Monday, October 25, 2004
When I recently interviewed Roger Noriega, the top State Department official in charge of Latin American affairs, I was surprised that he played down reports that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez plans to buy 50 Russian MiG-29 planes, risking a new arms race in Latin America.
"There are other countries in the region that have those kinds of weapons, which leads me to believe it would not necessarily represent a military escalation," Noriega said, apparently referring to past MiG-29 purchases by Cuba and Peru.
"The decision to buy these aircraft belongs to them," Noriega said. "Obviously, if they wanted to buy the best planes in the world, they would have to buy American, but it's their decision."
It was an uncharacteristically mild response from the Bush administration, which -- mostly in response to Chavez's anti-American tirades -- has often criticized Venezuela's leftist government's actions that trigger alarms in neighboring countries.
United Press International reported that the Chavez government is negotiating with Russia to buy the latest version of the MiG-29 SMT planes, loaded with radar-guided missiles and 2,000-pound bombs. The whole package would cost up to $5 billion, and would give Venezuela massive air superiority among its neighbors.
The report quoted Venezuelan air force documents as stating that "the total quantity of airplanes provided is 40 single-seat planes and 10 twin-seat planes," and that each plane "must have the capacity to carry no less than 4 tons of bombs."
Sounded innocent enough
At first, I didn't take the whole thing too seriously. It sounded like a commercial inquiry letter, one of many such queries that governments send around periodically to keep their generals happy with the expectation of future weapons purchases.
In addition, MiG-29s are conventional war planes, which are of little use for the kind of domestic security problems -- such as terrorism, drug trafficking or guerrillas -- that Venezuela faces.
But after talking with a senior Venezuelan diplomat and other U.S. officials who are following the case closely, I'm beginning to take the whole thing more seriously. The Venezuelan official, who asked to remain anonymous, did not deny the buying plan.
"These talks with the Russians have been going on for quite some time," the official said. "All countries need to renew their aircraft."
Other well-placed sources tell me that Venezuela plans to pay $500 million in cash, and the rest with aluminum exports. The planes would be manned by Cuban pilots at first, and later by Cuba-trained Venezuelan pilots.
Points to ponder
There are several reasons why Chavez may buy these weapons, in addition to the fact that he is awash with petrodollars. Among them:
*Prestige: Chavez, who vows to spread his "Bolivarian revolution" throughout Latin America, may be eager to be seen as the head of a powerful army, who must be taken seriously.
*Paranoia: Chavez may be anticipating a U.S.-supported attack from neighboring Colombia. The United States is giving about $700 million a year to Colombia in military and economic aid to help the country crush drug traffickers and leftist guerrillas.
*Politics: Chavez may want to switch his air force's current reliance on the United States for that of Russia. Venezuela has 22 U.S.-made F-16 combat planes, most of which are grounded for lack of proper care.
"Chavez wants to break the institutional and political ties between the Venezuelan air force and the United States, in part, because the Venezuelan air force is the less Chavista of Venezuela's armed forces," said Gabriel Marcella, a professor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlyle, Pa.
The Bush administration may be playing down the MiG-29 reports because it does not want to give Chavez any excuse to further clamp down on domestic dissent. Or it may not want another foreign policy crisis before the Nov. 2 election.
But, if the MiG-29 sale goes through, Colombia, Brazil and other neighboring countries will want to catch up. And after the 1997 U.S. government decision to lift a two-decade ban on sophisticated weapons sales to Latin America, U.S. arms peddlers will soon be touring the region with dire predictions about the "Venezuelan threat." It's an insane scenario in a region with 42 percent poverty rates, but one that can't be ruled out.
XAndres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.