Chavez frees Colombian plotters

[malaise]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6974630.stm
<snip>
Venezuela has pardoned and freed 27 Colombians arrested three years ago for plotting against President Hugo Chavez.

Mr Chavez said he hoped the move would help ease tensions between Colombia's government, right-wing paramilitaries and Marxist guerrillas.

The Venezuelan president is mediating between the Bogota government and the main left-wing rebel group, Farc.

He is hoping to secure the release of hostages by Farc in exchange for rebels held by the authorities.

[acmavm]

1. Damn that Chavez, he's such a mean old dictator.

:sarcasm:

[Enrique]

2. he's out of control!

any coup is justified because Chavez is clearly a madman who will lead the hemisphere into totalitarianism! :sarcasm:

[UTUSN]

3. Were they called "voters"? n/t

[Buzz Clik]

4. Yippee! Another Hugo Chavez love fest.

Television station works against Chavez: Fully justified in shutting it down/nationalizing. Seditious bastards don't deserve a tv station.

Colombians plot to overthrow Chavez government: Poor babies. Free them! Chavez let them go? Hooray!!!

The bottom line: We love Hugo. Everything he does is perfect.

[Selatius]

5. As far as that tv station goes, I generally stand behind Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting's take

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3107

...

That commercial TV outlets including RCTV participated in the coup is not at question; even mainstream outlets have acknowledged as much. As reporter Juan Forero, Jackson Diehl's colleague at the Washington Post, explained (1/18/07), "RCTV, like three other major private television stations, encouraged the protests," resulting in the coup, "and, once Chávez was ousted, cheered his removal." The conservative British newspaper the Financial Times reported (5/21/07), " officials argue with some justification that RCTV actively supported the 2002 coup attempt against Mr. Chávez."

As FAIR's magazine Extra! argued last November, "Were a similar event to happen in the U.S., and TV journalists and executives were caught conspiring with coup plotters, it’s doubtful they would stay out of jail, let alone be allowed to continue to run television stations, as they have in Venezuela."

When Chávez returned to power the commercial stations refused to cover the news, airing instead entertainment programs—in RCTV's case, the American film Pretty Woman. By refusing to cover such a newsworthy story, the stations abandoned the public interest and violated the public trust that is seen in Venezuela (and in the U.S.) as a requirement for operating on the public airwaves. Regarding RCTV's refusal to cover the return of Chávez to power, Columbia University professor and former NPR editor John Dinges told Marketplace (5/8/07):

What RCTV did simply can't be justified under any stretch of journalistic principles…. When a television channel simply fails to report, simply goes off the air during a period of national crisis, not because they're forced to, but simply because they don't agree with what's happening, you've lost your ability to defend what you do on journalistic principles.

...

(End snip)

If this had been done to a sitting president in the US, that station's broadcasting license would've been revoked as well, because the air waves aren't to be used as political weapons. What RCTV had done would likely not have been allowed to go unpunished in any of the industrialized nations of the world.

[malaise]

11. Ditto

Well said.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Superior information. Thank you. n/t

[Enrique]

6. the television station isn't just "working against" Chavez

they were actively involved in the illegal coup against him.

[Buzz Clik]

7. And the Colombians were just visiting, right?

[Judi Lynn]

8. There's not even the faintest doubt about who these men were, and what they were doing there.

They confessed to reporters on tv, soon after they were discovered quartered at the ranch of Cuban-Venezuela opposition activist, with Miami ties, Roberto Alonso, next door neighbor of Venezuelan media mogul, right-wing major coup plot participant, and "fishing buddy of _{George H. W. Bush,"} Gustavo Cisneros.

Even Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe was informed of this plot by his own justice department, as it was explained, and apologized to Hugo Chavez.

No room here for catty remarks. The context doesn't make it sensible.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Here's the original story for readers who seem to have missed it the first time around:

Colombian paramilitaries arrested in Venezuela

Jeremy Lennard and agencies
Monday May 10, 2004
Guardian Unlimited

Venezuelan police have arrested more than 70 Colombian paramilitary fighters who were allegedly plotting to strike against the government in Caracas, according to the country's president, Hugo Chávez.
Opposition leaders, however, were quick to dismiss the president's claim, calling the raids on a farm less than 10 miles from the capital a ruse to divert attention from their efforts to oust Mr Chávez in a recall vote.

During his weekly radio and TV broadcast, Hello Mr President, Mr Chávez said that 53 paramilitary fighters were arrested at the farm early on Sunday and another 24 were picked up after fleeing into the countryside.

The country's security forces were uncovering additional clues and searching for more suspects, he said, adding that the arrests were proof of a conspiracy against his government involving Cuban and Venezuelan exiles in Florida and neighbouring Colombia.
Mr Chávez also claimed the plot was backed by Venezuela's mostly pro-opposition news media and said that the raids had "eliminated the seed of a terrorist group".

