statement thank you very much mr chairman mr ranking member in reviewing venezuela attempting to focus on security concerns of many kinds and those are legitimate concerns but i want to talk about two points the first  possibility of instability in venezuela and venezuela oil diplomacy in the region two things that i think represent challenges for the united states and instability i think this is a a week this is a moment of trouble for what charges there is a second wave of discontent the opposition is recall the nice professor macaulay's said chances are the opposition is going to be able to make inroads in the forthcoming election however this always raises the possibility of instability in venezuela because the government gets very in secure during this electoral moment and when the government in venezuela gets politically and especially elect insecure then you begin to see by all asians of constitutional norms and even breaking the law and all i would like to say about the issue of the blacklisting is that this is an example of the government acting very insecure as it comes to the elections and then the opposition reacting in kind and because the opposition is stronger and because the economy is weak and the government is insecure you can never rule out the possibility of violence in venezuela we have not seen violence in venezuela under charges but as i said you cannot rule it out and at least during this electoral period on until we know exactly what happens after the result the united states government this i think is an unexplored challenge by the united states as we all know venezuela is spending a lot of money on foreign aid a lot of this is generous handouts to foreign governments peppered with a pro poor distribution is this course i think this is have very interesting foreign policy weapon that venezuela has discovered and it's using to a degree that i have never seen another latin american greek country ever exercise before and the idea in many ways what's happening here in my opinion is that a lot of this aid does make it to the poor abroad but much of it is also generous unconditional cash grants to political allies in the region this i'm afraid creates complications for the united states because it means that chavis gainsaid myers it means that the united states cannot really create a multilateral coalition to deal with chavez because nobody wants to upset a government that seems to be doing something for the poor not just at home but also our broad and in many ways what it is done is that i would say that venezuela is developing a second export model it's not just oil but now venezuela has become a champion in the export of corruption and political influence in the region the reason i want to bring this up before congress is because i don't think that the united states government house our response to this has ever figured out exactly what to do when a nation that is seeking to balance u s interests decides to generate a policy of heavy spending abroad disguised as humanitarianism because it means that this is a regime that many nations and allies are unwilling to criticise openly simply because this is such a good public relations campaign shannon said this strategy hasn't worked all that well all that time it hasn't been able to produce an anti american coalition but it has produced a shield against ch this is worrisome not just for anything that we might want to do with venezuela but also because i think it's in middle other petro states at this point could imitate chavis foreign policy of large foreign aid unconditional to smaller countries and therefore generate enormous goodwill abroad in many ways what one could derive from the venezuelan case is that it wasn't perfectly done chavez but that other nations with more money gutsier regimes can perfect the model and this means that the influence of these regimes can propagate or at least the ability of united states to contain that influence diminishes let me conclude by saying that a discussion about whether to declare venezuela a sponsor of terrorism might be counterproductive because in my opinion it doesn't do it does nothing these heavy what i think is this challenge which is venezuela's amazing public relations campaign and its export of corruption notice and i want to be very emphatic about this that colombia the most significant the party that is more significantly affected by venezuela to illicit activities has decided to take a bit of a much more accommodating policy and i think it's a judicious position the ones that colombians have made and i hope we can learn from what the colombians have done with venezuela i think colombians understand the  influence that chavez can have at home and abroad but essentially my main point is that the united states should think more about this oil diplomacy think of strategies and some point perhaps move the debate in that direction thank you very much thank you dr carlos dr bailey secure mr burden for the opportunity to testify before on the subject of the current domestic international situation of venezuela and its relations with the united states i wish to emphasize that everything in my written testimony is backed by extensive detailed and cross checked information in many cases with the original documentation with reference to the internal situation in venice while at the present time then as well as currently has the highest rate of common crime and inflation in the hemisphere it has extensive shortages of many staple products such as eggs and milk bread etc venezuela imports a vast bulk of about two thirds of its consumer goods because of the serious deterioration of domestic production in the last few years the financial situation of the country is very poor the free reserves of the central bank are negative and the state of oil company pay the vase i had to borrow sixteen billion dollars in two thousand seven during the question answer period i'll be happy to talk about why that should be the case on the political side to deteriorate an event as well as democracy is a well known story the most recent outrage however is that this is the disqualification of about two hundred opposition candidates for governorships mayoralties and legislatures