chief, Estrada...

...Foreign investors prosper, 'politicals' fill the prisons OIL AND TERROR IN VENEZUELA By Romulo Betancourt ENE2UELA is a nation which is V always on the financial pages in the United States and Europe...

...Students, professional people, teachers and workers have been carrying on an underground struggle...

...The latter, unfortunately, do not include those governments which are exhorting the free world to the struggle against Soviet totalitarian?ism...

...This company's profits were $181 million...

...The free trade-union movement was destroyed, and the principal democratic trade-union leaders, such as Luis Tovar, were forced into hiding...

...It is the international oil cartel, with its three great tentacles sunk into the subsoil of the country: Standard Oil of New Jersey, Mene Grande Oil and Royal Dutch Shell...

...On June 10, 1954, they assassinated in the Colom?bian city of Baranquilla one of the four Venezuelan exiles who had been expelled from Trinidad, Lieutenant Droz Blanco...

...The Creole Petroleum Corporation, operating arm of Standard Oil in Venezuela, had profits in 1952 equivalent to 35 per cent of its fixed capital...

...Since 1949, under the mili?tary dictatorship which succeeded the liberal government of Callegos, only 44 cents has returned...

...Although it would seem incredible, one of the most brutal dictatorships in Latin America will play the part of host to a conference convoked to strengthen the cause of democracy and freedom...

...If today the Venezue?lan people do not want to hear about In do-China and Korea, it is because their attention is concentrated on their own domestic drama...

...It is true that Venezuela has a great deal of petroleum, but the principal beneficiary of this rich?ness is not the country which pro?duces it...

...They have, however, sought moral support from the leading Western govern?ments...

...In Venezuela, as might be imag?ined, the people are not particularly concerned with the world struggle against Communism...

...According to the Economist of June 13, 1953, Royal Dutch Shell, which gets 40 per cent of its produc?tion from Venezuela, had profits of ??496.4 million in 1951 and 1952 on an average capital of ??994.4 million ??i.e., profits worth almost half of its invested capital...

...What do the Venezuelans think of this attitude on the part of the gov?ernments which are supposedly standard-bearers of the free world...

...Side by side with tremendous projects for economic development is a military despotism which is only occasionally benevolent...

...Those three firms control 98 per cent of the production, refining and sale of the nearly two million barrels of crude oil taken each day from Venezuelan wells...

...Donald Grant of the St...

...When they could vote freely, they gave 77 per cent of their votes to Democratic Action, a mili?tant adversary of Communism, and only a paltry 3 per cent to the Com?munist party...

...They are struggling to free them?selves from the political and econom?ic yoke of a small military clique...

...The London Economist dedicated to it one of the most extensive mono?graphs in its history...

...To use the words of Representative Marguerite Church (R.-Ill...

...A golden legend has formed around my country...

...This battle, in terms of heroism and decision, is equal to that carried on by the Euro?pean countries during the Nazi oc?cupation...

...It cut off all water, gas and electricity to the homes of the strik?ing workers...

...Venezuelan petroleum workers, who enjoyed a very beneficial collec?tive-bargaining contract under the democratic government, have suf?fered severely under the dictatorship...

...The Venezuelan dictatorship, us?ing its petroleum connections, per?secutes its opponents even after they have been deported...

...The Venezuelan democrats have never asked for money or arms aid to overthrow their oppressors...

...there had not been a single major strike in the petroleum fields for three years...

...In 1948, the Federation of Petroleum Workers had expelled all Communistr-controlled unions from its ranks...

...Romulo Betancourt, now in exile, is a former President of Venezuela and a leader of the Democratic Action party, which was onsted by the present military junta...

...This does not mean that they are sympathetic to the Soviets...

...The facts contradict this idyllic picture...

...How these were sup?pressed by the regime was described in a protest presented to the UN Economic and Social Council in January 1952 by Matthew Woll of the AFL and Jacob Potofsky of the CIO: "On May 3, a strike broke out among the petroleum workers of Venezuela...

...The Venezuelan democrats, on the other hand, find that these gov?ernments are now supporting the tyranny instead of its victims...

...It is the marvel of South America, the "little million?aire country of the continent...

...The Government resorted to brutal measures to break the walkout...

...Since the West has denounced the violations of human rights in Russia and its satellites, they feel it should denounce similar violations in Venezuela...

...It jails, kills and deports democratic leaders in broad daylight...

...During the years of the govern?ment of the Democratic Action party (1945-48), reasonable agreements were reached between the companies and the state, and between the com?panies and their workers...

...Under the dictatorship, there have been three great strikes in the petro?leum fields...

...labor leader Serafino Romualdi noted in THE NEW LEADER last year, this tyrannical regime was "honored with the job of organizing the Tenth Conference of American States...

...others, such as Luis Hurtado, Perez Salinas and Ordaz, were jailed without any right to appear before a court...

...The right-wing dictatorship, under the leadership of Colonel Perez Jimenez, makes no attempt to hide its methods...

...The British colony of Trinidad ex?pelled four Venezuelan exiles last April...

...Frankly, they feel that there is an obvious relationship between the enormous profits of the Anglo-American petroleum companies and the benevolent attitude of London and Washington toward the totalitar?ianism of Perez Jimenez...

...The Venezuelan scene today is of the type which eon founds believers in democracy...

...The situation of this "little mil?lionaire country" can thus be sum?marized as follows: 1. A totalitarian dictatorship, not unlike those of Czechoslovakia and Poland in its methods, has forcibly suppressed civil liberties and keeps the jails filled with democratic leaders...

...during the four years since the establishment of the dictatorship, its profits had increased by 100 per cent...

...And they are struggling almost alone, supported only by liberal in?dividuals and groups in other coun?tries and by the discreet sympathy of a few democratic governments...

...It would be absurd to demand of a people suffering under one of the most brutal despotisms in the history of Latin America that they concen?trate on combating Communism...

...Unfortunately, nothing like this has occurred...

...The Minister of Colonies, when interpellated by a Labor MP, limited himself to saying that he had nothing more to say...

...In the Dutch West Indies (Holland and Dutch Shell are almost synony?mous), the Venezuelan exiles were re-expelled, as in the case of ex-Senator Cesar Hernandez of the Democratic Action party...

...On the contrary, as U.S...

...Friendly and powerful relation?ships have been created in the coun?try for the powerful American iron and petroleum interests...

...Louis Post-Dispatch, covering the Caracas In?ter-American Conference last April, reported: "When this writer asked Venezue?lan secret-police head Pedro Estrada during the Caracas Conference how many political prisoners were in jail, Estrada smiled and re?plied: 'As many as necessary.'" Grant added that, in Caracas, un?derground sources had given him a list of 500 political prisoners and that he knew of 6,000 Venezuelans who had been jailed...

...Or, as Romualdi put it in his article: "Venezuela is rich in petroleum and iron...

...But there is one funda?mental difference: The people op?pressed by Hitler had the active sup?port of England, the United States and other nations at war with the Axis...