Venezuelans hold their identification cards as they form a small line, left, next to a line of people waiting to receive their social security benefits, right, at the only place to register to vote in Caracas, near the Elections Council headquarters in Venezuela's capital Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2003. Elections authorities announced yesterday that from Oct. 15 through Dec. 19 registration booths will be set up at subway entrances and public schools so that people can register to vote for a possible upcoming referendum of President Hugo Chavez, as well as governors and mayors. (AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch)
Venezuela's Chavez accused of financing terrorism***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 Columbia'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 Columbia, 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.***
California recall tame compared with Venezuela's*** Caracas, Venezuela -- The political struggle to remove Venezuela's flamboyant leftist President Hugo Chavez makes California's recall election look like a simple civics lesson.
Unlike Gov. Gray Davis, Chavez, a former army officer who first won the presidency in 1998, has plenty of tricks up his sleeve to stall and even derail the process.
Vanessa Roca, a 31-year-old secretary from the eastern state of Monagas, says she lost her job at a state-owned transport company after signing a petition calling for a recall referendum to remove Chavez from office. She traveled seven hours by bus to ask officials at the National Electoral Commission (CNE) to remove her name from the petition.
"A friend who had the same thing happen to him told me this might help me get my job back," she said. "I understand it happened to a lot of us."
As the Chavez government tries to remain in office, state employees and students who signed the petition, or who are suspected of sympathizing with the political opposition, are being purged from jobs, internships and grants, according to dozens of interviews with trade unionists, students, state workers, lawyers and human rights activists.
And in an effort to discredit the recall movement, state workers whose names appear on the petition are being encouraged by the government to sign legal complaints alleging that their signatures were forged.
Former President Carlos Andres Perez predicts Chavez "will not have a peaceful exit" and will be forced out of office if he refuses to accept the recall vote. "Violence is bad, and we don't promote it," he recently told Colombia's daily newspaper, El Tiempo, "but no other option is possible." ***
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez points to journalist during a press conference in Caracas, October 1, 2003. Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday that oil cartel OPEC needed to raise its target oil price band from its current $22-28 a barrel range. OPEC had discussed raising the preferred price band to between $25 to $32 a barrel. REUTERS/Jorge Silva