AP Photo: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez greets his supporters after voting during the local elections at a...
Posted on 08/07/2005 4:13:09 PM PDT by dila813
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of using its agents for espionage, and said Venezuela was suspending cooperation with the U.S. agency.
Chavez, who regularly accuses the U.S. government of plotting against him, said "the DEA isn't absolutely necessary for the fight against drug trafficking."
U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield said last week that the United States had hoped to maintain cooperative anti-drug efforts in Venezuela, and that without them "there is only one group that wins, and that group is the drug traffickers."
But Chavez maintains that the DEA has been using the fight against drugs as a pretext to gather intelligence on Venezuela.
"The DEA was using the fight against drug trafficking as a mask, to support drug trafficking, to carry out intelligence in Venezuela against the government," Chavez said.
"Under those circumstances we decided to make a clean break with those accords, and we are reviewing them," Chavez said, referring to the cooperative agreements under which the DEA has operated in the South American country.
Prosecutors last month opened an investigation into the DEA in Venezuela.
"We have detected intelligence infiltration that threatened national security and defense," Chavez said.
He acknowledged that Venezuela is a major transit point for cocaine moving from Colombia to the United States and Europe. But he said Venezuela's own armed forces have made important advances against trafficking.
As for the DEA, he said specifics of his government's decisions will be announced soon. Chavez's comments were the most specific to date on the accusations against the DEA.
Chavez criticized U.S. policy on drugs, saying that while the United States is the world's top consumer of drugs, its government does little to try to lessen consumption.
He also criticized theCIA andFBI of not doing enough to catch major drug kingpins in the United States. "How strange they don't find them," he said.
The relations between Venezuela and the United States have been marked by tension during Chavez's more than six years in power. Chavez accuses the U.S. government of backing a brief coup against him in 2002, while U.S. officials have dismissed such accusations as ridiculous.
Despite frequent harsh words between the governments, Venezuela remains a major supplier of oil to the United States.
His clock is ticking ---
"Chavez accuses the U.S. government of backing a brief coup against him in 2002, while U.S. officials have dismissed such accusations as ridiculous."
Anyone who doubts the US would support anything to get rid of an emotionally disturbed megalmaniac like this one is delusional. One us diplomat was quoted as saying he has been in 'confrontation mode his entire adult life,' which is a terrible psychological profile for anything other than a despot, and bodes ill for continued relations with the US.
Obviously he is building up to the point where he stops selling oil/petro to the US. I don't know to what degree his unwillingness to do so to this point is economic or political.
Chavez sees himself as the modern-day Simon Bolivar. He wants power way beyond the borders of Venezuela.
The phrase "Lying sack of bovine excrement" immediately popped into my mind when I read these sentences. We really really need to get a major nuclear power program going in this country and cut the financial rug out from under these two bit dictators.
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