2. Good Piece on Venezuela Coup by Steve Ellner
From: Thomas Walker walker@oak.cats.ohiou.edu
Dear Latin Americanists:
US scholar and Venezuela specialist currently residing in Venezuela, Steve Ellner, has been kindly sending me daily updates on events down there. (Thanks, Steve.) The attached is a summary of his take on what has been happening. Thought you might like to see it.
Best, Tom Walker
By Steve Ellner esteve74@cantv.net
The resistance to the de facto government that overthrew Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on April 13 but lasted barely a day and a half contained several surprise elements. In the first place, the massive concentration of mainly slum dwellers who overran the presidential palace and even gathered outside Caracas’s main military fort – at a time when little could have been expected in the way of media coverage or the defense of human rights – demonstrated that the people had lost their fear.
Second, the speculation that Chavez had little backing within the military proved unfounded. Air Force officers (who were allegedly the most opposed to the Chávez government) in the airforce base in Maracay, and then officers elsewhere, took control of military installations in the name of the ousted president.
Third, the fate of the short-lived government was sealed when the military absolutely refused to fire on the people. The repression was left to the metropolitan police of Caracas, under the anti-Chávez mayor Alfredo Peña, who were not equipped to do the job.
And fourth, the community of Latin American nations, whose governments were gathered in San Jose, Costa Rica, refused to follow the U. S. lead in justifying the coup. Instead they demanded proof that democratic institutions had been preserved and guarantees established. Even presidents like Peru’s Alejandro Toledo, hardly a friend of Chávez, questioned the democratic nature of the coup.
Business and labor leaders, along with those of the traditional political parties, had been organizing anti-government protests over a period of half a year. During that time, the slogans calling for Chávez’s exit from power increasingly overshadowed specific grievances.
The initial reaction of the Venezuelan government to these protests had few parallels in Latin American political history. Chávez pledged himself not to use force or repression against the opposition and instead mobilized his own supporters each time the anti-government forces called a march. The number of Chávez people on the street generally matched those of the opposition. Many predicted the imminent use of government force against protesters, who became increasingly bold, or the imminent overthrow of Chávez.
The communications media, with few exceptions, openly joined the cause of the opposition. Over ninety percent of the opinions expressed on radio stations, on television channels and in the newspapers were staunchly anti-government. On TV and in the press, members of the opposition frequently called for a military coup to overthrow Chávez.
On the third day of an indefinite general strike that began on April 9, the government suspended transmissions of three TV channels. At the same time, violence erupted during a march on the presidential palace calling for Chávez’s resignation, and dozens of casualties resulted.
The government would have been well advised to formulate concrete proposals and concessions in order to poke the opposition into dialogue and neutralize the middle class, which to a large degree opposes the government. But since late last year, Chávez has openly sided with the hard-liners in his movement, who harped on the conspiracy allegedly led by ex-President Carlos Andrés Pérez (who Chávez himself attempted to overthrow in an abortive coup in 1992) orchestrated from his residence in Miami. (Since his return to power, Chávez has put forward concrete proposals and made specific concessions in an effort to overcome the polarized situation that the country finds itself in.)
The protests against Chávez on April 9 were called by the main business organization FEDECAMARAS and the nation’s main labor federation the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), which of course by nature have antithetical interests. Two days later the strike was transformed into an indefinite general strike. FEDECAMARAS failed to indicate whether it was willing to accept the government’s offer to engage in a dialogue. At the same time, the government refused to negotiate with the CTV leadership, which it claims gained control of the labor movement as a result of widespread fraud in the confederation’s elections held on October 25 of last year.
The CTV and FEDECMARAS had previously called a one-day general strike on December 10 in opposition to 49 laws that the government promulgated simultaneously without opening a broad national discussion. The two most important and controversial laws were an agrarian reform and the Law of Hydrocarbons. The latter ensures majority state control of all oil producing operations. Several of the other laws are designed to further nationalistic, popular and ecological objectives.
The list of FEDECAMARAS’s grievances does not stop there. In fact, businessmen opposed just about everything that President Chávez (who was elected president in 1998) said and did. Above all else, they objected to Chávez’s leftist orientation, which has taken an even more radical turn since the latter months of last year. They criticized Chávez’s close friendship with Fidel Castro, his outspoken nationalism as manifested by his criticisms of U. S. bombing in Afghanistan, and his key role in OPEC in favor of reducing oil production to shore up prices. Chávez is the only president since the outset of democracy in 1958 who did not name business representatives to cabinet posts, not even to head their traditional preserves, such as the Finance and Development Ministries.