this is directly out of the iranian playbook and the reasons given for the disqualifications range from the ludicrous to the absurd al disqualifications have been appealed without outside pressure it is unlikely that bans will be lifted since all the electoral judicial authorities are controlled by the administration finally corruption in this administration venezuela is nothing less than monumental with literally billions of dollars having been stolen by government officials and their allies in the private sector over the past nine years on be happy to talk more about that all of the above is aside from the billions that venezuela spent on military equipment including advanced fighter planes and submarines way beyond any conceivable needs of the country for legitimate self defense on a final note the current venezuelan regime isn't or easily added semitic as documented document by the american jewish committee and others jewish institutions are frequently harassed and government publications print scurrilous cartoons reminiscent of nazi germany additionally financial support has been provided to insurgent groups in certain countries i'm sorry go back much of the money collected by the official funds and banks has been used to try to influence policy in elections in the rest of the hemisphere and beyond our recent compilation indicates that at least thirty three billion dollars has been used in this way additionally financial support has been provided to insurgent groups in certain countries most and tori's lead to the fark and colombia as well as to e t a the basque separatist organization and most importantly to hamas hezbollah and islamic jihad through their extensive network in venezuela and  successful attempt to circumvent the financial sanctions that have been imposed on iran by the united states and other countries and of course has unlimited access to the facilities of venice weiland financial system us policy towards venezuela has been characterized by an essential passive a d in the face of many provocations that the current regime there or has been taking multiple measures contrary to our national interest is beyond question that it represents a threat to the national security the united states and our allies in the region should also be beyond question not least due to their computers captured from the foreign leader route as camp inside as well or this best city is apparently motivated by the belief that the regime will eventually self destruct and in any case more active measures w threaten to exacerbate the oil markets leading to an even higher price for crude it is not necessary to declare venice while a state sponsor of terrorism although it obviously is and not only with reference to the fart but also to h legislation on money laundering drug trafficking and terrorism measures could be taken against venezuelan banks which would cripple the rainy attempt to bypass sanctions on their own financial system by using venezuela's however if  declared a state sponsor of terrorism and as a result of oil imports from that country or block it would be impossible friend of venezuela to divert any substantial amount of its exports elsewhere because we finding of its quality of crude predominantly heavy sour crude is primarily concentrated in the city or refineries in the us by simply releasing an equivalent amount of crude from the strategic were probably in reserve that oil would be effectively and immediately replaced and with better quality crude effect on venezuela however would be devastating statements will be inserted into the official record so if you summarize and didn't give all the details it will still be in the in the in the record i haven't a number of questions that i would like to ask but let me start with dr mccoy and two things first of all i said when you gave your opening testimony i would give you a chance to elaborate on some of the things  subsequent questions so let me give you that chance now and i also want to ask you you said that the action of the venezuelan controller general disqualifying two hundred seventy two candidates could be ruled unconstitutional by the venezuelan supreme court the question i would have is whether the supreme court is independent enough to do that or is it simply a  you know chavez kangaroo court could you could you comment on vast and also anything you want to add from your opening statement yes thank you  i wanted to make just a brief comment on the question about the laptop and the fark in regard to the discussion on the state sponsored terrorism the point that i made in my testimony was focused more on  the information on the laptop i don't have any of the other information that secretary shannon alluded to this morning and the point is that the interpol found that columbia did not introduce files into the computers but from the authors from the fark and so my point on there was simply that that it would be important to look at that evidence before taking any decision to use that as a reason for declaring the state sponsor of terrorism rather than simply relying just on the laptop on the foreign on u s relations i just want to make the point that i agree with professor myers that the united states  got off on the wrong foot with the chavez administration and it will be very difficult for the current administration to improve that relationship certainly i do agree with assistant secretary shannon that we should try and respond to any opening and certainly always try to do dialogue but the best chance will be with a new administration that may start fresh however i don't expect there to be a major change and that is because the foreign policy goals of swilling government are essentially to counterbalance the dominance of the united states in the region and in the world so their goal is to build south south relationships to increase latin american integration to build alliances with other countries around the world primarily and within the south in order to counter counterbalance u s dominance so i do think that there could be a more cooperative relationship particular on pragmatic issues and that we should work on that and that overall we should learn from the lessons from the ineffectiveness of