Venezuela's Interior Minister Says he has Evidence of Assassination Plot
Interior and Justice Minister Jesse Chacon says the Venezuelan government has evidence of a plot to assassinate President Hugo Chavez. Venezuelan intelligence agents say they believe Right-wing, anti-Chavez Venezuelans have met with Colombian Right-wing paramilitaries.
Just three weeks ago, two American soldiers were arrested for allegedly selling weapons to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a Right-wing paramilitary group who the US State Department has labeled a terrorist organization. While State Department spokesman Richard Boucher denied that the US was selling arms to an illegal organization, he would neither confirm nor deny whether the weapons were part of a $3.3 billion defense deal with Colombia.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has been very supportive of a Colombian law granting immunity from prosecution to Right-wing terrorist groups.
Venezuela--and other left-of-center governments in Latin America--is a thorn in Bush's side, and in the side of the PNAC. General John Craddock, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, warned of the dangers of “radical populism” in Latin America and singled out Venezuela as “generating a destabilizing situation that represents a danger for the hemisphere.” On January 19, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said of Chavez (failing to note the irony), "We are very concerned about a democratically elected leader who governs in an illiberal way."
Now, let me get this straight: Colombia is our ALLY in Latin America, and Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and other left-of-center social democracies constitute a "New Axis of Evil,"TM do I have that right?
There's something dreadfully wrong here.
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