For the first time in decades, attitudes regarding a president vary sharply along class lines. Chávez drew most of his votes in 1998 from the marginalized class consisting of street vendors and others lacking steady employment. Indeed, street vendors were the only ones who showed up in large numbers to their work places on December 10, thus ignoring the call of the strike’s organizers to stay home.
Two decades of economic stagnation have put an end to the class fluidity that historically characterized Venezuela thanks to easy and abundant oil money. In February 1989 a week of mass looting signaled a wave of often violent protests among slum dwellers, leading to the impeachment of President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1993. A surge in crime rates in the 1990s, including unnecessarily violent theft, is another expression of social animosity fed by pressing economic conditions.
A sizeable minority of the middle class voted for Chávez in 1998, but subsequently went over to the opposition. In an interview last year, the then Minister of Interior Relations and number two man in the government, Luis Miquilena, told me: “We have lost the middle class. Even though their numbers have shrunk with the economic crisis, they can not just be written off.”
Many middle-class Venezuelans blame Chávez for stirring class resentment. A wave of land occupations inspired by Chávez’s fiery rhetoric in favor of the poor was directed against both small and large property- owners in urban and rural areas. Similarly, the Agrarian Reform and several other laws sent chills up the spine of the middle class and big landowners alike. Nevertheless, there is nothing in the recent legislation that explicitly threatens the middle class. The most important feature of the Agrarian Reform forces landowners to exploit unutilized agricultural land within a period of two years in accordance with national priorities.
The parties of the opposition were emboldened by Chávez’s loss of popularity, the declining oil prices in 2001, and the initiatives taken by the business sector, which they misleadingly call “civil society.” After the December 10 strike, Democratic Action, the oldest and largest party of the opposition, proposed a broad alliance to prepare for a new government after Chávez was forced out. The party indicated that such a grouping would include military officers who “do not share the President’s gross, intolerant and hegemonic attitude.”
Nevertheless, the December 10 “civic strike” and that called on April 9 was mainly the work of FEDECAMARAS, whose members responded more positively than did the workers as a whole. The political parties played a secondary role in promoting these protests. For all their belligerence, the traditional parties of the opposition lack credibility and have failed to offer the country a self-critical analysis regarding the wide-spread corruption and protracted economic contraction which paved the way for Chávez’s rise to power.
The outcome of the current crisis is of overriding importance for Latin America and the world. Venezuela’s democracy dates back to 1958; for many years since then the nation was (along with Costa Rica) the most stable and democratic in the continent. Furthermore, Chávez’s nationalistic and popular reforms, and his criticism of unrestrained globalization, has made his government an important point of reference for the rest of the continent. Thus the outcome of Venezuela’s political crisis will have a direct baring on the future of Latin American democracy and the bloc of third-world nations.
3. CIA Conspiracy Theories
Venezuela: Rumored U. S. Involvement Could Hurt Bush Administration
Stratfor, 14 April 2002
Summary
Human intelligence sources in Venezuela and Washington told STRATFOR April 14 that the Central Intelligence Agency and the U. S. State Department may have been involved separately in the events that took place in Caracas between April 5 and April 13. If the information is correct, the reinstatement of President Hugo Chavez less than 48 hours after he was toppled by a civilian-military coup could have disastrous implications for the Bush administration’s policy in Latin America.
Analysis
Several human sources told STRATFOR on April 14 that the U. S. State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency may have had a hand in the tumultuous events that occurred between April 5 and April 13 in Caracas, culminating in President Hugo Chavez’s brief ouster and his return to power.
Although these sources may have had their own motivations for making the allegation, it is possible – if the Chavez regime produces convincing evidence of U. S. government involvement in the failed coup – that it could poison Washington’s relations with governments throughout Latin America. Efforts to win regional support for increased U. S. military support to Colombia, and to other Andean ridge countries battling the twin threats of international drug trafficking and nominally Marxist insurgencies, would be set back significantly in Latin America and Washington. The Bush administration’s efforts to pursue more free trade agreements in the region also would be undermined.
Chavez could strengthen his own political base in Venezuela if he can quickly prove U. S. involvement in attempts to topple his 3-year-old regime. This also would give a tremendous boost to Chavez’s leadership status and credibility with populist and nationalist groups across Latin America that view the United States as a threat and that oppose U. S. -style capitalist democracy.
