Posted on 12/28/2002 2:13:42 PM PST by shanec
Gold Reserves Looted from Venezuela's Central Bank
| Uncertainty over the whereabouts of Venezuela's national gold reserves and who controls them. |
Want to know if Venezuela still has any gold reserves left? Then don't look for it in the country's Central Bank anymore. Central Bank (BCV) gold reserves have been trucked to the Caracas Fuerte Tiuna army garrison under armed escort by loyalist military officers who support strongman Hugo Chavez in his refusal to allow free and democratic elections.
Garrison commander Jorge Luis Garcia Carneiro, a military officer still loyal to Chavez, has refused to give precise figures of how much gold his men took. He claims, however, that at least ten metric tonnes (321,500 troy ounces) of gold bullion currently remain his heavily-armed 24/7 control in Fuerte Tiuna, and that the order to remove it from the Central Bank came directly from Hugo Chavez himself.
The lack of precise numbers makes it difficult or impossible for independent controllers to verify the government's accounting if the gold is ever returned.
Immediately when the gold was moved to Fuerte Tiuna, Hugo Chavez and three of his cabinet ministers also moved there, and now sleep permanently in lodgings in the Circulo Militar, within the protected perimeters of the garrison.
International credit rating agencies are now expected to downgrade Venezuela once again, as chaos in the Central Bank and the uncertainty of the country's gold reserves reveal the true state of affairs in the country's increasingly desperate Chavez government.
Preliminary data released Dec 27 2002 by the Venezuelan Central Bank showed that the country's economy contracted by an estimated 10 percent to 12 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002, the largest quarterly drop in the past 50 years.
Terror Threat from Venezuela: Al Queda Involved
Chavez bio-weapons lab in Venezuela for Saddam and Castro
-Shane
Hugo Chavez is a communist dictator with ties to Fidel Castro. Start there...
Next stop (for the gold and Chavez)..., HAVANA and a very well endowed retirement in exile!
Is Chavez right in doing what he is doing?
He's clearly acting UNconstitutionally, is openly proclaiming desire to put country onto road of becoming another Cuba and also violently repressing media and critics along the way. Many of the Opposition to Chavez marchers banners below carry similar themes of "NO CUBA HERE!"
Do the unions need to be broken?
The protestors here include the management, too. Very broad spectrum of population from housewives to blue collar, white collar and even now many of the less well off who have tired of Chavez empty promises and rhetoric for five years and are in worse shape now since before he arrived. See my on the ground report from there earlier this month here Freeper Reports from Ground Zero Venezuela...
Is he trying to stay on forever?
Yes, in a word, dictator for life.
I'm a little dark on internal Venezuelan politics.
Good starting point is understanding that attitude-wise, we could hope here in the USA for no better allies than the Venezuelan people. According to the just published 2002 Global Attitudes Survey by the Pew Research Center in Washington; 82% have a favorable opinion of the USA, and that is amongst the highest ratings of all the 44 countries surveyed. And, in regard to supporting the US led war on terrorism, 79% favor it while only 20% oppose it!
Bottom line, like us, if we had here a dictator who wanted to make another Cuba out of our beloved country and was clearly and openly acting UNconstitutionally to do so, we'd get rid of him. The people there have had enough and want him to go, but the legal process methods to remove him have been neutralized and subverted by Chavez, so the whole country is on strike to help him change his mind until he does. More background can be found at the above links.
-Shane
-Shane
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