Between April 1 and May 31, 2022 there were eighteen FARA filings involving principals from sixteen countries. The filings run the gamut from tourism agencies to petroleum companies and foreign political parties from countries as far flung as Iceland, Guyana, and East Timor. As we saw in the last Roundup, more pro bono filings were registered for Ukraine (p. 5 & p. 10 respectively). In addition to the pro bono filings, a third Ukraine FARA was registered that gave no information on contract fees, although it does reveal that the registrants responsible to the Ukrainian client, in this case a parliamentary committee, donated nearly $30,000 to Republican candidates or PACs (p. 9).
For this update, we will focus on three filings involving the governments of Guyana, Libya, and East Timor.
Filing 7105: Guyana
On April 6, VantageKnight LLC filed to represent the South American country of Guyana for consulting services and outreach to federal officials in Congress and the Executive Branch (p. 1-2). The point person for VantageKnight’s contract with Guyana is the company’s sole owner, Manuel Ortiz (p. 2), for $20,000 a month (p. 10).
Ortiz is a well-established strategist and lobbyist for Democratic candidates and issues. He has represented clients such as Hilton, Microsoft, and Citibank among others. Ortiz highlights his ability to achieve carveouts for clients, and specifically highlights carveouts on Department of Education regulations.
The timing of Guyana’s contract with Ortiz comes just a couple of months before the 2022 Summit of the Americas, set to begin on June 6, which will be held in the United States. While the filing is a little vague on the nature of the “consulting” and “outreach” to be conducted by Ortiz with U.S. officials, there is one, potentially alarming, possibility.
Guyana has an ongoing border dispute with Venezuela, which claims roughly half of Guyana’s territory. The region is oil-rich and the Maduro regime desperately needs new revenue to keep his despotic rule in place. And in the wake of Putin’s newly escalated war against Ukraine, Maduro seems to be weighing military options regarding Guyana.
Filing 7108: Libya
Tony Podesta registered with FARA on April 15 to lobby and communicate with U.S. officials “to promote a constitutional basis for elections in 2022” (p. 2). Podesta is personally being paid $10,000 for his services (p. 2). Podesta is another premier strategist for the Democratic Party and was dubbed “The Lobbyist” by Newsweek.
Libya is a political basket case. Since the fall of the dictator, Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 (in part due to a NATO air campaign), rival factions have fought a long and bloody civil war for control of the country. Briefly in 2014, a unity government was formed, but internal squabbling led to a breakdown in the government. Elections scheduled for late 2021 were delayed after the warlord, Haftar, leveraged his supporters in the U.N.-recognized government to blow up constitutional and oil-revenue sharing negotiations.
The job for Podesta and his team is to convene meetings with U.S. officials and the American media to shore up support internationally before the elections later this year (p. 10).
Filing 7120: East Timor
On May 17, FTI Consulting filed on behalf of Timor Gap, E.P., the national petroleum company for East Timor. FTI is a U.S.-based general consultancy that offers services in a wide range of industries. Timor Gap hired FTI, at the price of $75,000 per month, to conduct “strategic communications and government relations services related to the development of the Greater Sunrise Fields in the Timor Sea” (p. 6-7).
East Timor is a small country in the Indo-Pacific that mostly comprises the eastern half of Timor Island—the other half belongs to Indonesia. East Timor is also a very young country; for centuries it was a Portuguese colony, until 1975 when it was freed from Lisbon’s control only to be swiftly conquered by Indonesia in a brutal war. The tiny country finally achieved independence from Indonesia in 2002.
East Timor’s ambitions with the Greater Sunrise Fields stand in stark contrast to the small size of the country. According to estimates, the fields contain roughly 5.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas; and Timor Gap secured a 56% stake in a recently announced joint venture with an Australian and a Japanese energy company.
After giving a presentation of the company’s strategy at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in May, CEO of Timor Gap, Antonio de Sousa, told an interviewer that the government of East Timor seeks to follow in the footsteps of Norway by setting up the National Investment Endowment Fund to manage the revenues generated by the Greater Sunrise Fields for the citizens of East Timor. Forbes writer, David Blackmon, said that “attendees at OTC [referred] to Timor-Leste as the next Guyana.”
Hopefully that doesn’t bode ill for East Timor’s relations with Indonesia, and at the present there is no indication that its former conqueror has any ambitions in the Fields.