The U. S. government has a long history of interfering with Latin American regimes viewed as unfriendly or dangerous to U. S. national security interests in the region. Although the Bush administration tried very hard in the past week to distance itself from the chaos in Venezuela, many governments in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia viewed Washington’s cautious silence on Venezuela with considerable skepticism.
However, if STRATFOR’s sources are correct, the skepticism may have been justified.
Our sources in Venezuela and the United States report that the CIA had knowledge of, and possibly even supported, the ultra-conservative civilians and military officials who tried unsuccessfully to hijack interim President Pedro Carmona Estanga’s administration. Sources in Venezuela identified this group as including members of the extremely conservative Catholic Opus Dei society and military officers loyal to retired Gen. Ruben Rojas, who also is a son-in-law of former President Rafael Caldera. Caldera, who governed from 1969 to 1973 and from 1994 to 1998, founded the Christian Democratic Copei party.
STRATFOR’s sources say this ultra-conservative group planned to launch a coup against the Chavez regime on Feb. 27, but the action was aborted at the last minute as a result of strong pressure from the Bush administration, which warned publicly that it would not support or recognize any undemocratic efforts to oust Chavez.
Separately, STRATFOR’s sources report, the State Department was quietly supporting the moderate center-right civilian-military coalition that sought Chavez’s resignation by confronting his increasingly authoritarian regime with unarmed, peaceful people power. The April 11 protest by nearly 350, 000 Venezuelans was the largest march against any government in Venezuela’s history, and even without violence the momentum likely would have continued building in subsequent days. U. S. policymakers who supported the civic groups seeking Chavez’s departure believed their numbers eventually would reach a sufficiently large critical mass to force a change in Chavez’s policies or even trigger a regime change.
However, the violence that killed 15 people and injured 350 – including 157 who suffered gunshot wounds inflicted by pro-Chavez government security forces and civilian militia members – united the previously leaderless and disarticulated center-right opposition and gave moderates in the armed forces (FAN) what they perceived as a legitimate reason to oust Chavez immediately. Sources in this center-right group tell STRATFOR that the videotapes of pro-Chavez gunmen firing indiscriminately into the front ranks of marching protesters were “more than enough” to legally justify a regime change.
The conservative civilian-military group timed its coup-within-a-coup perfectly, using Carmona’s swearing-in ceremony as the platform from which to hijack what was supposed to be a moderate center-right transition government – a government that would reach out to the moderate left that is led by former Interior and Justice Minister Luis Miquilena. STRATFOR’s sources inside this group report that 23 members of the president’s Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) block in the National Assembly had committed late April 11, after the violence, to vote for Chavez’s removal from power.
Additionally, given that Vice President Diosdado Cabello was responsible for organizing and coordinating the Bolivarian Circles from Miraflores presidential palace, it was felt that he and other senior Chavez regime officials could have been removed legally from the government with the help of Miquilena’s votes in the National Assembly and his strong influence over the Supreme Court.
However, Carmona Estanga destroyed that possibility and irreparably fractured the center-right coalition that named him to the presidency when he announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, fired the entire Supreme Court and sacked the attorney general, comptroller general and the public defender, who were appointed by Chavez.
The dissolution of the National Assembly was repudiated unanimously by every political and civic organization in the country. The powerful Venezuelan Workers Confederation (CTV) promptly withdrew its support from Carmona without making any announcements in that regard, STRATFOR sources said, and the tenuous anti-Chavez coalition within the FAN collapsed almost immediately.
Moreover, tensions between the moderate and mainly army faction led by Gen. Efrain Vasquez Velasco and the ultra-conservatives flared rapidly as the right-wingers, through the new interim defense minister, sought to break up Vasquez Velasco’s base of support within the army by transferring some his key associates to other commands.
The picture painted by STRATFOR’s sources in Venezuela and the United States is of two parallel U. S. operations that were executed separately by the State Department and CIA. While the State Department sought discreetly and quasi-officially to support the anti-Chavez moderates in an effort to build a viable political center, the CIA was at least aware of the ultra-conservative plot to hijack Carmona’s short-lived presidency.
