Venezuela's Chavez Accused Of Financing Terrorism
By Ann Huggett (10/14/03)
There is a recall against an established leftist regime right now that includes physical violence, lies, smears, class warfare, racial hatred, and, no, I'm not talking about California. While most of the media's attention is focused on Arnold Schwarzenegger's 30-year-old peccadilloes and studiously ignoring Gray Davis' ongoing history of female battering, the major news outlets appear totally blind to the turmoil in Venezuela caused by the repressive leftist government of President Hugo Chavez.
Before Chavez came to power in 1998, oil-rich Venezuela was a wealthy nation and one of South America's oldest democracies. This wealth attracted a large influx of poor immigrants from neighboring Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and the Caribbean, which then became trapped in slums, their resentment growing against what they perceived as an unresponsive government and closed society. Chavez, who had been imprisoned for a failed coup in 1992 but was later released, became the poor's champion during the 1998 elections while presenting a moderate platform promising to end government corruption.
With just 35% of the vote, President Chavez wasted no time in revealing his true revolutionary leanings. He immediately embraced Cuba's communist leader, Fidel Castro, as Venezuela's chief ally, called Iraq's Saddam Hussein his "brother", aligned himself with Libya's Moammar Qadaffi, and formed alliances with North Korea's Kim Yong-Il and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Chavez, intent on destabilizing the area, established Venezuelan training bases for Colombia's FARC narco-terrorists. Cuban "advisors" currently are in positions throughout the Chavez government with some even masquerading as sports coaches. Before he was imprisoned in 1994, fellow Venezuelan Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a.k.a. "Carlos the Jackal", whose long and sordid history of KGB/Cuban trained terrorism included acting as a specialist in terror for Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Lebanon, may be the original connection between Chavez and Islamic terrorists finding haven in Venezuela. Chavez has capitalized on his position as president of one of the five original founding members of OPEC to not only wage economic warfare against the US but to use his position to deal covertly with the anti-US Islamic members.
According to Chavez's former personal pilot, Venezuelan Air Force Major Juan Diaz Castillo, Chavez told him, "...to organize, coordinate, and execute a covert operation consisting of delivering financial resources, specifically $1 million, to [Afghanistan's] Taliban government, in order for them to assist the al-Qaeda terrorist organization...making it appear as if humanitarian aid were being extended to the Afghan people."
Former director of Venezuela's border-control service, General Marcos Ferreira, said that Cuba's General Intelligence Directorate completely dominates Venezuela's Directorate for Intelligence, Security, and Prevention (DISIP) and Chavez's Interior Minister, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, demanded that Ferreira cover up the identities of terrorists passing through Venezuela. The Chavez government is also issuing Venezuelan cedulas, similar to US Social Security cards, to nationals from Colombia, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and Lebanon. In 2001 Chavez himself went abroad and signed "cooperation agreements" with Libya, Iraq, and Iran.
Another military dissident, General Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez, states that Chavez funnels arms and supplies from Cuba via Venezuela to Marxist guerrillas in Colombia. FARC deserters have even provided the longitude and latitude of their camp in the Venezuelan Perija Mountains.
Furious that defectors have exposed his schemes, Chavez is demanding that the US refute news stories showing his links with and funding to terrorists. Chavez is especially bitter about a US News and World Report article "Terror close to home". Chavez angrily said, "I challenge the staff of US News and World Report or its owners to come here and look for one single shred of evidence, to show the world one single shred of proof. The US government should respond to this call. (The magazine) supposedly cites information provided by US government officials. If a Venezuelan daily ran something as filthy as this, citing presidential officials here, my government would respond. It is a lie, but all the same, the idea has been planted. It is a strategy, to launch an offensive by concocting anything -- an assassination, a coup, an invasion."
Chavez's fears may not be all that unfounded since last year the military did attempt a coup. He still does not enjoy the support of his military and relies almost exclusively on Cuban advisors and Circulos Bolivarianos that are government-sponsored armed militias modeled on Cuba's Revolutionary Defense Committees. These militias have taken over the police stations around Caracas. One of the Circulos Bolivarianos, headed by the former guerrilla leader, Ali Rodriguez Araque, a.k.a. "Comandante Fausto" now commands the site of the state run oil company, PDVSA. Chavez is also populating Venezuela's financial institutions, state corporations, and security systems with men such as Araque and his personal bodyguards are mostly Cuban.
Last year Chavez was ousted for all of two days by a voter recall and there is movement afoot to vote him out again. He was scheduled to address the UN in September but canceled amid speculation that he would be ousted while out of Venezuela. Chavez had PDVSA oil workers and their families beaten up for participating in a 2 month long general strike. Anti-government broadcasts were disrupted when Chavez sent his thugs to seize transmission equipment from Globovision despite street protestors. Emotions are running so high that blows and physical attacks by Venezuelan lawmakers in their National Assembly are occurring. Chavez is currently trying to stack their Supreme Court so that judicial activism, Venezuelan style, can be used to negate any further challenges to his regime through another voter recall.
The US is well aware of developments in Venezuela and is worried. Roger Noriega, the new assistant secretary of state for Latin America stressed that, "We are not disinterested spectators. Any actions that undermine democratic order or threaten the security and well-being of the region are of legitimate concern to all of Venezuela's neighbors."
Or, as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "The government of the United States and the people of Venezuela have a differing view of democracy than does President Chavez."
(Printer friendly version) Email: Ann Huggett
