OPEC, in effect, is another one of the Cold War's products. When World War Two ended, and even before it, there appeared a manifest rivalry between the two dominating political and economic systems then existing: representative democracy and capitalism, on one side, al "socialist democracy" (sic) and communism, on the other. The United States of America were the first system's paradigm, and the Union of Socialist Soviet republics (USSR) that of the second.

The confrontations between the two different ways of conceiving the relationship between individual and State and the wealth production and distribution means, featured this sinister period, known as the Cold War, between 1945 and 1990. It is during these times that we see, and not as a matter of hazard, the so called "national liberation wars", "national liberation movements", coming from the still existing African and Asiatic colonies of European states.

The national liberation movements, although they started from an "anti-imperialist" and "anti-colonialist" vision, confounded -unfortunately since their inception- these independence aspirations with anti-capitalist fights. In other words, they identified capitalism with colonialism and imperialism. Hence, the appearance also of similar movements in Latin America, where the independence problem had been solved, with very few exceptions, during the first half of the last century; these countries had not resolved, however, the problem of political stability and economic growth. And this was so because the enormous boost and advancement of European capitalism of the nineteenth century's second half, coincides with the most dark [period] of colonial wars; that of European domination over Africa and Asia. When associating the colonial and imperialist thrust with the development of capitalism, one ends with the sophism of assimilating the latter with colonialism; it is thought that the capitalist development's needs imply, necessarily, colonialism and, hence, the destruction of colonialism entails that of capitalism.

The USSR, then, understands that it has found a rich vein in national liberation movements. It may use to satisfy its expansionists appetites and its imperialist vocation. It transforms itself, thus, into these movements' great protector, promoter, source of finance, supplier of weapons and trainer of guerrilla fighters. The United States, in the meanwhile, having become, after World War II, the undisputed leader of capitalist nations, try to contain and stop the Soviet thrust, protecting their European partners and Japan and, for the same reason, creating the sensation among colonized countries that they are not too interested in their independence. The United States, capitalism's new paradigm, are perceived by national liberation movements as a reactionary nation, the enemy of national liberation processes.

Many Latin Americans will share these hard feelings against the United and the capitalist production mode by them represented. The roots may be found in the presence of U.S. troops in several parts of Latin America, both during the nineteenth century, as in the first half of the twentieth. Although many of these interventions by the United States have trade motivations, there is no doubt that the reigning lack of order in most of Latin America during those times, made the United States fear, under justified reasons, that Latin America, or a substantial part of its territory, could fall under the European colonial domain, as it had already occurred in Africa and most of Asia. This situation, we are forced to admit and accept it, represented a great risk for the very same independence of the United States of America, which, after all, they had only obtained a few years before the Latin Americans. Moreover, the United States were still, during the Nineteenth Century, a nation undergoing full formation and conformation.

These post-war national independence and liberation movements gave birth to a series of political leaders, who looking at the United States with suspiciousness, misgiving and animadversion, were not willing either to allow their nations to become part of the Soviet Empire. They, then, opposed capitalism and its main exponent, the United States, and communism and its fundamental representative, the Soviet Union -albeit more timidly in this last case. They look for an outlet through an intermediate system, in what was known as "State capitalism", "mixed economy systems" or, in Venezuelan terms "neither communism, nor capitalism, but all the opposite". These are the leaders who would eventually create the Non Aligned Countries Movement an the "third world movement", a pretended third way for development between capitalism and communism. The brains are men such as Tito, the founder of a communist State -now dissolved- but splitting from the Soviet Union and receptor, accordingly, of the United States' economic assistance and protection; Nasser pan-Arabian nationalism's, another champion of twofold game vis-à-vis the United States and the Soviet Union; Sukarno of Indonesia and, of course, India's Nehru. They will be joined by other personages such as Kenya's Kenyata, Ghana's Nkrumah, Argelia's Ben Bella and, since a Latin American could not fail, Fidel Castro of Cuba. They would identify themselves as nationalist, neutrals in the Cold War, non aligned with any of both rival powers "members of the third world movement" and would try to get the most of permanent flirting with one or the other of the two powers; some of them, however, as it is the case with Fidel Castro, would end embracing the Soviet Union without any restraint, condition nor dissimulation.

It is precisely within this Cold War scenario of non alignment and "third world positions" that OPEC is created. The main oil producing and exporting countries, most of them Arabs, Asiatic and Latin Americans, think that oil business and the markets are controlled by the "seven sisters", the seven most important oil corporations, most of them from the United States, but some, such as Shell and Anglo-Iranian, being West European. They are seen by the producers, consequently, as "agents" of capitalism, that is to say of imperialism and colonialism that they assimilate to the former. They are accused of "manipulating" the markets to the producing countries' detriment, and for such reason the latter will recover their independence and sovereignty, and enjoy them, when freeing themselves from these corporations. OPEC, then, must be one of the strongholds of economic and political independence of its member countries (sic).