If the sources are correct, the Bush administration’s carefully laid plans soon may backfire.
http://www.narconews.com/threedays.html
(excerpt)
A Narco News White Paper: Three Days that Shook the Media
Coup Central: The CIA Bunker in Caracas
A report would appear two days later in the daily Panamá América newspaper that shed light on how oil union boss Carlos Ortega, the number-two coup organizer (among the Venezuelans involved) second only to oilman-turned-dictator-for-a-day Pedro Carmona, became head of the oil union and consequently of Venezuela’s equivalent of the AFL-CIO.
Translated by The Narco News Bulletin:
“Months ago, we warned that the U. S. government had put a plan in march to topple Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez. Working with agents of the CIA and with members of the military group that the
Pentagon maintains in Caracas to supervise U. S. arms sales in the region, the strategies from the Potomac joined forces with the opponents of the president. Bankers, businessmen and politicians donated funds to creat the marches and protest that detonated the crisis. Money from the opposition served to influence union elections and the control of the petroleum workers union, the most important in Venezuela.”
Narco News has learned that the CIA headquarters for organizing, distributing said cash, and engineering the attempted coup d’etat, was the office known as the MIL GROUP. That’s the name by which the US Military Liason staff in Embassies - “usually a repository for fixers and grafters pitching Department of Defense sponsored weapons sales to third world satrapies,” as one source colorfully explained to Narco News - had, according to another well-placed source, greatly increased its staff size in the weeks prior to the attempted coup.
We presume the increase in personnel - or individuals posing as personnel at the MIL GROUP - was not due to a sudden desire by Washington to sell more arms to the Chavez government.
Former National Security Agency officer Wayne Madsen, writing with Richard M. Bennett, reveal that the U. S. participation in the failed coup attempt was not only financial, but military. Reporting from the National Press Building in Washington, they have just blown the roof off of U. S. government denials of involvement in the coup with this Intelligence Report:
Under the cover of the COMPTUEX and a Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX) training exercises in the Caribbean the US Navy provided signals intelligence and communications jamming support to the Venezuelan military. Particular focus by US Navy SIGINT vessels was on communications to and from the Cuban, Libyan, Iranian, and Iraqi diplomatic missions in Caracas. All four countries had expressed support for Chavez and the plans for US military and intelligence support for the coup d’etat were brought upto date following President Bush’s visit to Peru and El Salvador in March 2002. The National Security Agency (NSA) supported the coup using personnel attached to the US Southern Command’s Joint Interagency Task Force East (JIATF-E) in Key West, Florida. NSA’s Spanish-language linguists and signals interception operators in Key West; Sabana Seca on Puerto Rico and the Regional Security Operating Centre (RSOC) in Medina, Texas also assisted in providing communications intelligence to US military and national command authorities on the progress of the coup d’etat.
From eastern Colombia, CIA and US contract military personnel, ostensibly used for counter-narcotics operations, stood by to provide logistics support for the leading members of the coup. Their activities were centred at the Marandua airfield and along the border with Venezuela. Patrol aircraft operating from the US Forward Operating Location (FOL) in Manta, Ecuador also provided intelligence support for the military move against Chavez. Additional USN vessels on a training exercise in the Outer Range of the US Navy’s Southern Puerto Rican Operating Area also stood by in the event the coup against Chavez faltered, thus requiring a military evacuation of US citizens in Venezuela. The ships included the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and the destroyers USS Barry, Laboon, Mahan, and Arthur W. Radford. Some of the latter vessels reportedly had NSA Direct Support Units aboard to provide additional signals intelligence support to US Special Operations and intelligence personnel deployed on the ground in close co-operation with the Venezuelan Army and along the Colombian side of the border.
The polemic in recent weeks in which the Narco-State government of Colombia (again, with NY Timesman Juan Forero as its press a gent) accused the Chávez government of Venezuela of harboring Colombian rebels now seems particularly hypocritical given the confirmation that Colombian territory was used by US forces in the failed coup attempt. Also note that the cover for the anti- democracy military operation was “counter-narcotics operations” that “provide logistics support for the leading members of the coup.”
http://www.vheadline.com/
US Central Intelligence (CIA) killers planned to assassinate President Hugo Chavez Frias but the plan was aborted after it became public and because US President George W. Bush had been unaware (?) that a CIA faction had organized the plot.
US Central Intelligence (CIA) killers planned to assassinate President Hugo Chavez Frias but the plan was aborted after it became public knowledge and because US President George W. Bush had been unaware (?) of it.
