[NYTr] OPEC: An Urgent Need For Change

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN) - Nov 27, 2007
http://ainch.ain.cu/mailman/listinfo/ingles


OPEC: An Urgent Need For Change

By Nestor Núñez
AIN Special Service

The 3rd Summit of the Organization of Petroleum Producing Countries 
which recently ended in Saudi Arabia will be talked about for some 
time. And, it will not be in good terms if some of its members ignore 
certain international issues which at this time are substantial. 
Everyone knows that the amount of oil is decreasing and those nations 
that have the precious crude are privileged but are also being closely 
watched by the powerful who urgently need the source of energy, to 
continue wasting it. The powerful, who for sure, will not hesitate 
using brute force to satisfy their needs. OPEC member nations, 
beneficiaries of this gift of nature, are also becoming the victims of 
the powerful.

On the other hand, the fact that selling oil in a fragile currency like 
the dollar is beginning to hurt the producer's economies. They deliver 
oil in exchage for an ever devalued currency and this is causing a 
level of weakness that must be reversed in some way.

Lastly, and as many of the participants in the Summit highlighted, OPEC 
cannot pretend that it lives in a peaceful planet, far from political, 
economic and social turbulence.  A planet where there are no serious 
disputes and where a few are opulent and many are impoverished and 
needy of energy supplies to survive.

That is why we should highlight the position of figures like the 
Presidents of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez and Ecuador, Rafael Correa, who 
defended a more acceptable price for oil from current reserves but with 
the just exception that the prices that the powerful should pay are not 
applicable to impoverished nations.  They said there is a solid 
principle of solidarity with those that have been historically 
plundered and exploited and their brothers, owners of energy sources, 
cannot abandon in their anguish. And all of these considerations 
re-enforce the validity and value of the demands which were made by 
these head of states in front of the oil exporters:  OPEC summits 
cannot be an entity for purely economic discusions. They have the duty 
of assuming policies relevant to the challenges and urgencies flooding 
this planet and on whose confrontation and solution depends the future 
of humanity.