US may have taken part in failed attempt to oust Chavez - Carter

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

US may have taken part in failed attempt to oust Chavez - Carter
AFP
Monday, September 21, 2009

BOGOTA, Colombia (AFP) - The United States knew about an abortive coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002, and may even have taken part, former US president Jimmy Carter has told a Colombian newspaper.

"I think there is no doubt that in 2002, the United States had at the very least full knowledge about the coup, and could even have been directly involved," Carter said in an interview with El Tiempo published yesterday. The former US leader said it is understandable that Chavez continues to blame the United States for the failed overthrow attempt.

The Venezuelan president, considered a bulwark of leftism in Latin America, was overthrown by a civilian-military junta for about 48 hours in April 2002, before returning to power.

Then-president George W Bush denied any US involvement in the abortive coup and called on Chavez, a fierce US critic, to "learn a lesson" from the attempted overthrow.

Carter told El Tiempo that he believed Chavez was elected in a "fair" vote in 1999, had carried out necessary reforms for Venezuela and ensured that "those who are traditionally excluded are able to get a larger share of the national wealth."


Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20090920T190000-0500_160058_OBS_US_MAY_HAVE_TAKEN_PART_IN_FAILED_ATTEMPT_TO_OUST_CHAVEZ___CARTER.asp

[Ian David]

1. Jimmy Carter = Captain Obvious. n/t

[LaPera]

8. Not to many here at DU - These stupid fucks want to always believe republican propaganda that they

are fed about Chavez weekly....If it's anti Chavez.....the CIA, republicans and if the corporate AP feeds it to them though their corporate media sources they'll believe every word....The IMF World Bank, Bush, Republicans, CIA, neocons & fascist these are the assholes all actively trying to destroy Chavez socialism....Chavez was elected with 68% of the vote....Now he's being undermined, subverted by the right-wing Venezuelan wealthy along with all the usual slimy right-wing American organizations who want Chavez overthrown so they can have the oil, the cheap labor, agriculture, tourism for themselves, as well as controlling the rest of Latin America, keeping the people uneducated, poor & peasants workers while the CIA corporate republican right-wing have installed their puppet dictators for decades.

[Hulk]

2. Surprise, surprise.

I would be MORE SURPRISED if we had nothing to do with it. Would probably be A FIRST!

[Webster Green]

3. Duh!

I thought everyone knew that already. I'm sure we still have black-ops mutherfuckers working out of Columbia to overthrow Hugo. :think:

[catzies]

4. Wrong Bush. It wasn't *, it was Poppy. He was there in Venezuela days before the coup.

:hide:

[Mosaic]

5. Carter's a bit behind the times.

This news has been out for years.

[EFerrari]

6. But the consession has not, that's why Carter's statement matters.

And that's why the AP tried to spin it into a slam at Chavez as JackRiddler pointed out on another thread.

[Wilms]

7. The Associated Press hates Venezuelans for their enfranchisement. n/t

[endarkenment]

18. Our government denies all involvement.

'this news' may have been out for years, but the right piles on the disinformation, and many fall for it.

[Joanne98]

9. DUH

[harmonicon]

10. +1

I guess maybe this is the first time someone "important" has admitted it though.

[pampango]

11. Who's side is Carter on at DU? Pro- or anti-Chavez?

First he warns that Chavez is becoming authoritarian and gets blasted by pro-Chavez DU'ers. Then he shares his belief that the US participated in the coup to oust Chavez and he gets blasted by the anti-Chavez folks.

I wonder if Carter's head is spinning from his quick trips from speaker of the truth to useless tool and back again. Does anyone accept both Carter takes (authoritarian drift and coup details) or reject them both?

[Kolesar]

12. useless tool? Give us a break already,...eom

`

[pattmarty]

17. Why can't you accept both? Odds are that we were involved in the coup...............

...............especially with our history in South America, and a number of legitimate human rights organizations have questions about some of Chavez' recent deals and rulings. Personally I think he is generally good for South America as long as he doesn't make himself into supreme leader/dictator.

[endarkenment]

19. How exactly are those mutually exclusive?

Oh wait, I see, you think it is all mindless cheerleading and everyone just takes sides and only supports their side. Carter doesn't do cheerleading.