Radio Union News Network is reporting that Bolivarian Professional & Technical Workers (FTPTB) Gerardo Ramirez has turned in evidence to Venezuela’s Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez which supports VHeadline.com’s February 8 (2002) World Exclusive report in which we quoted highly-placed diplomatic and IC sources as telling us of a Washington-initiated plot to assassinate Venezuela’s democratically- elected President Hugo Chavez Frias.
“Spanish-speaking US military operatives are already present in Venezuela lending logistic support to several anti-government terror cells in what’s described as ‘a fail-safe plan’ to dislodge Chavez Frias and to win US control over strategic oil supplies.”
VHeadline.com reported that US planners were lending support to one or more anti-Chavez Frias plotters to be installed as Washington puppets in the event of a successful bid to kill the President.
Ramirez, an engineering professional, says the CIA assassination plan was aborted after our exclusive story became public knowledge on the Internet and US President George W. Bush was told about it.
A 10-man delegation is to fly to Washington to meet personally with President Bush to explain the Chavez Frias government’s economic, political and social plans... “our (Venezuelan) Embassy in Washington says Bush could grant us an audience.”
The FTPTB investigation group also accuses former Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) president General Guaicaipuro Lameda of a series of acts of corruption during his term in office and suggests that PDVSA archives should be placed under military custody since there is a distinct possibility that evidence will be shredded or burned in a Venezuelan copycat of Enron/Andersen... “we already have substantial evidence after an audit which indicates a series of ‘irregularities, ‘ embezzlement and misfeasance of public monies.”
Venezuela’s Electronic News an independent service of news & views from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Hugo Chavez: A Servant Not Knowing his Place
Counterpunch, April 14, 2002
by William Blum
How do we know that the CIA was behind the coup that overthrew Hugo Chavez?
Same way we know that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. That’s what it’s always done and there’s no reason to think that tomorrow morning will be any different.
Consider Chavez’s crimes:
Branding the US attacks on Afghanistan as “fighting terrorism with terrorism”, he demanded an end to “the slaughter of innocents”; holding up photographs of children killed in the American bombing attacks, he said their deaths had “no justification, just as the attacks in New York did not, either.” In response, the Bush administration temporarily withdrew its ambassador.
Being very friendly with Fidel Castro and selling oil to Cuba at discount rates.
His defense minister asking the permanent US military mission in Venezuela to vacate its offices in the military headquarters in Caracas, saying its presence was an anachronism from the cold war.
Not cooperating to Washington’s satisfaction with the US war against the Colombian guerrillas.
Denying Venezuelan airspace to US counter-drug flights.
Refusing to provide US intelligence agencies with information on Venezuela’s large Arab community.
Questioning the sanctity of globalization.
Promoting a regional free-trade bloc and united Latin American petroleum operations as a way to break free from US economic dominance.
Visiting Sadaam Hussein in Iraq and Moammar Gaddafy in Libya.
And more in the same vein which the Washington aristocracy is unaccustomed to encountering from the servant class.
The United States has endeavored to topple numerous governments for a whole lot less.
The Washington Post reported from Venezuela on April 13: “Members of the country’s diverse opposition had been visiting the U. S. Embassy here in recent weeks, hoping to enlist U. S. help in toppling Chavez. The visitors included active and retired members of the military, media leaders and opposition politicians.
“The opposition has been coming in with an assortment of ‘what ifs’,” said a U. S. official familiar with the effort. “What if this happened? What if that happened? What if you held it up and looked at it sideways? To every scenario we say no. We know what a coup looks like, and we won’t support it.”
Right. They won’t support a coup. So what happens when a coup occurs which they want to support? Simple. They don’t call it a coup. They call it a “change of government” and say that Chavez was ousted “as a result of the message of the Venezuelan people.” Veritable grass-roots democracy it was.
Opposition legislators were also brought to Washington in recent months, including at least one delegation sponsored by the International Republican Institute, an integral part of the National Endowment for Democracy, long used by the CIA for covert operations abroad.
Overthrowing a man such as Hugo Chavez, guilty of such transgressions, was a duty so “natural” for the CIA that the only reason it might not have been intimately involved in the operation would be that the Agency had been secretly disbanded.
William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II and “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower” Blum can be reached at: BBlum6@aol.com
4. Otto Reich Conspiracy Theory
U. S. Cautioned Leader of Plot Against Chávez
New York Times, April 17, 2002
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
WASHINGTON, April 16 - The Bush administration, under criticism for its role in the ouster of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, acknowledged today that a senior administration official was in contact with Mr. Chávez’s successor on the very day he took over.
