Chavez Denounces Colombian Paramilitary Activity in Venezuela

[Joanne98]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez denounced the presence of Colombian paramilitary groups operating in Venezuela with United States government support on his weekly Sunday talk show “Aló Presidente.” Chávez asserted that the zones most affected by the U.S.-designed plan to “fill us with paramilitaries” are the western border states of Táchira, Zulia, Apure, and Barinas, while Colombia is the base.

Paramilitaries impact the barrios of Caracas, as well, where they work mainly in civilian clothes and without heavy weaponry to co-opt local power dynamics, Chávez explained. This tactic is markedly different than that planned by 130 paramilitary fighters who were detained in May 2004 on a farm owned by opposition leader Roberto Alonso outside of Caracas, where they had been preparing a full-scale coup d’état against President Chávez, detainee testimonies revealed.

The president made reference Sunday to a study of Columbian paramilitary activity titled The Business of War, written by Caracas-based German Political Scientist Darío Azzellini. In an interview on the Venezuelan Social TV station (TVES) Sunday night, Azzellini reported that paramilitary operations are carried out by mercenaries from the U.S. and Latin America who are recruited by private military companies but pose as civilian employees. Beyond government oversight, they are contracted by large landowners, business owners, and other elites to control local populations.

A principal source of paramilitary income is their control of 100% of Colombian heroine exports and 70% of Colombian cocaine exports, Azzellini claimed. In Colombia, giant drug cartels manage large quantities of the drugs, but in Venezuela paramilitaries deal smaller amounts in local communities to increase their leverage within the populations they are contracted to control. Chavez and Azzellini publicized this “open secret” at a time of heated opposition accusations that Chávez does not sufficiently cooperate in combating drug trafficking through Venezuelan territory.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3146

[Arctic Dave]

1. Be careful

that kind of honesty has a way of making planes fall out of the sky.