Venezuela offers fuel to U.S. tribes

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela said Friday it will expand a program to provide discounted home heating oil to low-income Americans, bringing savings to some Indian tribes in Maine.

Venezuelan-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp. has already begun selling cheaper fuel in some areas of Massachusetts and New York City as part of a plan by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to aid poor communities that he claims are neglected by Washington.

Chavez’s opponents accuse him of using Venezuela’s oil wealth to win friends while trying to one-up President Bush. But Chavez’s supporters defend the heating oil program as another example of a generous deed by a president leading a socialist revolution for the poor.

Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S., said he will sign an agreement next week with the Penobscot, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians to provide the cheaper heating oil.

Penobscot tribal chief James Sappier said snow was falling in Maine Friday and his tribe was grateful for Chavez’s help.

“This is probably one of the greatest decisions for our tribe in years,” he told the Associated Press.

“We appreciate him (Chavez) very much as a leader,” Sappier said. “It’s been said he’s one of us. His thinking is like ours.”

Many in the tribe of 2,261 people are facing tough times economically as jobs have moved out of the area, and the discounted fuel could save a family $1,000 or more this winter, he said.

Alvarez said Venezuela also will extend the deal next week to some parts of Vermont and Rhode Island.

Alvarez was accompanied by a group of American activists on a tour of a state-funded cooperative in Caracas where the poor receive free health care and hundreds work in textile and shoemaking shops. The visitors included singer Harry Belafonte, actor Danny Glover, Princeton University scholar Cornel West and farmworker advocate Dolores Huerta.