Otto J. Reich, assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, phoned the incoming president, Pedro Carmona Estanga, to plead with him not to dissolve the National Assembly on the grounds it would be “a stupid thing to do,” and provoke an outcry, a State Department official said.
Administration officials cited the call as evidence that they had sought to uphold democratic processes in Venezuela, but the disclosure raised questions as to whether Mr. Reich or other officials were stage-managing the takeover by Mr. Carmona, one of the leaders of the military and business coalition that ousted the president.
“In our opinion, he needed to work with them,” said the State Department official, referring to Mr. Carmona and the Assembly.
Mr. Carmona ignored Mr. Reich’s appeal and shut down the Assembly and the Supreme Court, igniting a popular backlash that restored Mr. Chávez as president.
Administration officials vigorously denied today that they had encouraged plotters or had any advance knowledge of plans to oust Mr. Chávez, a populist leader whose leftist policies have long antagonized the United States.
But Mr. Reich’s advice to Mr. Carmona on the very day that military officers took Mr. Chávez into custody at an army base suggests an early and urgent administration interest in seeing Mr. Carmona succeed and maintain the appearance of democratic continuity. It was not clear what time Mr. Reich placed his call on Friday.
Administration officials notified members of Congress on Friday that Mr. Chávez had resigned. The report was erroneous, and he insists that he never relinquished his office. The United States did not condemn the action against Mr. Chávez, a democratically elected leader, until Saturday evening after angry protesters forced Mr. Carmona to resign.
Asked to explain the discrepancy, administration officials have said they were acting on the best information they had during a chaotic situation.
“Those events were not anticipated,” Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said today. “And once those events took place, the United States did move to condemn it.”
Mr. Carmona, who heads Venezuela’s largest business association, was one of numerous critics of Mr. Chavez to call on administration officials in recent weeks. Officials from the White House, State Department and Pentagon, among others, were hosts to a stream of Chávez opponents, some of them seeking help in removing him from office.
Administration officials insisted today that, despite their disdain for Mr. Chávez, they categorically ruled out an ouster during their conversations with his opponents. But American officials did discuss replacing Mr. Chávez through a referendum or by impeachment, and did not disguise their eagerness to see him gone, officials acknowledged.
“The United States policy is to support democracy and democratic solutions to any type of problems in nations around the world,” Mr. Fleischer said. He added, “We explicitly told opposition leaders that the United States would not support a coup.”
When asked whether the administration had advance knowledge of Mr. Chávez’s overthrow, Mr. Fleischer said American diplomats and news media had been warning of the possibility of violence for several months.
“I think you have to be careful about advance knowledge of a specific act and general talk of unease in a nation like Venezuela, that has been marked by a very difficult internal democratic system,” Mr. Fleischer said.
Officials said they had been in touch with numerous critics of Mr. Chávez in recent months, as well as with some of his supporters.
Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon spokeswoman, said the chief of the Venezuelan military high command, Gen. Lucas Romero Rincón, met recently with Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, a Pentagon official responsible for Latin America. She did not provide details of the meeting, or say whether intelligence was shared.
Mr. Pardo-Maurer, who served for three years as the chief of staff to the representative of the Nicaraguan rebels known as contras during the 1980’s, “made it very, very clear that the U. S. intent was to support democracy, human rights, that we in no way would support any coups or unconstitutional activity,” Ms. Clarke said.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats voiced concern that the administration meetings with anti-Chávez leaders might undercut Washington’s credibility as the region’s main advocate for democracy.
“I’m very concerned about what message it sends about our support for democracy there and around the world,” said Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic majority leader. “I think that we’ve got to be supportive of democratic principles even when they choose to elect people we don’t like.”
In some ways, the back-and-forth between administration officials and Democrats recalled the suspicion and bitter policy battles over Central America and Cuba during the Reagan administration. The administration’s foreign policy team is dominated by anti-Castro hard-liners, who fought those policy battles, and they are running afoul of familiar antagonists including Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who has long specialized in Latin American affairs.
Mr. Dodd expressed dismay that the administration had been slow to criticize Mr. Chávez’s ouster. Administration officials erroneously reported on Friday that Mr. Chávez had resigned and said his antidemocratic behavior was responsible for his undoing. Only after Mr. Chávez had been restored on Saturday did the administration support a resolution at the Organization of American States condemning the interruption of democratic rule.
