Venezuelan Flags on London Buses

I have always found it slightly curious to see the Venezuelan flag plastered on the back of some of London’s red double-decker buses.

Travelling through Latin America you become accustomed to seeing little EU or Japanese flags dotted here, there and everywhere, announcing their financial support for the next important humanitarian project. But why should an already impoverished nation be making such an effort to help one of the richest cities in the world?

Well by means of subsidised Venezuelan oil some of the poorest people of London have been able to benefit from reduced bus fares. But what does Venezuela, or rather Hugo Chavez, get out of this? Well aside from the little Venezuelan sticker on the back of buses I guess it was no more than a slap in the face against Tony Blair, one of Chavez’s more vocal critics abroad. In the same essence Chavez has been providing cheap heating oil to poor inner-city neighbourhoods in the US.

I shouldn’t be so cynical, should I? This is how the deal was officially meant to look like:

“This was a mutually beneficial agreement through which Venezuela had assisted 80,000 of the poorest people in London who receive half price bus and tram fares as a result of a reduction in the price of fuel for London's bus fleet. In return, London provided Venezuela with specialist technical expertise and assistance in areas such as transport, town planning and protection of the environment and other issues related to developing a modern world city. The main beneficiaries of this technical aid would have been the poorest residents of Caracas”(Venezuela Information Centre 27/05/08)

However with the election of a new – conservative - London mayor, Boris Johnson, the deal has been scrapped. Despite how much I would have liked to have believed the official rhetoric, that there was some altruistic motive behind Chavez’s donation to the disadvantaged people of London, and that the world could indeed have benefited from such examples of North-South collaboration, it’s probably makes sense to end this deal. Surely the Venezuelan people are in more need of subsidized oil than us here in London. And Chavez really shouldn’t be playing such cheap political games with the very assets that are needed to develop Venezuela.

Still I have to say I’ll miss seeing those little Venezuelan flags on our buses here. They always bring a wry smile to my face with the realization that ripple effects of change in Latin America have is some strange and peculiar way reached us here in London.