Luis Herrera Campins

President of Venezuela from 1979 to 1984

Luis Antonio Herrera Campins (4 May 1925 – 9 November 2007) was the president of Venezuela from 1979 to 1984. He was elected to one five year term in 1978. He was a member of COPEI, a Christian Democratic party.

Luis Antonio Herrera Campins was born in Acarigua, Portuguesa. He studied law initially at Central University of Venezuela, though his studies were interrupted when he was imprisoned during the regime of Marcos Pérez Jiménez after he organized a strike against the dictator. He continued his studies and writings in exile in Spain and Germany. and education reforms. He liberalised prices, resulting in rapid changes in the value of the Venezuelan bolívar. Moved in part by territorial claims, Herrera developed a muscular foreign policy. He signed an agreement with Mexico in 1980 to jointly provide Central American and Caribbean countries with a steady flow of oil, a precursor of Hugo Chávez's wide reaching oil diplomacy in the developing world. In 1982, Herrera sided with Argentina in its war with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, or Islas Malvinas, adroitly exploiting anti British and anti American sentiment to boost his flagging popularity. His support for Argentina came while he was asserting Venezuela's longstanding claim to more than half of neighboring Guyana, a former British colony. His government also recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as the sovereign state in Western Sahara. In December 1982, PDVSA signed a cooperation agreement with the German oil company VEBA for the establishment of a joint venture named Ruhr Oel GmbH. This event is considered the beginning of the internationalization of PDVSA. He was succeeded by Jaime Lusinchi, who took the office of President in 1984.