“While all the details of the attempted coup in Venezuela are not yet known, what is clear is that the vast majority of governments in the hemisphere lived up to their responsibilities under the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and denounced the unconstitutional efforts to take power from a government which had been freely elected,” Mr. Dodd said.
Mr. Reich, who is a Cuban exile, warned Congressional aides that there was more at stake in Venezuela than the success or failure of Mr. Chávez. American officials accuse Mr. Chávez of meddling with the historically independent state oil company, providing haven to Colombian guerrillas and bailing out Cuba with preferential rates on oil.
In the closed door briefing, Mr. Reich said the administration had received reports that “foreign paramilitary forces” - suspected to be Cubans - were involved in the bloody suppression of anti-Chávez demonstrators, in which at least 14 people were killed, a Congressional official said today.
Mr. Reich, who declined to be interviewed today, offered no evidence for his assertion, the official said.
5. Carlos Andrés Pérez Conspiracy Theory
EL NACIONAL - JUEVES 06 DE DICIEMBRE DE 2001
Organismos de inteligencia descubren presunto plan desestabilizador
HERNÁN LUGO GALICIA
El Gobierno logró develar una presunta conspiración que tiene como protagonistas a “viejos actores políticos” y “cúpulas de algunos organismos” que habían hecho contactos con partidos políticos y empresarios venezolanos desde octubre pasado, según informes que elaboraron los cuerpos de inteligencia con la cooperación de agentes internacionales, y que ahora están en poder de los diputados del Movimiento Quinta República Francisco Ameliach y Pedro Carreño.
El presidente de la Comisión de Defensa y el parlamentario de Barinas poseen documentos sobre lugares, personas que fueron contactadas y el financiamiento que se le pidió a grupos anticastristas, que supuestamente ya hicieron un primer desembolso de 1 millón dólares. En los documentos se recogen presuntas evidencias contra el ex presidente Carlos Andrés Pérez, los titulares de Fedecámaras y de la CTV (Pedro Carmona Estanga y Carlos Ortega), el ex asesor Thor Halvoorsen, Alejandro Peña Esclusa y un diputado estadounidense que participó en una reunión en República Dominicana.
Se trata de grabaciones telefónicas, fotografías y movimiento migratorio hacia Miami y Santo Domingo. Peña Esclusa había sido captado cuando intercambió ideas con representantes de los grupos anticastristas, Salvador Romaní y Lindon Larouche, y recibió un aporte monetario, dijeron los parlamentarios.
Los supuestos conspiradores tenían como “Día D” (caída de Chávez) el 6 de diciembre y, para ello, se propusieron generar incertidumbre y erosión en la Fuerza Armada Nacional. Las marchas de Acción Democrática y de Fuerza Solidaria (pautada para hoy en la tarde) y el paro cívico de Fedecámaras formarían parte de este plan.
“Estas personas sueñan con una salida de Chávez, violando la Constitución. Ellos quieren eliminar la Carta Magna, y como saben que en este momento es imposible una salida del Presidente, entonces se han paseado por la idea de un magnicidio, generar enfrentamientos violentos entre el pueblo y un ambiente de desestabilización política y económica. Atacan al primer mandatario porque saben que Chávez no se convertirá en un sirviente de los intereses económicos a espalda del pueblo que lo eligió”, expresó Ameliach.
Los diputados afirmaron que diariamente Carlos Andrés Pérez recibe información sobre lo que ocurre en Venezuela. Un día antes de la manifestación de AD, 21 de noviembre, un alto dirigente blanco se comunicó con Pérez y, textualmente, le dijo: “Vente ya; mañana cae el gobierno. Ya tenemos la casa y el carro blindado. En la marcha concentraremos a millones de venezolanos”, según se escucha en un material de audio.
Ameliach enfatizó que Carmona Estanga y Ortega reciben instrucciones directas del ex mandatario, a través de Halvoorsen, quien es responsable de la campaña internacional.
Los emeverristas aseguraron que el presidente de Fedecámaras para no comprometerse envió a tres emisarios a una reunión que se hizo en República Dominicana. Los empresarios venezolanos se entrevistaron con Halvoorsen en el hotel Season, un balneario del Caribe, y otras cuatro personas: Francisco Aguirre, un industrial nicaraguense ligado al comercio bélico; Orlando Castro A., nieto del ex banquero Orlando Castro; un estadounidense de nombre Feren Backer y un ex diputado venezolano, de apellido Gómez, agregaron Carreño y Ameliach.