[fascisthunter]

20. it's amazing what you will say in order to argue against Chavez

or anyone who states the facts regarding Venezuela or Chavez.

[JI7]

30. hahha, that's like the wingnuts saying you support Saddam if you oppose Iraq war

[tavalon]

13. Duh?

We knew that. It was very clear. Do we at DU just possess better glasses or are we just better informed. I vote for the latter.

[ingac70]

14. Tell me something I don't know, Jimmy! n/t

[lib2DaBone]

15. They tried to kill him not once, but twice. Old news

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Venezuelan_coup_d'%C3%A9tat_attempt

[pattmarty]

16. After WWII the ONLY governments we supported were right wing.............

..............Name me just ONE left leaning government we supported during that time. Ok, I'll wait......................

[Peace Patriot]

21. I'm glad to hear that Carter is now engaged with the issue of US/Venezuelan relations

because this may help to avert what appears to me to be a Bushwhack-designed oil war in South America--a war plan that seems to be keep moving forward of its own momentum, that I don't know if Obama agrees with or perhaps doesn't have sufficient power yet to dismantle. Obama's stated policy is peace, respect and cooperation in Latin America. The next thing we hear is that US client state, Honduras, has suffered a fascist military coup and the US is establishing seven new US military bases in Colombia--a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth, which is adjacent to Venezuela's major oil region and which has received $6 BILLION in US military funding. WTF?

Carter is clearly a man of peace, and his Carter Center has done much to help create honest, transparent elections in Latin America. His involvement is a good sign. I'm not sure what to make of his contradictory position on Chavez. On the one hand, he acknowledges that the US tried to overthrow Chavez who was fairly elected. On the other, he says that it's Chavez's fault that US/Venezuela relations are still bad. ( "...international relations would be better if he would stop his attacks and insults against the United States."). President Obama was first with the insults, as those who follow Latin American news are well aware. He took the time out during his very inauguration week to criticize Chavez as a "negative influence on the region," in an interview with Univsion (corpo/fascist 'news' outlet) and had called him a "demagogue" during the campaign, while Chavez stood down, lips zipped, hoping for a change in US policy. The message to Chavez (as well as to the people of Venezuela and to Chavez's many friends and allies in the region) was "same old same old," followed by more such rhetoric from Clinton and others, and the US military buildup in Colombia, and other bad signs such as the Obama administration's very slow response to the Honduran coup.

Possibly Carter is trying to walk a tightrope between the two sides, giving points to one and to the other. I don't agree with him that Chavez is "increasingly authoritarian" and I think that that is very unfortunate language for him to use, considering the goddamn lie that our government and the corpo/fascist media have perpetrated that Chavez is a "dictator." I also think that it is a wrong-end-of-the-telescope view to blame Chavez for 'attacks' and 'insults' against the US. The US has been relentless in its psyops/disinformation against Chavez, not to mention its plotting against Venezuela democracy, and funding of rightwing groups.

Carter acknowledges some facts that have been fiercely suppressed here--that Chavez was fairly elected, that he has done good in Venezuela and that the US tried to overthrow his elected government. Carter then sort of contradicts this dose of reality by the other things he says. Perhaps the most important item in the article is this: "Carter said US President Barack Obama had told him he would eventually like to have normal relations with Venezuela." Has he been asked to mediate? Sometimes mediations are preceded by agreed upon public rhetoric by which both sides are able to save face and then start negotiating. This article has that feel to it.

[bertman]

22. Great rant, Peace Patriot. I don't know how to interpret the "increasingly authoritarian"

comment because it may be a fabrication, but it may be true. Unfortunately, those leaders who face increasing threats against them or their government often resort to more authoritarian postures as a protective mechanism. This is a historical fact and is certainly one reason the CIA and Big Oil are constantly trying to undermine him.

For now, I'm weighing the good things that Chavez has done for those in Venezuela and the Southern Hemisphere against the possibility that he is becoming more autocratic, and I'm finding him a net positive. Compared to having a pro-Corporate leader he's absolutely the best choice.

