This article was originally posted by El Universal
Venezuela is still not a reliable partner for the United States in counterterrorism efforts, an area in which Caracas reduced its cooperation with Washington to an “absolute minimum” during the last year, said the US State Department in its new “Country Report on Terrorism,” released on Thursday.
“Venezuela’s cooperation with the United States on terrorism has been reduced to an absolute minimum,” stressed the annual report. The document noted that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez “persisted in his public criticism” of US counterterrorism efforts, and “continued to strengthen” relations with countries listed by Washington as sponsors of terrorism, specifically with Iran, DPA reported.The report -released just months after the US State Department ranked Venezuela as “not cooperating fully” in anti-terror efforts- clarified that it remains unclear “how much” help Chávez’s government is providing to Colombian rebel groups such as the FARC or the ELN.
In this sense, the document mirrored Colombia’s repeated “complaints” that Chávez’s government is “harboring and helping senior leaders of the FARC in Venezuelan territory.” The latest such complaints was aired a few weeks ago and resulted in a new severance of diplomatic relations between both South American countries.
Among others, the report noted that last December 4 Chávez promoted to high military ranks two men identified as drug dealers by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). They are Hugo Carvajal Barrios and Henry de Jesús Rangel Silva, whom the Venezuelan president promoted to high-ranking generals even though in 2008 they were accused by the OFAC of supporting drug traffic activities of the FARC leaders in the territory of Venezuela.