EL NACIONAL - VIERNES 18 DE ENERO DE 2002
Carlos Ortega y Pedro Carmona solicitarán a la Fiscalía investigar espionaje telefónico
El ex presidente Carlos Andrés Pérez negó rotundamente que esté participando en una conspiración para derrocar el gobierno de Chávez
Ana Díaz Katiuska Hernández Ascensión Reyes
El ex mandatario venezolano Carlos Andrés Pérez; el titular de Fedecámaras, Pedro Carmona Estanga, y el presidente de la CTV, Carlos Ortega, rechazaron ayer (por separado) una acusación del oficialismo, según la cual los tres serían copartícipes de una conspiración para derrocar al jefe del Estado, Hugo Chávez.
El diputado del MVR Francisco Ameliach presentó ayer a la prensa una cinta magnetofónica en la que se registra una conversación entre Pérez y Ortega, la cual, a juicio de la bancada oficialista, constituye una prueba que demuestra un complot contra Chávez.
Pérez, quien vive en República Dominicana, admitió haber conversado telefónicamente con Carlos Ortega a principios de este mes motivado por la protesta cívica del 10 de diciembre, pero negó rotundamente que esté impulsando una conspiración contra el gobierno de Hugo Chávez.
“Lo digo de la manera más categórica: son unos farsantes. La última conversación que tuve con Ortega fue en enero con motivo de la extraordinaria manifestación del paro del 10-D, en el cual ellos aceptaron la responsabilidad de trabajar junto a Fedecámaras para demostrar el repudio del pueblo de Venezuela al gobierno de Chávez. Esa fue mi conversación, jamás lo he impulsado ni lo llevo a una conspiración, todo lo contrario”.
Añadió que le dijo Ortega que debía “dar una sensación clara de su posición patriótica y obrera, y de ninguna forma confundirse ni con un partido político, ni siquiera con AD, ni con ninguna actitud que se salga fuera del margen de la ley”.
El ex jefe de Estado también reconoció que le ha recomendando al presidente de la CTV que buscara la unidad con Pedro Carmona Estanga, porque Fedecámaras “estaba representando no los intereses de los patronos, sino los de un sector de Venezuela, al encabezar una manifestación cívica, sin ánimos desestabilizadores, para lograr las reformas de las leyes inconstitucionales que aprobó el presidente Chávez. Eso sí dije y lo repito, pero nada más”.
Denuncia ante la Fiscalía
El presidente de la Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela, Carlos Ortega, denunciará ante la Fiscalía General de la República la violación, por parte del Gobierno, del artículo 48 de la Constitución que garantiza el secreto e inviolabilidad de las comunicaciones privadas en todas sus formas y sólo podrán ser intervenidas por la orden de un tribunal.
Ortega “quien está de viaje por el interior del país hasta el próximo martes, razón por la cual no pudo atender a los representantes de los medios” se comunicó con sus colaboradores en torno a la grabación de una conversación telefónica con el ex presidente Carlos Andrés Pérez.
Pedro Carmona Estanga, titular de Fedecámaras, afirmó que no tiene vinculación alguna con Carlos Andrés Pérez y que sólo recibió una llamada del ex mandatario como una acción de cortesía al felicitarlo por los resultados de las elecciones en el gremio empresarial.
En tal sentido, expresó que si es ilegal recibir llamadas o solicitar el número telefónico de alguien, más grave es que líderes del Gobierno intervengan y espíen las comunicaciones privadas. Anunció que también acudirá a la Fiscalía para solicitar que se abra una investigación por violación a la privacidad.
Además, Carmona Estanga, señaló que en ningún momento ha conspirado en contra del Gobierno. “Sólo he cumplido con un mandato de los órganos de gobierno de Fedecámaras y he manifestado nuestras observaciones sobre las políticas económicas y sociales de una manera clara, transparente y pública ante los medios de comunicación, sin ocultar nada”. Agregó que la relación con el presidente de la CTV, Carlos Ortega, “es solo un contacto institucional positivo” e indicó que los dirigentes del Movimiento Quinta República están acostumbrados a recurrir a maniobras y fábulas.