"Now they are importing terrorists," Mr Chávez said of his opponents, adding that the farm - in the municipality of El Hatillo - was owned by Roberto Alonso, a Cuban exile with links to Venezuelan and Cuban exiles.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,1213445,00.html
~~~~~~~~~

Colombia's dark underbelly leaves Bush with an embarrassing best friend

Isabel Hilton

18 March 2007 11:59

~snip~
President George W Bush’s plan for a Free Trade Area of the Americas has faltered, electorates blame free market liberalism for years of stagnation, and high oil prices help Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez bid for Fidel Castro’s crown as figurehead of the Latin left. When Bush visited Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala this past week, he was received with little enthusiasm. Only in Colombia has Bush found an unconditional friend in President Alvaro Uribe, who he has praised as an ally and granted billions of dollars in military aid.

But Bush’s best friend is becoming his biggest embarrassment. Uribe leads a country mired in corruption, violence and drugs, and where critics of the government receive death threats, and drug barons and death squad leaders win amnesty.

Uribe’s troubles began last year when a computer was seized from a paramilitary leader known as “Jorge 40”. On it were the names of politicians who apparently collaborated with Jorge 40 to intimidate voters, seize land and kidnap or kill trade unionists and political rivals.

Jorge 40 is the nom de guerre of Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, leader of the Northern Bloc of the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary umbrella group set up in 1997 and categorised by the US as a terrorist organisation. Tovar controlled drug trafficking on the eastern half of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Since then, eight pro-Uribe congressmen have been arrested and the foreign minister has been forced to resign.

But the most dangerous scandal for Uribe comes from the arrest of Jorge Noguera, his former campaign manager and, from 2002 to 2005, head of the DAS. Former DAS colleagues have told investigators of Noguera’s close collaboration with Jorge 40 and other paramilitary leaders. The accusations include an assassination plot against Chávez, the murder of political opponents, electoral fraud, and doctoring police and judicial records to erase paramilitary cases. Noguera worked directly with Uribe and, when the investigations began, the president appointed him consul in Milan. Colombia’s Supreme Court forced his return.
(snip/...)

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=302362&area=/insight/insight__international/
~~~~~~~~~

The Venezuelan elite imports soldiers
by Marta Harnecker
May 23, 2004

venezuelanalysis.com Printer Friendly Version
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If anything has become clear following the discovery of an incursion of a significantly large paramilitary group into the country, it is that the 'anti-Bolivarian and anti-Venezuelan oligarchy and its masters in the north' have not been able to recruit Venezuelan soldiers for their subversive objectives and 'have been forced to recruit them in another country,' as expressed President Chavez in front of tens of thousands of people, who gathered in Caracas this past Sunday, May 16th, to demonstrate their rejection of paramilitary activity and to express their support for peace.

Since 'the conspiracies against Venezuela do not end with the capture of mercenaries in Caracas,' there must be many other infiltrators in other areas of the country; since this is not an isolated action, but one whose efforts to stop the process continue, one can reach but only one conclusion: it is necessary to prepare oneself for self-defense. This is why the President considered it opportune to take advantage of the occasion and to announce three strategic lines for defending the country. The most radical proposal was a call for the population to massively participate in the defense of the nation.

A week earlier, on the 9th of May, on the outskirts of Caracas, a paramilitary force was discovered, dressed in field uniforms. Later, more were found, raising the total to 130, leaving open the possibility that there are still more in the country. The three Colombian paramilitary leaders of the group are members of the Autonomous Self-Defense Forces (AUC) in Northern Santander state in Colombia.

Some of the captured Colombian fighters have a long history as members of paramilitary forces. Others are reservists of the Colombian army and yet others were specifically recruited for the task in Venezuela and were surely tricked. Among these there are several who are minors.

A colonel of the Venezuelan air force was also detained, as well as seven officers of the National Guard. Among those implicated in the plot is a group of civilians headed by the Cuban Roberto Alonso, creator of the 'guarimbas,'<1> and Gustavo Quintero Machado, a Venezuelan, both who are currently wanted by the Venezuelan justice system.
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5579
~~~~~~~~~







Barracs at the property of opposition activist Robert Alonso where Colmbian paramilitaries lived for 46 days
Credit: Venezolana de Televisión

[Judi Lynn]

10. These paramilitaries, and the plot which conspired to put them near Caracas

detailed in a report by Human Rights Watch:

Political assassination in Venezuela: García recently said in an interview that the DAS collaborated with paramilitaries in a plot to assassinate several Venezuelan leaders, including President Hugo Chavez and a prosecutor, Danilo Anderson. More than 100 alleged paramilitaries were arrested near the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, and a few months later, Anderson was killed. Based on testimony by one of those arrested, Venezuelan authorities have charged former DAS director Noguera with knowledge of the alleged plot.
(snip/)

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/04/17/colomb13196.htm

(The D.A.S. is the President's intelligence service)