 Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Just days after president Hugo Chávez affirmed at the Rio Group summit that "our government only wants peace," the U.S. is now seeking to have Venezuela declared "a state sponsor of terrorism." The Bush administration has launched a preliminary legal inquiry that could land Venezuela on the U.S. list of nations that support terrorism, following reports of close Venezuelan links with Colombian rebels, a senior government official has confirmed. (Pablo Bachelet, "U.S. May Add Venezuela to List of Terrorist States," McClatchy Washington Bureau, Monday, March 10, 2008). In other words, the U.S. State Department is using Uribes "dodgy dossier" as a pretext for sanctions and embargoes against the Bolivarian republic. If implemented, such restrictions would severely limit the ability of U.S. firms to do business with Caracas while making it nearly impossible for Venezuela to export oil to the United States or import vital spare parts necessary to keep the economy going. The legal review comes after Colombia captured four computers belonging to a guerrilla leader in a March 1 raid into Ecuador. The documents suggest the Venezuelan government was in the process of providing $300 million to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. As investigative journalist Greg Palast reported after actually reviewing the documents, there is no mention whatsoever that the Venezuelan government was "in the process of providing $300 million to ... FARC." Over the past year, the U.S. State Department has classified Venezuela as a nation "not collaborating" with either the "war on drugs" or the "war against terrorism". The Pentagon and the intelligence communities released reports earlier this year citing Venezuela as a "major threat to U.S. national security" and have proposed beefing up military presence in the region. The White House and Congress have increased USAID and National Endowment Funding to opposition groups in Venezuela in an effort to rebuild ailing conservatives that favor a U.S. agenda. International media portray Chávez as "public enemy #1" and the leader of a Latin American "axis of evil" that is threatening regional stability. ("The Peacemaker," Venezuela Analysis, Tuesday, March 11, 2008). With this in mind, Bill Conroy at The Narco News Bulletin is reporting that CIA and Pentagon corporate cut-outs have exported at least 11 aircraft to Venezuela since 2003, four of which have subsequently been linked to cocaine planes seized by Mexican and Central American authorities. Conroys extensive investigation into the mysterious aircraft and even dodgier companies have led him to conclude that the planes are linked "to an elaborate covert intelligence operation." Conroy reports: The covert program, law enforcement sources contend, likely involves the CIA and components of Defense Department intelligence agencies, and is focused, in part, on penetrating, or even propping up, narco-trafficking groups in Venezuela. That countrys outspoken leader, Hugo Chávez, is regularly demonized by U.S. policymakers for, among other things, supposedly allowing his country to become a haven for narco-traffickers. ("U.S. Cocaine-Plane Invasion Spooks Latin America," The Narco News Bulletin, March 11, 2008). The Narco News investigation dovetails with one that Florida-based journalist Daniel Hopsicker has been reporting for nearly two years when the first plane was seized on the Yucatan peninsula by Mexican authorities in April 2006, carrying some 5.5. tons of cocaine. "Even though it looks as if you are unraveling odd connections you may be only seeing a small part of what is going on or you may be seeing what you are expected to see, missing something else. Before the December 2007 constitutional referendum which the Chávez government lost, Golinger reported that Venezuelan counterintelligence obtained a CIA memorandum from the U.S. Embassy which revealed extensive CIA/Pentagon plans to destabilize the country. Code-named "Operation Pliers," the memo was dated November 20, 2007. Golinger wrote, Operation Tenaza has the objective of encouraging an armed insurrection in Venezuela against the government of President Chávez that will justify an intervention of US forces, stationed on the military bases nearby in Curacao and Colombia. The Operation mentions two countries in code: as Blue and Green. These refer to Curacao and Colombia, where the US has operative, active and equipped bases that have been reinforced over the past year and a half in anticipation of a conflict with Venezuela. [emphasis added]. While "Operation Pliers" may have failed back in December, the CIA has been ratcheting up tensions ever since, as the March 1 U.S.-Colombian attack on Ecuador clearly demonstrates. Since its failed April 2002 coup against the socialist government, the United States, working through a multitude of frontsfrom the CIA, the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, the International Republican Institute to the National Endowment for Democracyhave poured millions of dollars into Venezuela, funding a broad campaign of subversion and violence. "The zones that suffer this problem most intensely are [the area] south of Lake Maracaibo in Zulia, Alto Apure, and, obviously, Tachira. In these states, the paramilitaries, helped by the Colombian government, have taken control of various areas, buying up farms with the money from extortion, kidnapping and, principally, drug-dealing." (Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, "Venezuela: Guns, Drugs and Thugs: The threat from Plan Colombia, Number 684, September 20, 2006). If the United States determines that Venezuela "has ... crossed the threshold of state sponsor of terror," according to an "unnamed official" cited by McClatchy News, full-blown U.S. sanctions would usher in a state of savage economic warfare as a prelude to a U.S. invasion and occupation of Venezuela and its strategic petroleum resources. http://www2.minci.gob.ve/noticiaingles.asp?num=1506 |