policy toward latin america and toward venezuela over the last several years so i would say that  in agreement with the panel that with tom shannon we have seen an improvement in the policy but basically engaging with latin america through multilateral institutions in a much more consultative manner is going to have the best impact not only on the possibility of a better relationship with them to swallow but really building the relationship with the rest of latin america and closing that political back to you that has opened and the venezuelan has certainly stepped into in terms of offering alternative ideas and models and finally your question on the independence of the supreme court supreme court was expanded four years ago from twenty to thirty two members a the time it was when it was twenty members it was basically evenly divided with the expansion to thirty two certainly it is perceived to be strongly with members strongly sympathetic to the government so i do think that generally the independence of institutions in business is very weak that the government and partisanship does imbue most of the political institutions of the country but that doesn't mean that the supreme court won't take a ruling against the disqualification and i think they will look at the legality of it but there will also be  there are also of course political calculation about the impact of of the disqualifications and if they continue because of the perception of political bias in the disqualifications and because of the perception of of partisanship at the supreme court if the disqualifications are maintained that could very well have a negative impact on the legitimacy of the elections and those who are elected in november and that's the danger to the administration well thank you i think someone in their testimony mentioned the the  troubling because i think that if you are actually going to have democracy then you let candidates run and let the free exchange of views be be done and let the people decide and when you eliminate people you don't really get a a fair balance of of political opinion and you know in iran you you can vote for the hardliners or the almost hardliners there are really no reformers and  this is the kind of thing that's being done in venezuela it is very very very troubling let me ask the others too to comment on some of the things that dr mccoy has said some people say it's impossible to improve relations between chavez and the bush administration we've heard that today the argument goes that is too much water under the bridge that chavez blames the administration for what he kimono do you think there is much truth to this argument that the ministrations unable to do that as a result and what do you see for the next president of the united states who comes in with a clean slate we've already i read some of the remarks of mr chavez in today's press reports where he said that centrally between obama and mccain there's no there's no difference and there's basically have to bring down the empire referring to the united states so what would your advice be to the next president of the u s towards venezuela what it what do you what do you think can be done should be done anybody else that would like to comment on on that dr m i'd like to agree with what was said here earlier by really the entire panel is chavez is not going to change his goals i mean chavez has come to the conclusion that the united states is a terrorist country that the united states is a threat to the world and that the only solution for the underdeveloped world is to see the united states influence reduced so the question of course is how are you going to deal with that because i don't think whether whether senator obama or whether senator mccain or president that's going to change the other thing i would say that he's not a kamikaze when he's presented with something where he's going to lose he doesn't go after it he goes back and he retreats and that's why i think it's very important to build around chavez a wall of containment in which it's really not to his advantage  to behave in the way in which he perhaps would like to be the more we're able to do that then eventually i think you can channel a lot of his behavior in a way in which he may come around and do things that we can live with in spite of themselves and let me just say i saw some of this i worked in the one nine hundred ninety eight election campaign with a group that was allied with him and i briefed him during the election campaign and i watched how his mind would work and it was very clear when he had a problem that was insoluble for a frontal attack he would look for a way to go around it and i think that the next president has to make sure that there are not a lot of ways that he can circumvent the you know the united states and goes around it because he's brought to i was there a couple a month or two ago there are a lot of chinese running around he's got the chinese developing roads he's attempted to use the brazilian private sector to build the subways to substitute for the big american companies so you know once again he's not going to ainge in the way he wants to go but we can box him in in such a way that i think that we can live with him after all it's a country of twenty five million people anybody else the d bailey i agree with both remarks i want to say that united states could work with saudi arabia venezuela relationship with iran is also an attempt to balance saudi arabia  trying to create a bloc within opec to keep the price of oil high and to stabilize oil markets we have a strong ally in opec and we should in order to use the strategy recommended by professor meyer we can use our allies in opec and saudi arabia is an important one and as well with china i think china could be an important partner a major consumer of oil it share similar interests as the united states it does not want to have a overthrow him he tried to overthrow the venezuelan government in a military coup i mean somehow or other this seems to have disappeared from the public consciousness and was arrested and imprisoned because of the i have extensively looked into the statements by the united states government at the time of the coup in april