Caracas (AFP)

There was Iranian gasoline, sent by boat to Venezuela. Then came the food for the first Iranian supermarket in Caracas, which has just opened. An inauguration in the form of a challenge launched in Washington by Venezuela and Iran, under the influence of American sanctions.

Honey, dates, clothes or toilet paper "made in Iran": Venezuelan customers come in large numbers to the supermarket, called Megasis, inaugurated on July 30 in the capital. All wear a health mask, made compulsory due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"If a product is good, it doesn't matter whether it's Cuban, Russian, Chinese, Gringo (American) or English," says Matias, 62, who came to shop with his mother in the store located in a neighborhood of the middle class of Caracas.

Megasis offers the products that arrived in the holds of the Golsan, an Iranian ship which docked in Venezuela on June 21. In the previous weeks, five Iranian boats, carrying 1.5 million barrels of gasoline on board, had arrived in the ports of the South American country to alleviate the chronic fuel shortage in Venezuela.

"As a country under sanctions, we are complementary," said Issa Rezaei, Iranian deputy minister of industry, at the inauguration of Megasis. "Venezuela has a lot of products that we don't have in Iran, and Venezuela has certain needs that we can meet."

Because Tehran and Caracas both have stormy relations with Washington and are under increasingly draconian sanctions.

US President Donald Trump calls his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro a "dictator". Its relations with Tehran became even more strained after Washington's unilateral withdrawal in 2018 from the international Iran nuclear agreement and the reinstatement of US sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Tehran and Washington regularly exchange invectives and accuse each other of "terrorism".

If they are, in fact, bound by US sanctions, Iran and Venezuela have maintained close ties "since the mid-2000s," recalls Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. The then presidents Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "had forged a close relationship which served the strategic interests of the two countries, united in their desire to confront the United States".

Today, as China and Russia have somewhat reduced their eagerness to support Nicolas Maduro, Tehran's support is crucial. Iran "is one of the few countries still ready to support Venezuela, against gold, it seems", continues Cynthia Arnson.

Proof of the strategic interest of the partnership between Caracas and Tehran: the Megasis supermarket belongs to Etka, a consortium affiliated with the Iranian Ministry of Defense.

- Laundry and Chilean salmon -

The store and its 20,000 square meters existed long before displaying the Megasis brand. At the time of the late President Hugo Chavez (1999-2013), the store belonged to the Franco-Colombian chain Exito, before the socialist leader expropriated it in 2010.

First renamed Abastos Bicentenario (Bicentennial Warehouses), the supermarket was integrated in 2016 into the CLAP system, a government program that provides food at low prices to the most needy.

Entrusting the operation to Iran "shows that all the expropriations that Chavismo has carried out have been failures," said economist José Manuel Puente.

Ana Maria Chavez, 29, often came to shop when the supermarket belonged to the Franco-Colombian brand Exito. It was also "better" at that time, according to her.

If Megasis paves the way for a strengthened partnership with Iran, it is only a scant breath of fresh air for most Venezuelans hard hit by the economic crisis and inflation that exceeded 9,000% in 2019.

Prices are displayed in dollars and not in Bolivars, the Venezuelan currency. In a country where the minimum wage is equivalent to three dollars a month, only a minority can pay triple for a package of laundry.

Still, notes one vendor, the three dollar "individual" portions of Chilean salmon "sell very well."

© 2020 AFP