[Solly Mack]

23. K&R

[midnight]

24. Chavez gave Obama a copy of a book when they meet last spring.

In front of photographers, Chavez gave Obama a copy of "The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent," a book by Eduardo Galeano, which chronicles U.S. and European economic and political interference in the region.






Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/18/chavez-gives-obama-a-book_n_188582.html

[fascisthunter]

28. brilliant

[Judi Lynn]

25. An article regarding US involvement published in 2002: Venezuela coup linked to Bush team

Venezuela coup linked to Bush team
Specialists in the 'dirty wars' of the Eighties encouraged the plotters who tried to topple President Chavez
Ed Vulliamy in New York
The Observer, Sunday 21 April 2002 14.30 BST

The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the 'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time.
Washington's involvement in the turbulent events that briefly removed left-wing leader Hugo Chavez from power last weekend resurrects fears about US ambitions in the hemisphere.

It also also deepens doubts about policy in the region being made by appointees to the Bush administration, all of whom owe their careers to serving in the dirty wars under President Reagan.

One of them, Elliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair.

The Bush administration has tried to distance itself from the coup. It immediately endorsed the new government under businessman Pedro Carmona. But the coup was sent dramatically into reverse after 48 hours.

Now officials at the Organisation of American States and other diplomatic sources, talking to The Observer, assert that the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success.

The visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona himself, began, say sources, 'several months ago', and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich.

Reich is a right-wing Cuban-American who, under Reagan, ran the Office for Public Diplomacy. It reported in theory to the State Department, but Reich was shown by congressional investigations to report directly to Reagan's National Security Aide, Colonel Oliver North, in the White House.

North was convicted and shamed for his role in Iran-Contra, whereby arms bought by busting US sanctions on Iran were sold to the Contra guerrillas and death squads, in revolt against the Marxist government in Nicaragua.

Reich also has close ties to Venezuela, having been made ambassador to Caracas in 1986. His appointment was contested both by Democrats in Washington and political leaders in the Latin American country. The objections were overridden as Venezuela sought access to the US oil market.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/21/usa.venezuela

[Wilms]

31. Wonderful post. An education for the oblivious DU NeoCons

For extra-credit, I recommend they read up on Elliot Abrams.

~snip~

El Salvador

In early 1982, when reports of the El Mozote massacre of civilians by the military in El Salvador began appearing in U.S. media, Abrams told a Senate committee that the reports of hundreds of deaths at El Mozote "were not credible," and that "it appears to be an incident that is at least being significantly misused, at the very best, by the guerrillas."<9> The massacre had come at a time when the Reagan administration was attempting to bolster the human rights image of the Salvadoran military. Abrams implied that reports of a massacre were simply FMLN propaganda and denounced US investigative reports of the massacre as misleading. In March 1993, the Salvadoran Truth Commission reported that 5000 civilians were "deliberately and systematically" executed in El Mozote in December 1981 by forces affiliated with the Salvadoran state.<10> Also in 1993, documentation emerged suggesting that some Reagan administration officials could have known about El Mozote and other human rights violations from the beginning.<11> However, in July 1993, an investigation commissioned by Clinton Secretary of State Warren Christopher into the State department's "activities and conduct" with regard to human rights in El Salvador during the Reagan years found that, despite the department's mistakes handling El Mozote, its personnel "performed creditably and occasionally with personal bravery in advancing human rights in El Salvador".<12> Abrams himself claimed that Washington's policy in El Salvador was a "fabulous achievement."<13>


Nicaragua

When Congress shut down funding for the Contras' efforts to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government with the 1982 Boland Amendment, the Reagan administration began looking for other avenues for funding the group.<14> Congress opened a couple of such avenues when it modified the Boland Amendment for fiscal year 1986 by approving $27 million in direct aid to the Contras and allowing the administration to legally solicit funds for the Contras from foreign governments.<15> Neither the direct aid, nor any foreign contributions, could be used to purchase weapons.<16> Guided by the new provisions of the modified Boland Amendment, Abrams flew to London in August 1986 and met secretly with Bruneian defense minister General Ibnu to solicit a $10-million contribution from the Sultan of Brunei.<17><18> Ultimately, the Contras never received this money because a clerical error in Oliver North's office (a mistyped account number) sent the Bruneian money to the wrong Swiss bank account.<19>


Iran-Contra affair

During investigation of the Iran-Contra Affair, the special prosecutor handling the case prepared multiple felony counts against Abrams but never indicted him.<20> Instead, Abrams entered into a plea agreement that ultimately led to a conviction without imprisonment on two misdemeanors of withholding information from Congress.<21> He was fined $50, placed on probation for two years, and assigned 100 hours of community service. Abrams was pardoned by President George H. W. Bush as he was leaving office following his loss in the 1992 U.S. presidential election.