two thousand and two both by the white house and by the state department and i find nowhere where the united states said that we were recognizing the carmona government what we didn't do is say we oppose this anti constitutional coup against a constitutional i mean a democratically elected government that we did not do but  nowhere can i find any statement that the united states recognizes the government of mr carmona i thank you let me start and we can go right across we have talked about the question of putting  venezuela on the state us state sponsor of terrorism less so i'd like just with that with a yes or no answer if we can go across the sea to ask you do you think that we should do that  myers i think it's a bad idea dr mccoy i do not think we should do that practically think we should do that you do not should not talk to belly i don't think it matters one or the other as we can do whatever we need to do under current r legislation ok thank you let me ask one final question and i'll turn it over to mr burton dr bell you had mentioned this in your testimony and a number of us had questions for secretary shannon about the anti semitic rhetoric coming from the chavez government and media outlets and to raise i'm a jewish community center in caracas in two thousand and four and two thousand and seven i also mentioned there was a meeting recently between the minister the presidency should cone and the venezuelan jewish community and i wanted to ask others  to if you care to comment on your assessment of the chavez government treat and venezuela's jewish community and how specifically is the state department addressing these concerns and what do you think congress should do to very disturbing quite frankly and i think this is something that we need to to monitor and to to to change if possible so i'm wondering if anyone would care to comment on that he's a very well known anti semite from argentina and a lot of the policy positions that were being taken by chavez in the one nine hundred ninety eight period of time were written by him and i think particularly  there was a downplaying of that until the two thousand and six invasion of lebanon there were individual things that when they lebanon invasion came i saw a cranking up of the anti semitic rhetoric and you would go into the office of the ministry of interior in a couple other places and you would see anti semitic literature right there that they were handing out what  personally is that he's not anti semitic he's just and a zionist and that he's very much against any support for israel i think the real danger i mean once again i you know you can take some of that with a grain of salt which i would but on the other hand it would seem to me that that that he could use the jewish community as a scapegoat if things really begin to get b mean that's been done over over history and sharpness is going to enter in the position i think in the next in the next six or eight months in which he's going to have to accept a sort of re democratization of venezuela because he's going to lose some governorships i think some key ones or else he's going to apply a carrot i mean a stick and the question is who's going to take the blame when he starts to apply this and i think at least you need to have quite a bit of vigilance  just a phony phony issue i think a lot of so called antis ainus to rhetoric is really anti semitic and done for that for those purposes anybody else dr bailey just to point out  i don't have any particular insight into the the rhetoric or the or the motivation in this case but generally i've seen and in terms of what could be done about it the reaction whenever there are cases of particular discrimination or particular particular statements or even policies that are seen by the broad population to be extreme and seen by the international community  when when there is a general outcry that ranges in newspapers to commentary to private letters public statements then i've january that the park should be belligerent or should be recognized as a belligerent force and there was absolutely no support for that within latin america within the neighboring countries or within in a spoiler and recently with the military intelligence law it was seen as as overstepping the bounds so i think that perhaps the best reaction could be in this particular case discriminatory case potentially dangerous you know case would  important to put in context because i and many of my colleagues are concerned about the jewish community in venezuela and as a result of the raids in the jewish schools and and other things  and i just want to read into the record a quote from from president chavez himself in an address he delivered on christmas eve in two thousand and four and this is what he said these are his words he said the world has enough for everybody but it happened that some minorities the descendants of those who crucified christ the descendants of those who rejected but believe are from here and who crucified him in their own way in santa marta over in colombia took possession of the riches of the world the minority appropriated the world's gold the silver the minerals the waters the good lands the oil and has concentrated the riches zion which of course has been has been exposed as a fraud so these things are troubling and they need to be raised and and people in venezuela and in the world need to know that we in washington are very concerned about it take it very seriously i'm monitoring it very carefully mr bur thank you mr chairman i i talk to some people during the break when we went down to vote and i wish our assistant secretary of state had been here because i want to ask him about this it appears as though  nicaragua by nicaragua by iranians so you know i've been out of the impression that because his production of heavy crude was being reduced and he was  giving special deals to nicaragua and others regarding the cost of well that he was putting himself into a real trick bag but i guess my question is is he being bailed out now by  people like the iranians and the chinese and so he can go ahead and move in the direction he's been doing by trying to support leftist governments in cuba nicaragua bolivia and so forth