Serene Assir writes on Spain's controversial yet massively lucrative arms deal with Venezuela This week, the Spanish Ministry of Defence managed to secure the most lucrative arms deal it has ever embarked upon, selling 12 military transportation airplanes and eight warships to Venezuela for the massive sum of 1.3 billion euros. The Spanish government has also promised the creation of 900 jobs across the country as of the effectiveness of the agreement. The deal did not, of course, go unnoticed by the United States administration, which fiercely opposes Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In fact, the US did as much as it could to block the deal altogether, on the grounds that it was politically motivated, that it would start an Andean arms race and that it would arm a leader whom it perceives as a dictator and a threat. Further, because the planes contain US-made parts, US Ambassador to Spain Eduardo Aguirre said that his country could technically veto the sale altogether. However, following a flurry of statements issued by US congressmen visiting Spain, the US Embassy in Madrid and US Defence Minister Donald Rumsfeld, Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said that the two Latin countries would go through with the deal, no matter what. He described the sale as a "peaceful" one, and said that the military equipment would be used by Venezuela to fight illegal drug trafficking. Further downplaying the political implications of the deal, both Spain and Venezuela insisted that it was not contingent upon the cooperation of the two countries' defence ministries, but rather upon cooperation between signatory companies EADS-CASA and Navantia. The US government sought to emphasise that its anxiety over the deal pertained to its opposition to Chavez, not to its relations with Spain. "The basis of this decision," read a statement issued by the US Embassy in Madrid, "is exclusively centred upon issues relating to the government of Venezuela. The US hopes that this decision will not adversely affect our excellent relations with the government of Spain". The US also sought to emphasise that its threats were based on purely commercial concerns, rather than on any search to politically snipe Caracas. For his part, Chavez was cited by Spanish broadsheet El Pais as expressing his appreciation for the "firmness of the Spanish government in its resistance against the imperialist attack, which sought to exert pressure" against it in order to stop the deal in its tracks. He was also quoted as thanking "my friend Zapatero, the Minister of Defence Jose Pepe Bono and all of Spain". Bono echoed Chavez's references to the US and emphasised Spain's legal sovereignty to carry out the transactions by saying that "gone is the time of empires. There is only one empire which we should obey: the empire of the law." Bono's presence at the signing of the deal in Caracas today would effectively annul the US veto on the grounds that it contained US-made parts. And while Spanish relations with the US did take a turn for the worse when the centre-left government of Zapatero withdrew all Spanish troops from Iraq shortly after being voted in to power, Madrid has seldom stood up against Washington in such a clear-cut fashion. On the other hand, seldom have the commercial advantages for Spain's defence sector been so glaring as to warrant such an act of defiance against the world's only superpower. Esteban Beltran, director of Amnesty International, Madrid, issued a biting statement criticising the deal, but for grounds which were vastly different to those cited by the US. It described the Latin American country as "a highly explosive zone" and qualified the arms deal as one which would "not contribute to regional stability". He also cited Spanish foreign and home policies as being mutually contradictory, saying that while the Mediterranean country sought to adhere to the principles of international bodies such as the United Nations and the European Union, it had failed to ratify internationally-enshrined laws regulating the global weapons industry. He also criticised the Spanish government for not issuing a strong enough statement condemning the US- led "war on terror", which the Madrid-based rights activist described as "limiting freedoms and legitimising the use of torture". What is perhaps most indicative of the true nature of the so-called new world order is the way in which Washington, Caracas and Madrid alike have all engaged in a war of words over an arms deal citing issues pertaining to peace, sovereignty and the law -- issues which are not, at least in a humanitarian's discourse, likely to be linked to weapons at all, regardless of their capacity to destroy. The Christian Science Monitor cites the way in which the US has, vis-à-vis weapons in Venezuela, played a double game, by both arming the opposition to Chavez's regime and by granting permits to US arms companies to sell crowd control weapons to the Venezuelan Ministry of Defence. Such hypocrisy serves to highlight that support or defiance of one regime or another is rarely linked to political concerns. In today's cynical world, it's all about who gets what deal first. And a sale as lucrative as this one constituted enough of a concern for US weapons traders as to have Washington talking about it, and to have Spain going anti-imperialist for a day.