OPEC's position vis-à-vis the producing companies, as a result, would harden through the years; mostly after 1968 when Colonel Khadafy overthrows the Libyan king, Idris. Khadafy would soon become one of the chiefs of "anti-imperialism" and of the new pan-Arabian nationalism. As to the ëseven sisters", Khadafy would strike with a hard blow when accepting Occidental's exploitation conditions, more expensive than those then prevailing for the corporations.

As from the Libyan happenings of 1968, the separation between OPEC and the corporations will become greater. Venezuela, in 1970, makes use of the right to establish, unilaterally, the tax reference prices, rather than continuing to negotiate them with the corporations. The other OPEC members will do the same after the huge hikes in oil prices (October 1973), as a result of the Yom Kippur War and the Arab oil embargo. The first part of the seventies will see, also, the bursting of the wave of "nationalizations" of the companies in most OPEC countries, materialized, in Venezuela, on January 1, 1976.

The hardening of opposing positions between OPEC and the corporations will lead to a great hysteria in the market, resulting in bigger price hikes in the seventies. To make matters worse, in December 1979 we see the fall of Iran's Shah and the installation in that nation of a "fundamentalist" government, the enemy of the United States and, undoubtedly, of the corporations. This government, moreover, will break war with neighboring Iraq, both events causing huge increases in oil prices.

Faced with the oil facts of the early seventies, and as a result of them, the main consumers of OPEC oil create the International Energy Agency (IEA) with the purpose of coordinating their defense actions against OPEC. Besides building up strategic reserves, they will promote energy conservation and saving measures, as well as the substitution of OPEC oil with oil coming from other non OPEC member countries and with alternate sources of energy.

The IEA policies will begin to bear fruit during the early eighties. The war between Iran and Iraq will become endemic also during this decade and it will prove to have no effect on oil supplies, nor will it affect them, presumably, in the future. The market, thus, is quieted and returns to normality; this, of course, results in a lowering of oil prices between 1982 and the most recent time of its recovered stability.

OPEC, then in order to defend itself from price drops, does not think of anything better than to allow the non member countries to cope with more than 60% of the world's oil market. In other words, the quotas, without preventing the fall of oil prices, made a paper tiger, a rug lion of OPEC, reducing its share of the market, from 66% in 1982, to 38% these days.

OPEC, in today's world, with the Cold War ended and under the proven failure of communism, of "State capitalism", the "mixed economy systems", the "third world positions", is nothing but an anachronism. But there is a greater anachronism in the fact of Venezuela insisting with it; what is more, the fact of having been one of its members and, of all things, a founder. Our country, in effect, had lost nothing in "third world" causes, in "anti-imperialist" and anti-colonialist" fights and, much less, in the mental indigestion implied by the identification of capitalism with imperialism and colonialism. Our country never was a colony of Spain, nor of a any other power. We are not the children of that transcending event, without historical precedent, that some call the Discovery and, others, the Encounter, This, our territory, was practically an unpopulated region in those times, but for some small Indian tribes living, as they still do, in the "state of nature" -in other words, in a civilization with most precarious advancements. Our nation was created, was formed, began to be conformed as from the Discovery and as a corollary of it. Almost all of us, to a higher or lesser degree, have European blood and are undoubtedly, from a cultural point of view, an European nation, although a new one and with its specific features individualizing it. Our tongue, our main religion, our ethical values, our morals, our legal and political institutions, all that comes from our European lineage.

Our case, accordingly, is quite different from that of colonialism in Africa and Asia. In Africa and Asia the European military might imposed itself to dominate already existing nations; some of them with millenary traditions and culture, more remote and refined than the European ones. The Africans' and Asians' emancipation wars were against foreign invaders in order that the former could preserve their customs and ways, in order to govern themselves, as it was, and still is, their most legitimate right. Ours, on the contrary, was a civil war rather. The "patriots" were born in these lands as were most of the "royalists", the former being tied to the ideas of the Illustration, fighting for self government and the newest representative democracy, and the other, the royalists for the maintenance of the "status quo" and the forms of government then prevailing in the General Captainship of Venezuela.

Aversion towards the United States, on another hand, was not justified either in Venezuela. Our relations with that country were always excellent, featured by great mutual respect. What is more, U.S. interventions in Venezuelan affairs served to protect and safeguard our sovereignty. One must recall the cases of the Esequibo Guayana and the armed blockade of the Port of La Guaira.