hydroelectric plant and the rain ians have opened a huge embassy in nicaragua obviously something like one hundred twenty people in it obviously because of the traditional and historical ties between those two countries iran and nicaragua actually the actual fact is that no ground has been turned with reference to any of these projects they have not actually taken place and that's very common i mean jarvis offers a lot more than he actually performs however very recently within the last couple of days ecuadorian and that is what i'm government's announced a huge refinery which would be in montana which is where they might the united states now has a surveillance base which the ecuadorian say they're not going to allow us to continue to utilize once it runs the time runs out the lease time runs out again and one of the most important points that i make in my paper is that the venice well as bankrupt and i don't care whether the price was one hundred twenty or one hundred forty dollars a barrel and i'll be happy to go into what i say about that in my written testimony and why that should be but  about thirty three billion dollars over the last few years so yes he is perfectly aware that that at this point he can't sell his crude anywhere else because most of the refineries that can process that are in the united states that the citgo refineries he would love to have other refineries around the world that could process as group the inner iranians have had the same problem they have heavy sour crude also primarily although not as bad as  l and they've released a huge should tankers which are anchored in the persian gulf as storage facilities because they can't get they can't get rid of at this point so you're not concerned about his his goals i mean i was also told that he's been giving countries like nicaragua forty percent off on the price of oil in order for them to be able to keep their government afloat and keep the people happy and he said that if oil goes to two hundred dollars a barrel which he says would happen he would get another twenty percent to nicaragua i presume to cuba oil and he gives cuba about one hundred thousand barrels a day free i mean he doesn't expect ever to be paid for that and that's not even countries including me but i'll get the oil at a huge discount as you pointed out and that's about two thousand barrels a day so i mean this is part of the reason why the or oil revenues of us well are not nearly as high as people calculate by simply taking the international price for oil which is for light sweet crude and applying to it as well as total exports it's nowhere near that in terms of the actual revenues that he's been getting we understand between one hundred fifty and hundred seventy five million dollars a day from the united states for the all that we buy but that's not making a dent in his indebtedness is what you're telling us that's correct and so he's bankrupt how long can he survive and he answers how long can he survive with this kind of  debt hanging over his head and can he go ahead and continue his supply these resources in these other countries at these a discount prices well the answer to the second part of your question my opinion is that he cannot answer the first part of the how long can  keep it up does depend on the international price of crude because he gets for the venezuelan makes about twenty dollars a barrel less than the international price but obviously if the international prize goes to two hundred dollars a barrel he's going to be getting out in eighty dollars a barrel and he can he can survive quite a long time if the if the current reduction in the crude prices continues he's going to be in very serious trouble very shortly and i'm talking not about but about months what would happen if the united states made a declaration that we were going to do drilling on the continental shelf and in places like anwar and start using coal conversion to while as so we could move toward energy independence what would that do to him mr burton you're there's another reason why we have energy independence let me just more thing here old quick mr chairman that supreme court you were talking about that supreme court as i recall was appointed in large part by chavez was it not so i mean i can't believe that they're to rule against him on these cases that are pending before the court why would they do that when they were appointed by him and they are indebted to him and he might cut their political heads off or worse if they ruled against  n administration has earned its legitimacy primarily through the electoral process the number of elections that he has won that his party has won and with great percentages the electoral legitimacy is very important with these sanctions in place as i indicated earlier it's very possible that the electoral legitimacy of this upcoming election would be damaged so you're saying if you think the court m t my really against it i really don't know what the court's going to do but i think that they analyze the legal arguments it's hard to predict well that's going to follow the argument that it would necessarily go one way or another for political reasons i'll just give you a prognostication i think that's one of the things he would risk if he felt like those people were a real threat to him he would have to weigh one against the other whether or not they're being successful in the election if they were put on the ballot as opposed to the backslash he gets the supreme court did what he wanted and kept them off the ballot so anyhow mr chairman it's only questions i have ok everyone seems to be raising their hands i saw dr corollas had his hand up and give him a chance and then dr myers and then dr bailey i want to return to the point of the regime survival in the event of no oil sales to the united states research in political science has looked at this question regimes manage ways to survive even through bad times in the in the western hemisphere we saw it also with cuba the end of the soviet subsidies made pressures but the regime survived and in venezuela one can imagine  situation in which the regime can use the hard economic times to actually toughen up and to do a big crackdown and to take harder