November 13, 2005
Another cash stream for the barbudo
castro, to say the least, has always been a taker, not a giver, and he's taken a lot from the old Soviet empire. In fact, he's sitting on millions of dollars of old junky Soviet military equipment, supposedly because he anticipated an 'invasion' from the U.S. Or, well, (he knows the deal), because he just likes having a lot of guns. For him, it compensates for his ... inadequacies.
But he's bet the farm on communism and now he's out of money. Penury hasn't been a clue to him to change his ways however, because there's always some fool out there who will pay him tribute. With the Soviets out of the picture, it's his faithful minime in Venezuela.
The same Houseboy who's bailed him out before - with 100,000 barrels a day of free Venezuelan oil (most of which he sells at full market value to Central America), hurricane aid, doctor salaries (at ten times the $20 a month Cuban rate for 30,000 of them), and other stuff. But despite these massive cash streams, and the old $550 million fortune Forbes could prove (we know it's undercounted), he's still out of money.
All that's left are the heaps of Soviet guns. He's got his willing sucker who's always got money to give, though.
castro's selling the guns to the always-giving Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Who's perfectly willing to buy. Obviously only little people pay money for things. I find it funny that castro charges Chavez for things but expects Chavez to give him things for free. And Chavez goes right along with it.
When you are castro, you live off tribute from your vassals.
It is good to be king.
Strategy Page has the story here.
Posted by Mora at November 13, 2005 08:51 AM
Comments
kagasstro is one of the worlds most dangerous arm traffickers. He does it in the open, using his (CAPTIVE) merchant marine. There's information that some of the serial numbers of weapons recovered in some high, medium, and low intensity conflicts can be traced to Soviet lots once given to him. Those weapons are not changing hands free of charge.
Posted by: CB at November 13, 2005 10:32 AM
Thanks for the good information, CB. How right you are!
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at November 13, 2005 01:09 PM
The strategy page article is poor. It does not tell me anything. Venezuela does not need to buy junk from Cuba when they can get first world technology in the open market. Mora, I think you jumped the gun here because your assertion that Castro is selling guns to chavez cannot be proven from this article. Chavez is buying factory new AK104/104 rifles from Russia. chavez also signed a technology transfer agreement for local production of the rifles including barrrels and polymers...meaning nobody will know how many, where and when. Furthermore, there are reports about a secretive buy of 150K AKs from North Korea. CAVIM is has started local production of a six shooter in .38 caliber, a 9mm automatic handgun and a submachine gun in 9mm (a la Ingram, MAC-10). These locally made weapons are cheap and inferior but will allow for low-cost mass production (cheaper than imports).
Posted by: GWEH at November 13, 2005 01:28 PM
chavez is buying 100K AK-103/104 in 7.62 short from Russia. Venezuela's armed forces currently use FAL in 7.62 NATO. chavez also has thousands of other rifles notably top of the line American and European rifles in 5.65 which are usually in the hands of elite police and military. If the North Korea deal is true that's another 100-150K rifles. If the AK local assembly comes to fruition that's another 25K rifles per year not counting the locally made "orinoco" 9mm sub-machine gun. Homicides by firearms hover around 12K per year in Venezuela and rapidly climbing. They have been #1 in firearms death per capita for over five years now.
Posted by: GWEH at November 13, 2005 01:36 PM
GWEH: I doubt it's part of any strategic military plan for Chavez. It's probably old junk. I think he's buying just to have an excuse to give castro some more money. He'd give the whole country to castro as a gift and in the end he probably eventually will.
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at November 13, 2005 02:51 PM