~snip~

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_Abrams

[IsItJustMe]

32. The old school, "It's the commies fault" way of thinking is very entrenched in our society, even to

some folk that consider themselves enlightened.

[Judi Lynn]

33. Someone writing Eliot Abrams' biography would have to stop from time to time to vomit.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/abrams_cheney.jpg

Republicans don't respect anyone below the Southern border of
the United States. Eliot Abrams & Cheney, sharing a smug laugh.

http://www.markdanner.com.nyud.net:8090/images/harvard3.png http://www2.soros.org.nyud.net:8090/resources/events/mw7/lingergasiglia/9.jpg

Relatives of the tortured, murdered citizens of El Mozote,
El Salvador, carring remains from the mass grave for reburial.



http://blogfile.paran.com.nyud.net:8090/BLOG_943749/200902/1233989080_737981.jpg http://blogfile.paran.com.nyud.net:8090/BLOG_943749/200902/1233989080_737985.jpg http://blogfile.paran.com.nyud.net:8090/BLOG_943749/200902/1233989080_737997.jpg

The newly created BIRIAs(Batallones de Infantería de Reacción Inmediata) were a part of the government's war efforts. The first of them, "Atlacatl(named after the famous Indio chief who resisted the Conquistadors)" was created in 1980, then shipped to Fort Bragg for training. It was trained by US Special Forces and members of the 2nd Bn, 505th PIR, 82nd Airborne. Batallon Atlacatl would be responsible for some of the gravest human rights abuses during the civil war, including the El Mozote massacre.

More images in this thread:
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=151086goto=newpost

El Mozote:

~snip~
In the late afternoon on Friday December 10, 1981, Salvadoran soldiers from the Atlacatl Battalion entered the community of El Mozote and forced its residents to lie down in the central plaza, their faces in the street. The soldiers threatened, beat, harassed, and robbed those people for about an hour, before ordering them into their houses for the night (Binford 1996:18-19). At around eight o’clock the next morning, the soldiers once again roused their captives out into the plaza where they were forced to stand for several hours. The soldiers then divided them into two groups: “the men and older boys were driven into the church, while the women, girls, and young children of both sexes were interned in the vacant home of Alfredo Marquez, a local merchant who had left town” (Binford 1996:20). For the next eight hours, several hundred men and boys were executed by bayonet and M-16. The women, girls, and children suffered a similar fate:

About midday, Altacatl troops arrived at the Alfredo Marquez house, selected out older girls and young women, and forced them to walk up the wooded hillsides of Cerro Cruz and Cerro Chingo, where they repeatedly raped them over the course of the next twelve to eighteen hours and then murdered them. Some were shot; others may have been stabbed or strangled. Late in the afternoon the soldiers began to remove the remainder of the adult women in groups of about twenty, followed by the older women, and lastly the children. Not a living soul was to be allowed to escape, although at least one did (Binford 1996:21).

All told, on the three days from December 11-13, more than one thousand people in northern Morazan, El Salvador, were summarily murdered by the Altacatl Battalion. As Leigh Binford writes, “s many as half of the victims were murdered at El Mozote on 11 December” (Binford 1996:3).

News of the tragic events was brought to public attention by Raymond Bonner of the New York Times and Alma Guillermoprieto of the Washington Post on January 27, 1982 (Binford 1996:50). Bonner, along with American photojournalist Susan Meiselas, had reached El Mozote on January 6, three days after crossing into El Salvador from Honduras. “By the time Bonner and Meiselas arrived in the region in early January,”writes Binford, “most of the bodies of the victims had either been buried either by FLMN health teams, which feared the outbreak of an epidemic, or by survivors who had avoided the soldiers by hiding among the brush and steep ravines that dot the area” (1996:50). Guillermoprieto, following the same route as Bonner and Meiselas, arrived more than a week later. The publication of the two front page reports resulted in public outrage that was, as Binford puts it, “intense but short lived” (1996:50).

