Is Venezuela the Real Target of Bush's New Cuba Plan?

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/


Washington Plots Regime Change

Cuba calls the shots; and Venezuela pays the bills. That is the major premise underlying the Report made public last Monday by the U.S. State Department concerning Cuba. Its findings are as much about the Bush Administration's plans for regime change in Cuba, as they are about the alleged threat that Venezuela poses to U.S. national security interests.

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Although the Commission's Report and its recommendations are ostensibly about Cuba, Venezuela is a featured star player in the drama. It mentions Venezuela at least nine different times, always emphasizing Washington's perception that the Chávez government is bankrolling the Cuban government: "Cuba can only meet its budget needs with the considerable support of foreign donors, primarily Venezuela," says the Report.

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Cuba has 719 medical doctors in Bolivia. They go where Bolivian doctors fear to tread. In the most remote areas of the Andean country, Cuban doctors have treated more than 776,000 patients and saved 326 lives. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has pledged $1.5 billion in energy investment to Bolivia. Venezuela is also investing in projects to produce organic tea, coffee, dairy and legal coca products there. The Chávez government recently also donated computers to schools in the remote Chapare region of Bolivia.

Cuban doctors and Venezuelan investments: they are a lethal recipe for subversion in Latin America according to the Bush Administration.

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One of the more troublesome of the Commission's recommendations is the threat to apply Title III of the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Solidarity Act, known as "Helms Burton", to Venezuela.

Title III gives the United States unprecedented authority over property within another nation's borders. It permits lawsuits in U.S. courts brought by individual citizens against businesses that operate on property the Cuban government nationalized after the 1959 revolution. Concerned about the chilling effect on U.S. relations with foreign governments if it were to implement it, successive U.S. Presidents have suspended Title III since Helms-Burton was enacted ten years ago.

According to the Commission's Report, the White House is now prepared to apply, for the first time, Title III to individual countries that are "engaged in a process of support for regime succession (with Cuba)." This is a not-so-veiled threat to Venezuela, as well other nations who maintain normal relations with Cuba.
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methinks the neo cons have bitten off more then they can chew

and hopefully will choke to death

[davidwparker]

1. * is targeting Venezuela for sure. Palast has a document for the DOE

that says Venezuela has more oil than Saudia Arabia, it's just denser and would require different processing. They are also targeting their elections the same as they did Mexico's. On DemocracyNow (http://democracynow.org) last night, he reported that ChoicePoint had developed caging lists for left-leaning countries so that the voters could be disenfranchised. Same as they did here at the seat of democracy, the USA.