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Are Russia's Arms Deals to Venezuela Destablizing Central America? 
 
Yesterday afternoon, Russia's RIA Novosti Spanish wire service reported on the arrival of the Deputy 
Prime Minister and Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin to Caracas, Venezuela. The reason for the trip of 
Russia's energy czar (and leader of the "siloviki" network of former KGB officers), according to the 
Kremlin news outlet, was to prepare for Hugo Chávez's upcoming visit to Moscow and a high-level inter-
governmental commission to be held in St. Petersburg. 
By the end of the day, Sechin had already inked many deals, conveniently for himself and for Russia, 
with the Venezuelan government -- Bloomberg reports that Russia and Venezuela signed wide-ranging 
cooperation accords on energy, military, and agricultural cooperation, including the formation of a joint 
venture between PDVSA-Services and Gazprom's Latin America division. What does Sechin personally 
get out of the trip? He took a trip with his PDVSA counterpart Rafael Ramirez out to the Orinoco Belt to 
see an oil field which was once owned by U.S. firm ConocoPhillips before expropriation, announcing 
plans to unveil another joint venture to develop it with with Rosneft in September. 
Joint ventures and big-sounding cooperation agreements are a familiar sight to observers of Russia-
Venezuela relations, and the two countries have even formed a $4 billion development bank. But other 
than arms purchases, the trade volume hasn't yet caught up. Venezuela still exports some 60% of its oil 
to the United States, comprising 11% of U.S. supply. The U.S. is by far their largest trade partner, and 
Russia's volumes don't even yet compete with China's business with Venezuela. 
The reason for all this fuss, of course, is that the relationship is highly political. For the Russians, there is 
a clear desire to poke Washington in the eye after Vice President Joseph Biden's visit to the Ukraine and 
Georgia -- Sechin seems dead-set on proving Hillary Clinton right that no spheres of influence exist. 
More than just the immense enjoyment that Chávez must feel in passing an oil field taken directly from 
an American company into the hands of a Russian company, there is also a strong and growing military 
dimension to the relationship to the tune of $4.4 billion. A Swedish think tank estimates a 900% growth in 
arms purchases in the last five-year period, making Venezuela the #1 buyer of Russian arms in the 
world. 
Hugo Chávez should be honored to have such a high ranking official from the Kremlin to help him 
"prepare" for his next visit to Moscow -- Sechin is estimated by many Kremlinologists to have much more 
clout, and many more billions, than President Dmitry Medvedev himself. Sechin is the main figure 
running Russia's Latin America policy, as he is rumored to be fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese 
from his KGB days in Africa.  
Controversy seems to follow the man wherever he goes. Many point to him as being the main 
conspirator and beneficiary behind the Kremlin's takeover of the Yukos oil company - a multi-billion dollar 
daylight robbery. The Rosneft chairman has also come under fire for what many believe to be a non-
sensical deal with the Chinese, passing them control of the future of Russian oil. The economist 
Konstantin Sonin has written that "Sechin's contract with China might go down in history like the 
notorious privatization auctions of the early 1990s." 
The timing of his visit -- along with the high tensions over Honduras following the coup -- raises some 
concerns over the uptick in military hardware transfers between Moscow and Caracas. The Venezuelan 
President recently made several comments about doubling his orders of T-90 battle tanks from Russia. 
The Kremlin recently sent the battleship Peter the Great to carry out war games with Venezuela in the 
Caribbean. Venezuela is the only country in Latin America with a license to manufacture their own 
Kalashnikovs, a fact which is very worrying to the Colombian government when so many of these small 
arms seem to go missing. A Colombian newspaper also ran a report this month about a Venezuelan 
contact attempting to sell 20 Russian-made surface-to-air missiles on the black market. 
What the United States may be worried about with this visit is Russia's potential acquiescence to 
Chávez's apparent plan to disrupt the attempts to broker a deal on behalf of former Costa Rican 
President Oscar Arias. Under instructions from Chávez, Zelaya has ignored all advice from Arias, and 
made many high risk stunts, including crossing over the border for a few minutes amid teeming crowds 
this past weekend (Christopher Sabatini from the Council of the Americas describes Zelaya's actions as 
"tragic silliness"). Many observers believe that Chávez and Zelaya "need more dead Hondurans" to 
produce the outcome they are looking for. 
There can be no doubt of two facts: this level of arms purchases by Chávez defeats the narrative that he 
is about protecting the interests of the poor and underprivileged of Venezuela, and secondly, there are 
individuals seeking improper personal enrichment through their powers of office. The grotesque level of 
corruption in both Russia and Venezuela should stimulate the discussion as to whether the predatory 
nature of both states constitutes not only an international crime, but as well a breach of fundamental 
human rights for which there may indeed be remedies under international law. 
Robert Amsterdam 
International Lawyer on emerging markets, politics of business, and rule of law 
Posted: July 28, 2009 05:57 AM  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-amsterdam/are-russias-arms-deals-to_b_245993.html 


Are Russia's arms deals to Venezuela destablizing Central America?

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