Cubans fill the DISIP.
Posted on 05/15/2004 11:44:23 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
CARACAS - The many bizarre aspects of the recent arrests of some 80 alleged Colombian mercenaries accused of plotting to kill President Hugo Chávez have sparked deep skepticism and worry among many Venezuelans and foreign diplomats.
The concern is that the leftist Chávez will use the case as an excuse to crack down on his nonviolent opponents or block an ongoing attempt to force a recall referendum on his rule.
''I have no doubt at all that this is an invention of the government,'' said former Foreign Minister Simón Alberto Consalvi, part of the opposition that accuses Chávez of leading the nation into economic ruin and political crisis.
''Nobody believes Chávez. . . . But it's no good just calling him crazy,'' said a foreign diplomat who asked for anonymity. ``You have to pay attention. Everything seems to indicate an imminent curtailing of civil rights.''
By Friday, the number of arrests in the case had risen to 114 and Chávez had turned it into an international brouhaha, accusing Washington, the military in neighboring Colombia, Venezuelan exiles in Miami and opponents at home of plotting against his democratically elected government.
The peculiar story began to unfold around 10:30 p.m. last Saturday, when a woman called Caracas Metropolitan Police to report the hijacking of two city buses.
FACE TO FACE
Police commander Luis Hernández Valera said the woman guided three police cars to a thickly wooded suburb where they found the buses -- packed with about 50 young men wearing Venezuelan army uniforms.
A man in a flak jacket emerged from one bus, armed with a 9mm pistol and claiming to be a Venezuelan officer. Hernández told The Herald he was not convinced when he arrived on the scene because the man spoke with a Colombian accent.
''Suddenly, he drew his pistol and stuck it in my face,'' Hernández said. ``I drew mine, too, and stuck it in his face. We stayed like that, in silence, staring at each other for several minutes.''
After half an hour's tense standoff, a truce was agreed, and the police called more security forces, who detained all the suspects.
A few hours later, during his regular Sunday TV and radio show, Hello, President, Chávez announced the dismantling of a plot to kill him by Colombian ''paramilitaries'' -- who in their country fight an often brutal war against leftist guerrillas -- hired by his Venezuelan opponents.
But by that time, the questioning of the suspects had barely begun.
Chávez later claimed that his intelligence agencies had had the ''paramilitaries'' under surveillance for several months. But it was three hours after Hernández's confrontation when agents from Chávez's main security agency, the DISIP, got to the site.
The conspiracy, according to Venezuela's ambassador to the Organization of American States, Jorge Valero, was breathtaking in its dimensions.
Not only did the plotters plan to kill Chávez, said Valero, they proposed to hijack air force jets to bomb the presidential palace ``in support of a military operation which would include an air and sea blockade of Venezuela, with the participation of international forces.''
No weapons other than the 9mm pistol have been found anywhere. Nor has the government presented any evidence of links between the Colombians and any opposition leaders, although 12 active and retired Venezuelan military officers have been detained.
The U.S. and Colombian governments have denied advance knowledge of the case.
The government has claimed that the alleged paramilitaries had been training for more than a month on land surrounding the Finca Daktari, a dilapidated farm close to where the buses were intercepted.
The property belongs to Robert Alonso, a Cuban Venezuelan and hard-line anti-Chávez activist. Now in hiding, Alonso says the property has been abandoned for about a year and denies any involvement in the alleged plot.
Near the farm's rundown yellow main house are a dozen or so small metal huts, with pale blue, corrugated-iron roofs, used in the past by campers and Boy Scouts.
EMPTY NO LONGER
Sissi Ibarra, 35, a pastry chef and Jehovah's Witness who lives nearby, told The Herald that she knocked on all the doors at the Daktari less than a month ago, looking for converts. ''The huts were all empty,'' she recalled.
Reporters who visited the property earlier this week saw four trays of ham-filled pastries, other foodstuffs and several foam rubber pads, presumably used as mattresses.
Notable for their absence were items of personal hygiene such as toilet paper, toothpaste and soap, or any evidence of a change of clothes or laundry facilities.
Doubts have also begun to emerge about the true identity of the arrested Colombians.
Initially painted by Chávez as bloodthirsty killers, ready to ''murder old people and children,'' only one so far has turned out to have a criminal record, according to the Colombian government.
BACKS OFF CLAIMS
Chávez conceded at a news conference Friday that many of the Colombians had been deceived by their recruiters but insisted they were led by five paramilitary veterans, three of whom are in custody. He identified their top leader as José Ernesto Ayala and claimed he was linked to a paramilitary unit operating in the Colombian department of Norte de Santander.
Chávez also acknowledged that the group ''would hardly have been able to overthrow the government,'' and backed away from his allegations against the U.S. and Colombian governments but insisted that unidentified persons in Miami were involved.
Reports in the Colombian media have quoted relatives in the border town of Cúcuta as saying their sons and brothers were simply peasants or unskilled workers who were offered jobs in Venezuela.
One of the detainees who gave his name as Claudio told reporters Thursday that the men were ''all peasants, and we were offered agricultural and textile jobs'' in Venezuela.
''The commanders told us we'd get identity documents to vote for Chávez,'' he said during a hasty chat after he surrendered to police.
Cubans fill the DISIP.
Actually, somebody probably stumbled across one of Chavez' FARC support groups in the process of recruitment and training. Unless their commander had expected to get off once the situation was explained, he wouldn't have let a couple of officers "confront" him and live to tell about it.
But Chavez, ever the clever little bunny, not only knew how to cover his tracks, but how to use it to his advantage by building the big lie.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.