Colombian contract killer detailing an alleged $25 million plot to kill Hugo Chavez

[Joanne98]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc5rYMIyFDs

Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage of a Colombian contract killer detailing an alleged $25 million plot to kill Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president.

Geovanny Velasquez Zambrano says the money was offered by Manuel Rosales, one of Chavez's main political rivals, during a secret meeting in 1999.

A Colombian paramilitary group took up the offer, according to Zambrano.

Chavez has long said there is a plot by Colombia to kill him, and relations between the two countries are tense.

Francisco Dominguez, head of the Centre of Brazil and Latin American Studies at UK's Middlesex University, told Al Jazeera that so far, it has been impossible for Chavez's opponents to bring him down by political means.

"He's very popular. He's lost one of 16 elections only. So if anyone is desperate to get rid of him, the
one neat mechanism to get rid of him would be assassination," Dominquez said.

"Chavez is pretty justified in thinking this guy's claims were credible. It is credible that Rosales could have offered $25 million."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/09/2009926105146717728.html

[Braulio]

1. $25 million?

Sounds like a pretty strange connection.

[Downwinder]

2. Chump-change.

[Judi Lynn]

3. We've been reading about the repeated incursions by these paras from Colombia for years.

Absolutely important to see this guy in an interview.

We were so aware of, among other similar events, over 100 caught several years ago on the ranch near Caracas belonging to Roberto Alonso, Cuban-Venezuelan hate activist and proponent of the violent nasty actions they term "guarimba," who has since fled to the bosom of his kindred spirits in Miami after being discovered.

No doubt you may remember the pages of discussion we had during that time.

Here's something I just ran across which I never saw before. Wish I'd seen it when it was posted:

US$20 million offered to Colombian paramilitaries to "work" in Venezuela
seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Mon May-17-04 08:34 PM

http://www.vheadline.com.nyud.net:8090/graf/040509_paramilitaries_02.jpg

Ultimas Noticias reporters Tamoa Calzadilla and Jorge Chavez write: At a payments center in Medellin (Colombia), it was well-known that paramilitaries who received payment there for protection rackets, extortion, and contraband were offering US$20 million to take a group of mercenaries to Venezuela to accomplish various illegal operations.


A witness who asked that his identity be concealed told the Colombian authorities about the incident, and the information was given to Ultimas Noticias by Colombian Senator Gustavo Petro (PDI).

According to the witness, a group of 400 men were to be organized to go to Venezuela to assassinate for money. The Colombian Senator suspects that the group captured in Venezuela last Sunday could be the same as the group recruited by the paramilitaries, most of them reservists in the army, as has been officially verified.


But, that is not the only reason to believe this is true. Petro commented that in Colombia, information that could be key in the investigations being conducted in Venezuela hasn’t been made public yet. “Two months ago, telephone conversations of paramilitaries stationed in that region (the North of Santander), in which the irregulars speak of transporting male combatants to Venezuela to be kept for a while, in captivity,” were recorded by the order of a judge who was investigating a prosecutor in Cucuta.

The Senator states that the police recorded 40 hours of conversations, whose content revealed that Ana Maria Flores, regional director of the Attorney General’s office in the North of Santander, was implicated in collaborating with the illegal work of the paramilitaries in the region. Other sources comment that the woman has been living her double life for 8 years, and that her secretary, Magaly, is also implicated. The scandal exploded two months ago, and Flores escaped a few days ago. Today, here whereabouts are unknown.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x562085

Thanks, Joanne98!

[loudsue]

4. I sure do miss seemslikeadream.

Always on top of the research.

[roody]

5. I hope that judge is still alive.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Conscientious judges have a very hard time in Colombia. Some of them get murdered.

I've read they have to conduct all their own investigation, which puts undue hardship on them, because they also don't have a lot of funding for this.

Horrific.

[flamingdem]

7. I wonder what they were offered for Zelaya, or did that deal go down in Miami? nt

[rabs]

8. Eva Golinger was just interviewed on Telesur

on the Colombian/U.S. plan to assassinate Chavez and destabilize the Venezuelan government. She said there could be up to 3,000 paramilitaries infiltrated in Venezuela. It was about a 30 minute interview with lots of details.

It was conducted in Spanish and she is fluent. It might come up on youtube, and if it does, highly recommend it to Spanish speakers.

It's quite an amazing interview with details that have never appeared in the mainstream U.S. media. She showed declassified but heavily redacted U.S. government documents from the bushista era that she said prove that the U.S. was aware of the AUC (paramilitary) incursions into Venezuela to kill Chavez.

Meantime Telesur has a condensed print version on its homepage (Spanish).

http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/58613-NN/golinger-denuncia--plan-desestabilizador-paramilitar-en-venezuela/

[Judi Lynn]

9. Thanks for the info. Definitely credible the Bush crew new ALL about the assassination plans.

Nothing more loathesome than a Presidential poseur practising assassinations rather than civilized, respectable diplomacy. Slimy, evil, treacherous people.

[ChangoLoa]

10. how do you know this is true?