Venezuela: The
Next Cuba
Paul Crespo. Townhall.com,
March 6, 2004.
There is no doubt that Chavez - with Fidel
Castro's help -- is creating a Cuban-style
socialist state in Venezuela. Scholar Maxwell
Cameron calls it the world's first "slow-motion
constitutional coup." In the process,
Chavez also is breathing new life into Fidel
Castro's dying and decrepit dictatorship.
But what's even more worrisome is the fact
that the mercurial Chavez is turning the
large, oil rich country into a base for
international terrorism.
Sadly, not many people recognize this threat.
In my July 2003 American Legion Magazine
article -- The Other "Axis of Evil"
I described the dangerous and growing alliance
between Latin America's two major anti-American
rogue states and international terror groups
operating throughout the hemisphere.
Focusing on the close and burgeoning partnership
between Castro and Chavez, I explored the
links both Castro and his new Caracas-based
clone have with Latin American communist
guerillas, drug dealers and Islamic terrorists.
Referring to Castro as an anti-American
godfather, "increasingly advising his
new alter-ego in Venezuela..." I wrote
that Chavez, "with Castro's direction
and support - may be turning Venezuela into
a new anti-American terrorism hub."
Noting Castro's long history of subversion,
espionage and terrorism -- including the
October 2001 arrest in Washington, DC of
Cuban spy Ana Belen Montes, the former senior
Cuba analyst at the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA) -- my article highlighted Castro's
continuing threat to the US. Cuba remains
on the US State Department list of state
sponsors of terrorism. Chavez and Castro
are intimately linked, meeting and talking
regularly. Chavez has said Cuba and Venezuela
are, in effect, "one team."
The partnership is so close that Venezuela's
intelligence and security service, known
as DISIP, reportedly has come under control
of the Cuban intelligence service, the DGI.
Because of this, US intelligence agencies
have ended their longstanding liaison relationships
with their Venezuelan counterparts. Hundreds
of Cuban advisors, coordinated by Cuba's
military attaché in Caracas, are
also in charge of the elite presidential
guard who defend Chavez against potential
coups or military unrest.
Meanwhile, Chavez has purged and is reorganizing
the Venezuelan military, making it personally
loyal to him. Thousands of Cuban "teachers,
doctors and sports trainers" also have
flooded Venezuela. Their real job is to
indoctrinate and train fanatically pro-Chavez
paramilitary groups known as "Bolivarian
Circles" that are part of a new 100,000-person
People's Reserve militia recruited from
Venezuela's poorest classes. These groups
provide alternative armed cadres outside
regular military channels loyal to Chavez.
While most of the mainstream media have
ignored this growing menace, one major news
magazine, US News and World Report, followed
my piece with an in-depth investigative
report in October 2003, Terror Close to
Home: In Venezuela, a volatile leader befriends
Mideast, Colombia and Cuba, confirming my
exposition and clearly detailing the danger
of Chavez's links to Castro and terrorism.
The weekly newsmagazine said that its two-month
review, "including interviews with
dozens of US and Latin American sources,
confirms the terrorist activity," adding
that "the oil-rich but politically
unstable nation of Venezuela is emerging
as a potential hub of terrorism in the Western
Hemisphere, providing assistance to Islamic
radicals from the Middle East and other
terrorists."
Most prominent in Venezuela's list of friendly
terror groups are the communist FARC guerillas
(Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces) who
have terrorized Colombia for over 30 years
and have killed thousands of people. Gen.
Gary Speer, former acting chief of America's
Southern Command, said during a Senate Armed
Services committee hearing in March 2002
that "we are very concerned about President
Chavez ... the FARC operates at will across
the border into Venezuela."
"There are arms shipments originating
in Venezuela that get to the FARC and the
ELN [National Liberation Army]," he
added. "We have been unable to firmly
establish a link to the Chavez government,
but it certainly causes us suspicions. The
company that Chavez keeps around the world,
although under the guise of OPEC, certainly
causes additional concerns as well."
The US News piece details the exact location
of FARC camps inside Venezuela where Venezuelan
military advisors reportedly train FARC
guerillas.
Sadly, Democratic presidential hopeful
John Kerry stated in a February speech in
Boston that the murderous FARC guerillas
had "legitimate complaints" despite
the fact that they have the support of less
than three percent of Colombia's citizenry.
Chavez's links to Middle East terrorists
may be more indirect but US officials note
that Venezuela is providing support--including
identity documents--that could prove useful
to radical Islamic groups. U.S. News noted
that Chavez's government has issued thousands
of "cedulas," the equivalent of
national ID cards, to people from Cuba,
Colombia, and Middle Eastern 'countries
of interest' like Syria, Egypt, Pakistan
and Lebanon that host foreign terrorist
organizations.
According to US News, some of these cedulas
were subsequently used to obtain Venezuelan
passports and even American visas, "which
could allow the holder to elude immigration
checks and enter the United States."
Chavez also was the only western leader
to travel to Iraq to visit Saddam Hussein
prior to his ouster by the US.
This article provoked an outcry from Chavez
and his henchmen. The Venezuelan ambassador
to the US, Alvarez Herrera, wrote an angry
letter to the editor of US News deriding
the article's accusations as "false"
and "outrageous."
The ambassador then tried to counter the
magazine's first-hand evidence by stating
unconvincingly that "the government
of Venezuela has ratified the Inter-American
Convention Against Terrorism...and has signed
multiple UN conventions on terrorism."
Yet, the signature of this anti-democratic
leftist demagogue on any international treaty
hadly confirms his peaceful and lawful intent.
An indignant Chavez also told foreign reporters
"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."
Chavez added that, "It is a strategy,
to launch an offensive by concocting anything
-- an assassination, a coup, an invasion."
As a diversion from his terror links, Chavez
has begun claiming loudly, and without any
substantiation, that the CIA is trying kill
him.
Much of the problem with our reaction to
Chavez began with former US Ambassador to
Venezuela, John Maisto who I briefly served
as a military attaché at the US embassy
in Caracas. His soft approach to the leftist
demagogue was clearly flawed. Early on in
Chavez's administration, the U.S. ambassador
downplayed the Chavez threat, stating that
it was Chavez's actions, not words that
really mattered.
Other Clinton administration officials
echoed that sentiment and said that we should
ignore Chavez's rhetoric. That approach
became informally known as the "Maisto
doctrine." Yet, Chavez's actions inexorably
have matched his rhetoric.
Despite his failure to appreciate the menace
of a Chavez-Castro alliance, Maisto was
inexplicably picked by the Bush administration
to head - until recently -- the Western
Hemisphere Affairs section at the National
Security Council. He is still influencing
Latin America policy as US Ambassador to
the Organization of American States.
Fortunately, other members of Bush's National
Security team such as Presidential Envoy
to Latin America, Otto Reich and Assistant
Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere
Roger Noriega do seem to understand the
threat posed by the Chavez-Castro terror
nexus.
Given the mischief Castro and Chavez are
pursuing, Uncle Sam has his hands full dealing
with the two dangers on either end of the
Caribbean.
Paul Crespo is a former Marine Corps Officer
and military attache at the US embassy in
Caracas. An adjunct faculty member in the
Political Science Departmnent at the University
of Miami, he is also a Senior Fellow with
the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
in Washington, DC. This article first appeared
in www.FrontPageMag.com.
©2004 Paul Crespo
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