http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41572-2005Mar16.html
Venezuela's 'Anti-Bush' Fears Assassination
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, March 17, 2005; 9:01 AM
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez charged last month that the United States
was developing plans to assassinate him, the U.S. State Department rejected the
accusation as "wild."
Last week, Felix Rodriguez, a former CIA operative and prominent Bush supporter
in south Florida, told Channel 22 in Miami that he had information about the
administration's plans to "bring about a change" in Venezuela, possibly through
"military measures."
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, shown here speaking in Paris,
says the United States has plans to assassinate him. His supporters say
televised remarks of a former CIA officer in Miami last week lend credence to
his fears. (Jack Guez - AFP/Getty Images)
Felix Rodriguez appears on Miami's Channel 22 during a news
talkshow. (
A video clip provided by Channel 22 shows host Maria Elvira Salazar pressing
Rodriguez to be more specific. He makes clear he thinks the Bush administration
will physically eliminate Chavez.
The pro-Chavez media jumped on the story. Venezuelanalysis.com, a leftist Web
site, noted that Rodriguez had cited the Reagan administration's 1986 bombing
raid on Libya that sought to kill Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi as an example.
"If they are going to do it, they are going to do it openly," Rodriguez said.
Salazar denied the Venezuelan government's charge that the station was
promoting assassination, according to Unionradio.net (in Spanish), the Web site
of a Venezuelan radio network. Salazar said the accusation was "propaganda."
Nontheless, Rodriguez's remarks cannot be dismissed as bombast. He is well
known in Latin America for his role advising a Bolivian military unit that
captured and executed Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara in 1967. He is
well-connected with the Bush family. The memory of various White
House-approved, CIA-sponsored conspiracies to assassinate Fidel Castro in the
1960s may have faded in Washington but they have not been forgotten in Havana
or Caracas.
Yesterday, El Espectador (in Spanish), a leading daily in Colombia, reported
that Chavez has beefed up his personal security detail amid "fears for the
president's safety."
The point is not that Washington is murderous or that Chavez is paranoid. The
talk of assassination, whether idle or not, reflects the reality that the
stakes are high in the power struggle between Chavez and the Bush
administration. Six Latin American countries are now at odds with Washington
politically. As The Washington Post's Kevin Sullivan put it earlier this week,
Chavez is positioning himself as the "anti-Bush" of the hemisphere.
The international online media is full of signs that both sides are fortifying
themselves for a fight.
"Bush Orders Policy to 'Contain' Chavez," reported the Financial Times (by
subscription) on Sunday. Roger Pardo-Maurer, deputy assistant secretary for
western hemisphere affairs at the Department of Defense, told the London daily
that President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had asked the
Pentagon to help develop a strategy to "contain" Chavez.
"Chavez is a problem because he is clearly using his oil money and influence to
introduce his conflictive style into the politics of other countries," Mr
Pardo-Maurer said. "He's picking on the countries whose social fabric is the
weakest. In some cases it's downright subversion."
"A tougher stance from the US already appears to be in the offing, a move
likely to strain relations further," the FT reported.
In Venezuela, Pardo-Maurer's remarks were picked up by El Universal (in
Spanish) and Tal Cual (in Spanish), two leading anti-Chavez news outlets in
Caracas.
Another sign of Pentagon activism in Venezuela: Gen. Brantz Craddock, the chief
of U.S. Southern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday
that neighboring countries are worried about Venezuela's recent purchase of
Russian rifles and helicopters. "We don't want an arms race in the region,"
Craddock said, according to a front page story in El Universal (in Spanish).
Venezuelan Army Commander Ra�l Baudel brushed aside Craddock's concerns,
insisting "Venezuela is pacifist" and asking the United States "to respect our
decisions," according to another Venezuelan daily El Nacional (in Spanish).
The United States is especially worried about Chavez's so-called "Bolivarian
Revolution" spreading to neighboring Bolivia. There a grass- roots social and
political movement has shut the country down for weeks in an effort to force
the government of President Carlos Mesa to dramatically raise taxes on foreign
energy investors.
Evo Morales, the former coca grower who leads the opposition, denies that the
Bolivian protests are funded or directed by Venezuela. But he does not hide his
admiration for Chavez, according to La Cronica de Hoy (in Spanish), a leading
daily in Mexico City.
"Chavez is not alone. He has the support of the Latin American people," Morales
is quoted as saying. He also described Chavez as "one of the greatest leaders
ever in the history of Bolivia."
Yesterday, the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies approved a smaller energy tax
increase than the one supported by Morales, according to Bolpress.com (in
Spanish), a leftist news site supportive of Bolivia's social movements. But the
opposition says it will not lift its blockade of the country's highways until
an even higher rate is approved.
That is the "conflictive style" that the Pentagon worries Chavez is spreading
in Latin America, the style that Washington would like to "contain" before it
spreads further.
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