March 14, 2003
THE AMERICAS
Why Can't the CIA
Tell Us More About Hugo's Plotting?
By MARY ANASTASIA
O'GRADY/Editor The Americas
Wall Street
Journal
The U.S. national
intelligence officer for Latin America,
Fulton T. Armstrong was called to testify
before the House's International
Relations Committee on Feb. 27. The HIRC
invitation asked for an overview of
"political and economic trends in
the Western Hemisphere." Mr.
Armstrong declined, according to the
committee, on the grounds that he did not
want to speak in an open, unclassified
format.
When I called Mr.
Armstrong's office on Wednesday to ask
for a fuller explanation of this, I was
told he was out on "personal
travel" and not available to
elaborate. Sources familiar with his
views suggest he was probably reluctant
to expose the nonchalance his reports
reflect to committee criticism.
Be that as it may,
there clearly is a need for someone to
give Congress and the public a sound
analysis of how adverse political trends
in Latin America pose a threat to U.S.
security. This is no time for a
lackadaisical approach to a mounting body
of disturbing evidence. You don't need
secret files. All you have to do is read
the newspapers.
In particular, there
are the contacts between Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez and agents sent to
him by Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, Fidel
Castro, the Colombian guerrillas and
terrorist groups that Saddam Hussein
shelters. Reliable informants say that
individuals from rogue Mideast states now
supplement the apparatus Chavez himself
has set up to control Venezuela.
Components of that
apparatus include the Bolivarian Circles.
The president routinely boasts about his
support -- both political and financial
-- for these "community
groups." His opposition says that
they have become the brown shirts of the
"revolution" he is conducting
from his position of power.
Venezuelan lawyer
Juan Carlos Sosa-Azpurua, who is part of
a group seeking legal redress in Madrid
for killings in the Caracas streets by
Chavez supporters on April 11 last year,
claims that the Bolivarian Circles are
deadly paramilitary groups. "As any
terrorist group, like [Spain's] ETA or
the [Irish] IRA, the Circles generate
terror, confusion and crisis in
Venezuelan society." He adds that
"We have important proof that the
Disip (Venezuela's secret police) has
given war weapons -- grenades and machine
guns -- to the Circles."
Mr. Sosa-Azpurua,
who is a Harvard Law School graduate,
also says that his group has testimony
from high-ranking military officers who
claim that Colombian guerrillas are
camped inside the Venezuelan border. The
officers say they wanted to attack the
guerrilla outposts but received orders
from Mr. Chavez to leave them be. This
week the Venezuelan government declared
that it will refuse to label the FARC and
the smaller ELN Colombian rebel groups as
terrorists.
Ali Rodriguez,
installed by Mr. Chavez as the new head
of Venezuela's state-owned oil company --
PDVSA -- sits on the board of the Sao
Paulo Forum, an international group
founded by Fidel Castro to advance his
causes in the region. Also on that board
is the leader of the FARC, Manuel
Maralunda.
It is the growing
number of Middle Eastern links that
should be the most alarming to Americans.
Mr. Sosa-Azpurua says that Mr. Chavez has
justified his Libyan and Iraqi contacts
by claiming they are needed to revive the
strike-crippled petroleum industry.
Yet, the opposition
lawyer says, those Arab friendships were
firmly established before the recent
upheaval in PDVSA. Mr. Chavez went to Iraq
to see Saddam Hussein in 2000. Two years
ago, Mr. Sosa-Azpurua says, top Libyan
officials were in the country giving
speeches to students on the
"wonders" of the Libyan system.
"Chavez is cultivating a close
relationship with U.S. enemies because he
feels a close familiarity with those
countries," he says.
In early March the
head of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. James
Hill, named Venezuela's Margarita Island,
along with South America's "triple
border area," as a base for Islamic
terror groups. Venezuelans in the
opposition also have tesitmony --
although they say there is still no clear
proof -- that the Venezuelan government
is giving passports to Middle Eastern
visitors so they can go to Margarita and
run financial operations to fund Middle
Eastern terrorism.
In the Feb. 14 issue
of Insight Magazine Martin Arostegui
wrote about a variety of reports around
the country of Libyans, Iraqis and Cubans
arriving under VIP government cover.
"Government agents tried to use Air
Force planes to fly five of Saddam
Hussein's agents into the interior of the
country. Military pilots requested
special clearances before allowing the
Iraqis onto the C-130s."
Mr. Sosa-Azpurua
says that the Iraqis now provide
scholarships to Venezuelans for the
purposes of "indoctrination."
For some time, Cuban
"educators" have been fanning
out around the country to expand their
ideas in Venezuela's public schools.
In all the evidence
suggests that the Cubans, the Libyans,
and the Iraqis are mostly interested in
providing Mr. Chavez the military,
intelligence and educational tools to
convert his government into a despotic
regime and a strong ally.
It was not
surprising that Mr. Chavez appealed for
additions to the "Group of
Friends" negotiating team that is
trying to find a democratic solution to
the political crisis in Venezuela. His
candidates were Russia, Cuba, China and
anti-American France.
Washington has been
divided for some time on the subject of
Mr. Chavez. Connecticut Senator Chris
Dodd, who for years has professed to be a
Latin American "expert," has
defended Mr. Chavez's right to remain in
power on grounds that he was
democratically elected. Bush officials
have meanwhile questioned his legitimacy
because of his many constitutional
violations, including brutality against
dissidents.
Perhaps the
political disagreement could be further
refined if an unbiased intelligence
assessment of Mr. Chavez were presented
to the public. Mr. Armstrong doesn't want
to expose his views to scrutiny, so
perhaps CIA director George Tenet could
do the country a service and find someone
else.
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