By March 1982, the Massacre at El Mozote had lost its appeal among the international press, being just one of many cases of violence on El Salvador which could not be confirmed either by members of the US embassy in El Salvador, or the State Department. Binford breaks down the reportage on the event (1996:3-4):

-In 1982, 32 articles mentioned the massacre (but only 2 were published between April and December).

-From 1983-1989, “El Mozote” was mentioned fifteen times in major US and Canadian newspapers.

-From 1990-91, El Mozote was cited 18 times.

-In 1992, after the Peace Accords between the FLMN and the Salvadoran government paved the way for forensic work which corroborated the atrocities, it was cited 88 times.

-And in 1993, after the publication of the United Nations Truth Commission Report, the citations jumped to 114.

That totals 267 articles over a twelve year period, with the vast majority occurring in clustered “newsworthy” blocks. Binford contends that “The coverage of El Mozote shows us that for journalists, no less than for most people in the West, the daily lives of billions of people in the rest of the world do not exist outside the parameters of crisis or scandal” (Binford 1996:4). He continues to argue that, in general, the Western viewing public is only concerned with events that are “spectacular” events which often entail a “massive loss of life” (Binford 1996:4). These media events are, however, fairly short-lived, and are only top news until the next disaster strikes.

The United States government, and certainly the Salvadoran government, had their respective reasons for wanting the issue to disappear. Amidst Cold War rhetoric, the US government represented “the Salvadoran military as the only bulwark against a communist takeover in El Salvador” (Binford 1996:60). The Massacre at El Mozote was investigated on those grounds; the victims were often portrayed as nothing more than leftist sympathizers and collaborators who were caught in the crossfire of the civil war. The actual evidence didn’t really matter, as it was denied or effaced repeatedly by US officials. A US embassy report simply claimed that accounts of the atrocities could not be verified (Binford 1996:55-66), and focused its energies instead on “arguing about methodologies and asserting objectivity rather than focusing on the issues” (Binford 1996:58). As Binford makes clear, US officials repeatedly privileged Salvadoran military testimonies, and dismissed all other accounts of the events at El Mozote. Journalist Mark Danner, who thoroughly researched the embassy report and wrote extensively about El Mozote, asserted that “officials made active use of the obstacles to finding out the truth” during the investigation (Binford 1996:59; Danner 1993: 107-108; 1994:113). The Us government, then, served to uphold the powerful oligarchy which controlled El Salvador, which of course had no intention of searching for any “truths” about El Mozote.

Human rights organizations, throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, pursued those truths as much as anyone. Binford, while praising the efforts and motives of many human rights groups, is ultimately critical of many of their methods. He writes that they “perform admirable work under difficult, often dangerous, circumstances. They make available to both researchers and the general public detailed knowledge of human rights violations” (Binford 1996:7). However, Binford argues that the abstract humanism” of many human rights organizations simply serves to characterize the “Third World” as a monolithic mass of poor, helpless victims in contrast to struggling, unique westerners. This discourse, he continues, only ultimately devalues the lives of those Third World Others in the minds of western audiences who are the targets audiences of human rights organizations (Binford 1996:6-7).

An inscription written in charcoal on a plank amidst the destruction at El Mozote:

The Atlacatl was here
The father of the subversives. Second Company.
Here we shit on the sons of whores
and if you are missing your balls
ask for them by mail from the Altacatl Battalion.
We the little angels from hell will return.
We want to finish you off.

More, with videos at:
http://mozote.wordpress.com/

Please, if you are interested take the time to scan these photos of El Mozote at google images:
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SNYI_enUS308US308&q=El+Mozote

[anonymous171]

26. I would be surprised if they didn't know about it.

[fascisthunter]

27. oh, I'm Pretty Sure from What I Have Read Here, that the US was Involved

[New Dawn]

29. "May have" = definitely did.