Tag Archives: Hugo Chavez

Aug
2
2010
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Chavez Regime’s Drug Trafficking Back in Spotlight

This article was originally posted by The New American

After a series of reports brought the issue into the spotlight in recent years, allegations of involvement in drug trafficking by the regime of socialist Venezuelan “President” Hugo Chavez are making headlines once again.

In an article for USA Today, for example, Chris Hawley quotes multiple experts suggesting that the regime is at least turning a blind eye, if not directly supporting the traffickers.

“Parts of the Venezuelan military are probably trafficking with drugs and other stuff, and Chavez is not exactly motivated to crack down on them because he needs the military,” claimed Brookings Institution fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown. “He is allowing them to dabble in the trade.”

American and United Nations officials have also accused Chavez and his government of involvement in the drug trade, with the UN releasing a report in late June stating that more than 40 percent of all cocaine shipments to Europe were going through Venezuela. 

“The increasing flow of illicit narcotics through Venezuela and the continuing flow through Mexico pose significant challenges to U.S. counternarcotics interdiction efforts,” the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a separate report released in July. Another GAO report released last year claimed that top Venezuelan military and government officials were involved in the trade.

The allegations of Chavez’ complicity have been around for years, particularly since the regime expelled American drug agents from Venezuela. The U.S Drug Enforcement Administration was operating there until 2005, but Chavez kicked them out over supposed suspicions of spying, drug trafficking, and conspiring to bring down his regime.

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Aug
2
2010
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Colombia Denies Venezuela’s Attack Plan Allegations

This article was originally posted by AHN

A day after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claimed that his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe was capable of anything and speculated their plans of attacking his country, Bogota rejected allegations and termed them baseless.

cp Colombia Denies Venezuela’s Attack Plan Allegations Cesar Velasquez, a Colombian government’s spokesman described President Chavez’s remarks as “deceptive” and claimed that they had never thought of attacking them.The spokesman’s denial came two days after Chavez dispatched additional troops, including soldiers, air units and special forces, on its border in Paraguachon to boost Venezuelan National Guard troops.

“Colombia has gone through the proper international channels and will continue to insist on the application of international law to ensure Venezuela complies with its obligation not to harbour Colombian terrorists,” he added.

Relations between the two nations were at all time low last week following a heated meeting at the Organization of American States where Colombia presented facts and figures that Venezuela allegedly provided shelter to FARC and ELN rebels – a charge Venezuela vehemently denied and immediately suspended diplomatic ties.

Meanwhile, Venezuela is apparently seeking peace talks with neighbor Colombia. In his weekly opinion column “Chavez Lines”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez believed that the only way to bring peace was through the talks.

“The dilemma is between the words or the bullets, this is, between taking a dialogue table to the peoples of the South America for the peace exercise or keeping the region in a climate of conformation with a high war danger,” Chavez said.

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Jul
30
2010
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Colombia proves again that Venezuela is harboring FARC terrorists

This article was originally posted bye The Washington Post

COLOMBIA’S PRESENTATION to the Organization of American States about Venezuela’s hosting of the FARC terrorist movement prompted a flurry of speculation about the motives of Álvaro Uribe, Colombia’s outgoing president. Why, it was asked, did he want to end his eight years in office in another confrontation with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez? Could he be trying to sabotage his successor, Juan Manuel Santos, who is due to take office on Aug. 7?

Allow us to offer a simple explanation: Mr. Uribe, who has devoted his presidency to rescuing Colombia from armed gangs of both the left and the right, is deeply frustrated by Venezuela’s continuing support for the FARC — and by the failure of the international community to hold Mr. Chávez accountable for it. Before leaving office, Mr. Uribe felt compelled to make one more effort to call attention to a problem that, were it occurring in the Middle East, would surely be before the U.N. Security Council.

That Venezuela is backing a terrorist movement against a neighboring democratic government has been beyond dispute since at least 2008, when Colombia recovered laptops from a FARC camp in Ecuador containing extensive documentation of Mr. Chávez’s political and material support. Colombia’s presentation to the OAS last week contained fresher and more detailed intelligence. Ambassador Luis Alfonso Hoyos supplied precise map coordinates for several of the 75 FARC camps that he said had been established on Venezuelan territory and that harbor some 1,500 militants. He showed photos and videos, including one of a top commander from another Colombian terrorist organization, ELN, sipping Venezuelan beer on a popular Venezuelan beach.

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