-Caveat Lector-
>From http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,706802,00.html
}}}>Begin
American navy 'helped Venezuelan coup'
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Monday April 29, 2002
The Guardian
The United States had been considering a coup to overthrow the elected Venezuelan
president, Hugo Chavez, since last June, a former US intelligence officer claimed
yesterday.
It is also alleged that the US navy aided the abortive coup which took place in
Venezuela on April 11 with intelligence from its vessels in the Caribbean. Evidence is
also emerging of US financial backing for key participants in the coup.
Both sides in Venezuela have blamed the other for the violence surrounding the
coup.
Wayne Madsen, a former intelligence officer with the US navy, told the Guardian
yesterday that American military attaches had been in touch with members of the
Venezuelan military to examine the possibility of a coup.
"I first heard of Lieutenant Colonel James Rogers [the assistant military attache now
based at the US embassy in Caracas] going down there last June to set the ground,"
Mr Madsen, an intelligence analyst, said yesterday. "Some of our counter-narcotics
agents were also involved."
He said that the navy was in the area for operations unconnected to the coup, but
that he understood they had assisted with signals intelligence as the coup was
played out.
Mr Madsen also said that the navy helped with communications jamming support to
the Venezuelan military, focusing on communications to and from the diplomatic
missions in Caracas belonging to Cuba, Libya, Iran and Iraq - the four countries
which had expressed support for Mr Chavez.
Navy vessels on a training exercise in the area were supposedly put on stand-by in
case evacuation of US citizens in Venezuela was required.
In Caracas, a congressman has accused the US ambassador to Venezuela, Charles
Shapiro, and two US embassy military attaches of involvement in the coup.
Roger Rondon claimed that the military officers, whom he named as (James) Rogers
and (Ronald) MacCammon, had been at the Fuerte Tiuna military headquarters with
the coup leaders during the night of April 11-12.
And referring to Mr Shapiro, Mr Rondon said: "We saw him leaving Miraflores
palace, all smiles and embraces, with the dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga [who was
installed by the military for a day] ... [His] satisfaction was obvious. Shapiro's
participation in the coup d'état in Venezuela is evident."
The US embassy dismissed the allegations as "ridiculous". Mr Shapiro admitted
meeting Mr Carmona the day after the coup, but said he urged him to restore the
national assembly, which had been dissolved.
Mr Carmona told the Guardian that no such advice was given, although he agreed
that a meeting took place.
A US embassy spokesman said there were no US military personnel from the
embassy at Fuerte Tiuna during the crucial periods from April 11 to 13, al though two
members of the embassy's defence attache's office, one of them Lt Col Rogers,
drove around the base on the afternoon of April 11 to check reports that it was
closed.
Mr Rondon has also claimed that two foreign gunmen, one American and the other
Salvadorean, were detained by security police during the anti-Chavez protest on April
11 in which around 19 people were killed, many by unidentified snipers firing from
rooftops.
"They haven't appeared anywhere. We presume these two gentlemen were given
some kind of safe-conduct and could have left the country," he said.
The members of the military who coordinated the coup have claimed that they did so
because they feared that Mr Chavez was intending to attack the civilian protesters
who opposed him.
Mr Chavez's opponents claim pro-Chavez gunmen shot protesters while his
supporters say the shots were fired by agents provocateurs .
In the past year, the United States has channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars
in grants to US and Venezuelan groups opposed to Mr Chavez, including the labour
group whose protests sparked off the coup. The funds were provided by the National
Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit agency created and financed by the US
Congress.
The state department's human rights bureau is now examining whether one or more
recipients of the money may have actively plotted against Mr Chavez.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
End<{{{
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