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Axis of good?

VENEZUELA’S Hugo Chavez sure knows how to spite his big neighbour up north. As if the war of words and diplomacy that has been going on between Caracas and Washington for some time now wasn’t enough, Chavez has gone ahead and formed a ‘strategic alliance’ with Belarus, another country that is not in the good books of Bush.

The Venezuelan leader, playing to the global gallery as he often loves to, has chosen to describe the new alliance as ‘the axis of good’ —clearly responding to Bush’s now infamous ‘axis of evil’.

But there is more to Chavez’s ‘strategic’ partnership with Belarus, a country rightly seen as the ‘last dictatorship in Europe’ by the US than meets the eye.

Venezuela, clearly threatened by the US, is trying to find natural allies far from home. So it’s hardly surprising that Chavez’s next stop is Moscow where he is seeking a bigger and broader defence cooperation deal with Russia. From both Russia and Belarus, Chavez is seeking badly-needed arms and ammunition to survive in a dangerous neighbourhood. But more importantly, Venezuela is keen to work out some kind of defence pact with Russia —a new version of Warsaw pact or Eastern bloc alliance.

Of late, Russia has been trying to reassert itself and reclaim some of its lost glory. However, it’s doubtful if even a resurgent Russia can come to the rescue of Venezuela if the US decides to teach its ‘upstart’ neighbour a lesson or two. So if we were on Venezuela’s side, we wouldn’t be really counting on support from the ‘axis of good’.