Oil summit's rare insight on strange bedfellows
Financial Times, September 30
If music does indeed draw out the inner man, then the closing session of this week's summit meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Caracas offered a rare insight into the leaders of perhaps the world's most disparate collection of countries.
As a Venezuelan folk band belted out compulsive Latin rhythms, the summit's genial host, President Hugo Chavez, the paratrooper turned imprisoned failed coup leader turned populist politician and by far the most charismatic Opec leader, could hardly contain his enthusiasm.
His street-wise political instinct to break into song - something he does regularly as part of his popular weekly radio programme - was only just held in check by an equally strong gut instinct to retain a semblance of statesman-like decorum.
Elsewhere around the table the reactions ranged from the dreamy swaying of Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia's president, to the serious but nonetheless out-of-sync finger tapping exercise indulged in by Saud Nasser Al-Sabah, the senior Kuwaiti representative.
That Opec leaders should react so differently to something as simple as a catchy tune is perhaps not so surprising, given the sheer diversity of the group.
It is often said that it is God's little joke that he put the vast bulk of the world's oil reserves in the most desolate, out-of the-way - not to say strange and frustratingly complex - countries.
So perhaps it is not so surprising that oil politics should also bring together strange and complex bedfellows, bound only by their financial dependence on the black stuff.
And it is also often said that Opec's greatest achievement is its very existence. The fact that this week's summit was only the second in its 40-year history and the first for 25 years is a reflection on the cartel's inherent volatility.
That volatility is reflected in Opec protocol, a nightmare for organisers. Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia may occasionally see eye to eye on oil policy, but looking each other in the eye over dinner is another matter. On Wednesday the Saudis complained that the Iraqis were seated just a little too close for comfort.
The same dinner disclosed other potential faultlines. The Venezuelan hosts decided to ban alcohol at the dinner in deference to the religious sensitivities of some of their Middle Eastern guests. But that did little to endear the organisation in the eyes of Angola, a newly emerging oil giant that Opec is courting. Their delegates were said to have been less than amused at the absence of a cold beer, and were heard to utter words to the effect that if they wanted passion fruit and papaya juice, they could just as easily have stayed at home.
This week Mr Chavez took full advantage of the summit's bully pulpit to warn about the growing divide between the industrialised world and debt-saddled developing countries.
If the G8 leaders wanted to talk to their Opec counterparts about oil prices, he said, then they would also have to engage in a wider debate on issues such as globalisation and indebtedness.
But Opec has its own yawning gap when it comes to economic justice. Take the story making the rounds in Caracas about the Gulf Arab delegation which went in search of a single hotel to house their entourage. When told that no such facility existed, they simply bought one.
Stories also circulated this week of Dollars 400 tips for bell-hops and the liberal distribution to some hotel staff of Rolex watches, again by some Gulf Arab delegations.
But one need look no further than other hotel workers in Caracas to see the other side of the Opec coin. "I'm Venezuelan and I've never seen any oil," said one desk clerk, "and I've sure never seen any money from the oil."
But such jarring notes of reality did little to disrupt the theatrical atmosphere of Opec's second summit. Even the sole serious security disruption had an appropriate theatrical flourish to it. Yesterday, two foreign women who threw eggs at an Iranian minister were ordered to be deported by Mr Chavez's secret police chief, a former male stripper.
Politics does make strange bedfellows, but oil politics are stranger still. |
