Alaska villages reject oil from Venezuela
ANCHORAGE - In the native villages of Alaska (USA), the punishing winter cold is already coming through the walls of the lightly insulated plywood homes, many of the villagers are desperately poor, and heating-oil prices are among the highest in the nation.
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Yet a few villages are refusing free heating oil from Venezuela, on the patriotic principle that no foreigner has the right to call their president ”the devil”.
The heating oil is being offered by the petroleum company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Bush’s nemesis. While scores of Alaska’s Eskimo and Indian villages say they have no choice but to accept, others would rather suffer.
„As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don’t want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us”, said Justine Gunderson, administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. „Even though we’re in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make.”
Nelson Lagoon residents pay more than $5 a gallon for oil to heat their homes along the wind-swept coast of the Bering Sea, where temperatures can dip to minus-15. About one-quarter of the 70 villagers are looking for work, in part because Alaska’s salmon fishing industry has been hit hard by competition from fish farms. (World)
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