measures so i myself am not convinced necessarily that economic strangulation is the end of the ch regime but what about their indebtedness you said there's a billions and billions of dollars of debt that they've acquired from china and elsewhere can they be economically surviving can you politically survive with that burden hanging over him in addition to you know us moving toward independence and cutting them all it would definitely force him to end his lavish spending and it would produce political instability but he can certainly cut back on spending quite dramatically focus spending on just key sectors get the police force out there until the crisis ends and do some kind of structural adjustment test stuff as they come and until the situation improves dr pushed the button please you know terms of survival the critical thing for any country is a combination of popularity and force chavez has given great legitimacy in my opinion to the electoral system because he's been able to win elections almost up until the december the december referendum all the indications are right now that he's going to lose a significant amount of governorships and if the opposition unites to lose even more that the question is will he abandon popularity as a way of controlling venezuela and will he go to force and people i've talked to in venezuela are very concerned that if chavez looks like he's going to lose the elections one way or another he's going to apply the stick and when you apply the stick you're going to be able to control the country with a much lower level of economic income than you have when you depend on popularity and i think that's really the great danger i mean if you look at fifty sixty percent of the population those are that a lot of those people are not benefiting very much from the money that's coming in so chavez can basically keep them down where they are intensify class warfare and you know this national intelligence law that he withdrew was very significant because if that had gone through they would have a system in which they would have everybody informing on everybody else the same type of thing the jews are a potential goat there there's all sorts of potential scapegoats that he would be able to hold up and he decides to crackdown other really critical thing i think is what will the military do if the military with back chavez cracked down and he's working very hard to try to penetrate even more and more the military then he might try it what i've heard and once again you can take this is rumor that the military was the force that forced him to recognize the result of that referendum that there were a lot of people in december inside the show these to movement who said you should put up figures because it was fairly close showing that you won the military had polls which i actually saw exit polls which showed that it wasn't if he won forty nine it was something like fifty eight forty two and that's what they believe that was one reason that they were very strong on that but if chavez was able to get control of the security forces and member he's created a second military force to go after the regular military force these are the reserves because he could go to the reserves these these committees for the  committees in the new chief of staff of the venezuelan army was formerly the commander of these reserve forces if he's able to assemble that and he thinks he can get away with the with the with the stick he would be very tempted to do it that's why i think it's so important to give all the strength to the democratic forces inside of that as well that is of this possible protect i think the next six to eight months are absolutely critical and where van as well is going to go but  this obviously is speculation i mean i know there's been a lot of analogies with cuba venezuela and cuba but you know on the face of it when when when cuba when when castro moved into cuba you know there were no referendums there was nobody to check him or block him so i think is distasteful some of the things that chavez has done in venezuela i think it may be  going a bit too far to sort of make that analogy with with cuba i mean there was the referendum which was in which his position was defeated whether it was defeated fifty one forty nine or  fifty eight forty two it was defeated there is an electoral system in venezuela we may not like it it may not be what we think it should be but there was no electoral system in cuba i mean there was a sham electoral system in cuba but in venezuela you you still have a a political opposition and a lot of what we're really talking about is speculation about what might happen in the next eight to ten months and i agree with you if it were to happen it very disturbing and very alarming but it hasn't happened and i think that we need to balance that and keep that in mind when we rush to to make comparisons i don't mean you doctor mind i'm just speaking in general when we rush to to to make comparisons with with what castro did in cuba i think there may be a number of similarities but there are a lot of differences as well i'm not aware that political a political opposition for instance has been jailed or incarcerated just because of the opposition as was done in cuba so i think that we need to keep a perspective about it while you know again i there's plenty which i disagree i think that we we need to show differences i know dr mccoy if you want to comment on that i just wanted to  reinforce what you said because as i indicated before the electoral legitimacy has been very important to other factors to keep in mind well actually let me just say yes professor myers is right that if there's a great deal  of challenge and if the government is forced to move to repression it loses popularity and if it is forced to move to repression it would be an extremely high cost to the government to make that choice it is not made that choice to y instead it's made the choice to continue its electoral legitimacy while eroding separation of powers i do you know point that out but but maintained a legal basis for its actions as well working with laws appointed by an elected national assembly upset or a the other two factors to keep in mind are one president