Chavez defeat seen as wake-up call for Cuba

By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's unprecedented defeat in a referendum is a wake-up call for Communist ally Cuba, which has come to rely heavily on the firebrand socialist leader, Cuba watchers say.

Chavez has kept the Cuban economy afloat with vital shipments of 92,000 barrels of oil per day, an estimated bill of $3 billion a year that cash-strapped Cuba pays for with medical and other services.

The man he calls his ideological father, ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, congratulated Chavez on his "dignified" concession speech in a note published in Cuba on Tuesday, two days after Venezuelans rejected Chavez's effort to run indefinitely for president.

But Castro, who has not appeared in public for 16 months, repeated his concerns about Chavez's future and safety, warning the Venezuelan leader that he is exposing himself to an assassin's bullet by riding too often in open vehicles.

Experts on Cuba said the referendum upset is further notice to Cuba's leaders that they must look for alternative sources of support because the Venezuelan lifeline is not eternal.

"The Cubans have always feared that one day -- and rather suddenly -- Chavez might disappear," said Frank Mora, a professor at the National War College in Washington. "They have done everything possible to find alternative sources of oil."

Venezuela held out a hand to Cuba in the direst time of its post-Soviet crisis, and trade between the two allies has grown to $7 billion a year, Castro noted.

Cuban officials declined to comment on the significance for their country of a defeat that curbed Chavez's plans to speed up his socialist revolution in Venezuela.

"Chavez will continue as president until 2013, so we have time to think about this," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told reporters on Monday.

Cuba's dependence on Chavez became evident during a failed coup that almost toppled Chavez in 2002 when his opponents immediately announced an end to oil supplies to Cuba before they had secured their hold on power.

Cuba has signed risk contracts with seven oil companies to explore its Gulf of Mexico waters, where Spain's Repsol found noncommercial quantities of light oil in 2004. No new drilling is expected until the end of next year.

Cuba is negotiating with Angola, Russia and other countries to find perhaps more stable and predictable sources of energy, even though the terms will not be as sweet, Mora said.

"They will be hard pressed to find someone who will give Cuba the kind of deal Chavez is giving them. Who is willing to provide Cuba with $3 billion worth of free oil?" he said.

With high oil prices bolstering Chavez's populism, one expert believes Cuba still has time to prepare for life without him.

"The Cubans always knew that Hugo Chavez would eventually reach his limits in both political and economic terms," said Dan Erikson, of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.