chavez's own interest in being seen as an international leader and a legitimate international leader and i think that's important to keep in mind and second the reaction of the neighboring states and the questions often been raised what is the line that would need to be crossed to generate a strong reaction condemn natori reaction from the other latin american countries in an overt and systematic use every press of force i think would definitely generate that reaction and i think that's very important constraining factor to keep in mind as well for that scenario yes and let me just say dr myers i think that in the next eight months or so as you mentioned  agree that this will be a very important time for us to monitor and make sure that the decision to any decision to go away from from democracy imply mean to imply that that that's what president chavez was going to do but like any movement there's a lot of various factions there and you know there are factions inside th movement that are pushing for that and this is why i think it's so important that we pursue the types of policies which would show that would be very costly to move away from the democracy because even though as you said very well that we may not like exactly the same ocracy is going it still is a democracy you don't have anything like saddam hussein going on in venezuela and i don't think i mean chavez with like to be a good ruler i really believe that in his heart of hearts he would like to be a good ruler he would like to do things well for his people and so i think there's something to be said with trying to play to the better angels of president chavez it might have surprisingly positive results thank you let me let me just ask this last question then if mr burr mr burton has any if not we can this isn't very enlightening and i thank all of you and i want to quote a july seventh new york times article they were comparing chavez and brazilian president lula da silva and what it said was quote in the in the article wasn't that torah was an article it said today the two leaders often partners but sometimes rivals offer starkly different path toward development and it is and it is brazil's milder and more pragmatic approach that appears ascendant amid the decline of american influence in the region the brazilian president is discreetly chavez at almost every turn in the struggle for leadership in south america unquote so i'd like to ask the panel do you agree with this is s meant of brazilian president lula as trumping president chavez is the regional leader in south america and how is president chavez viewed by other latin american leaders lula was elected in a left of center coalition but has signed agreements with president bush on oil on energy and on other things and i think it goes to show that democratically elected governments who may be  a left of center that doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to be hostile to having good relations with the united states but i'd like to to hear anyone who might want to comment on that article on the question of the supreme court or what is going to do my guess and nobody inside the supreme court has told me my guess is will tell the supreme court to overturn some of the prohibitions maybe thirty forty fifty o and the economic situation in brazil reflects he has also completely observed and respected the democratic process within brazil consequently brazilian influence is increasing not only with a lot of america disaster for venezuela and whoever comes after him is going to inherit a complete disaster and economic and political and social spheres dr  standing up to the united states even though he is seen in the region often as over the top in terms of his inflammatory rhetoric the challenge to the united states  applauded even if quietly sometimes sometimes quietly and in that sense the bottom opinion polls reflect each other because of the antipathy toward u policy in the region so even that certainly has a higher standing in the region there is some resonance that we have to take into account of president chavez and the reason for that dr myers did you have your ha up yeah just a question on that one wants remember that brazil is almost two hundred million people in a country about the size of the united states if we didn't have alaska this is this is a power in the making and i think eventual they're going to have a almost a dominant influence throughout most of the south american continent and it's interesting when when originally they talked about  ol for example what a terrible deal that ethanol was for the poor and made a lot of statements and he went to cuba and then he goes to brazil and he has a little  all of a sudden chavez comes out and talks about how great ethanol was and if you look behind at the news conference logo standing there biting its tongue with almost a smile on his face so i think this is a very strong a very strong influence that you know the future of south america does not really belong to to chavez even though he does have a certain residents amongst you know the poor at that point he tried that in brazil  cubans i knew they were cubans and they were there to protect them and i just i'm concerned about the influence that the castro brothers have had on him as a block captain system that they have in testify on other people and and in the event if there's repression areas that might or might emerge and i don't know how many cubans he has there but i think he has quite a few and their influence is something that i don't think anybody really can calculate at this time and with that i want to thank all of you for being here it's been very very informative i only wish that our secretary of state our deputy secretary of state was here because i wish he could have heard some of your comments so thank you very much well let me thank good thank the panel i i think that's all you of your testimony was very helpful and answering of the questions and your opening statements as well i think we all  learned a great deal and certainly this is something that's very topical and very important and something that's not going to change or go away very quickly so i i'm sure in the future our paths will cross again and i