 Major Juan Diaz Castillo: Planned $1M support for Al Qaeda, then defected |
Posted on 01/05/2003 9:39:18 AM PST by shanec
More Facts Uncovered in Chavez - Al Qaeda Collaboration
Major Juan Diaz Castillo: Planned $1M support for Al Qaeda, then defected |
By Luis Garcia, in Miami
Whistle-blower Major Juan Diaz Castillo, pilot of the Venezuelan Airforce One, revealed more details of how president Hugo Chavez supported Al Qaeda in the aftermath of 9/11. In statements to the press in Miami Saturday, the defector shed new light on the terrorist support network recently uncovered in the highest level of the Venezuelan government.
Major Juan Diaz Castillo, Chavez's personal pilot, was assigned the job of planning the delivery of the $1 million collaboration to the terrorist group. Now an active member of the country's resistance movement, he is today revealing details of the transfer and of other subversive acts carried out in the name of Chavez's so called "Bolivarian Revolution".
" - They are criminals and killers," he lambasts the inner circle of Chavez cohorts. And he is not afraid of naming names: "The job was given to me by Hugo Chavez. I coordinated with current Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, then Interior Minister Luis Alfonso Davila, and the current Vice President (then Defense Minister) Jose Vicente Rangel. When we determined the difficulty of sending three Hercules C-130 transport planes to Afghanistan, Diosdado Cabello decided to send cash instead.
" - In the last week of September, 2001, one million U.S. dollars was transferred to Dr Walter Marquez, Venezuela's representative for the region. Of that amount, one hundred thousand was used for food and clothing for the Taliban government, and the remaining nine hundred thousand dollars went to the Taliban in cash, with the understanding that it was to support the Al Qaeda terrorists in their relocation efforts."
Cuban involvement: "Chavez is Castro's puppet"
Asked why Chavez would support Al Qaeda, the high-level military defector offered two explanations.
" - First of all, Chavez had for a long time wanted a direct line of communication with Al Qaeda. He had asked Libya for that, but with no success. Then came 9/11 and Chavez was impressed," remembers the pilot of the presidential airplane.
" - Second, Chavez looks up to Fidel Castro. The Cuban dictator has collaborated with terrorist groups for years. Chavez emulates Fidel Casto. It sounds bizarre, but Chavez is a bizarre man. He was already starting to go off the rails in 2001, and he wanted direct contacts to all the major terror groups in the world."
According to Diaz Castillo, Chavez depends on Fidel Castro's advice in governing Venezuela. The pilot revealed that during the last four years, roughly 4,000 Venezuelans have been receiving military and intelligence training in Cuba.
The Cuban communist dictator assists Venezuela's embattled crypto-communist in holding onto power, at whatever cost, because Cuba depends on Venezuela's oil billions to stay afloat. Earlier this year, Fidel Castro said that "for the Cuban revolution to survive, it is necessary for the Bolivarian revolution to survive," in reference to Chavez's Marxist experiment.
Diaz Castillo also documented illegal weapons smuggling from Cuba to Venezuela, a charge which General Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez of Venezuela's army also leveled against the Chavez administration. The weapons arrive in huge quanties "by boat and by air", from Cuba, even using boats from the stateowned Ferrominera del Orinoco company. Via the Orinoco river, some of these weapons are then shipped directly to the Colombian terrorist organizations, FARC and ELN.
Chavez has a direct line of communications with Castro, and every time there are serious problems in Venezuela, the two get together in secret meetings in Margarita Island or the La Orchila presidential retreat, a sinister island fortress in the Caribbean which is off-limits to the public. They also meet in Cuba.
" - Chavez constantly shuttles to Havana, undercover. Usually after midnight, and returning to Caracas at noon," revealed his former personal pilot.
" - Chavez is Castro's puppet."
After an attempt was made on his life December 16 by Chavez's secret service, friends in the resistance movement smuggled major Diaz Castillo out of the country in the hull of a fishing boat. Now in safety abroad, he is not afraid to reveal what really goes on in the Chavez administration and how Chavez rewarded Al Qaeda with $1M in the weeks after 9/11.
More on why what happens in Venezuela should matter to us here in the USA, well beyond just stable oil supplies, is also here at these recent FR posts of articles direct from Chavez top military officers who have recently left him in protest of his actions/plans/goals. They know what's really going on, from the inside, and are now telling all...
9/11: Chavez financed Al Qaeda, details of $1M donation emerge
Terror Threat from Venezuela: Al Queda Involved
Chavez bio-weapons lab in Venezuela for Saddam and Castro
And, still more direct from a new english version of their own web site by clicking this banner below...
-Shane
While I understand the damage to the constitutional process that would have resulted, I wish the coup plotters in April would have given him a lead injection.
The next one should be an enema.
IIRC, one of them stopped Chavez from committing suicide.
Hey, I had forgotten that. You're right.
Man, what a lost opportunity.
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Thousands of sympathizers of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez marched in Caracas on Sunday to protest the fatal shooting of two men in clashes that occurred during a protracted opposition strike against the leftist leader.
Waving banners and demanding justice, pro-Chavez demonstrators mobbed a funeral procession for the victims as the vice president and other government officials helped carry a coffin draped in a Venezuelan national flag.
Government officials blamed police for the deaths on Friday in chaotic street clashes involving rival pro-Chavez and opposition protesters, troops and police. Opposition leaders blame militant Chavez supporters for opening fire.
"The function of the police is not to kill people, but to protect the lives of citizens," Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel told reporters on Sunday.
Two police officers were also wounded on late on Saturday when Chavez sympathizers fired on them outside the funeral home where mourners were holding a mass for the two victims, police said. The metropolitan police is controlled by the Caracas mayor, a bitter political enemy of Chavez.
950 fps or 3000 fps???
He related, with much regret because now his head is on the block for opposing Chavez, the following story to me in Caracas last month:
"On the eve of April 11 2002, when some of his closest supporters turned against him, Chavez took out his gun and put it in his mouth. I struggled with him, yelled "Hugo, don't do that", and finally managed to wrestle the gun away from him. Today, I regret that I did not let him pull the trigger."
-Shane
Chavez Under Fire For Al Qaeda Financing
 Chavez / Al Qaeda connection: |
All over Venezuela, ordinary voters are outraged by the latest proof of terrorist connections between their country's ruler Hugo Chavez and Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden's global terrorist network.
Sunday, the nation awoke to find the scandal top news in all states.
"Financing of terrorists", screamed the huge headline of La Voz, from Miranda state. In Aragua state, El Siglo announced on its front page that "Chavez gave one million dollars to Al Qaeda". And in Carabobo state, Notitarde came out with an "Edicion Extraordinaria", a special edition, which was headlined: "Chavez gave 900 thousand dollars to Bin Laden's terrorist network". The paper referred to the $900,000 in cash for Al Qaeda and later mentioned the additional $100,000 in food and tents for the Taliban, for a total of one million in assistance. El Nacional, in Caracas, reported that the records of the investigation will be shared with the U.S. State Department in its fight against international terrorism and rogue states sponsoring terrorism.
Faced with the proof of his Al Qaeda financing, Hugo Chavez has so far maintained a complete silence. The "no comment" order extends to his entire inner circle: None of his other collaborators named in the Al Qaeda files have yet commented either. This curious silence follows the pattern of the 9/11 aftermath, when he vanished from sight for days and was the last Latin leader to make a statement.
But to the nation's press, the Chavez / Al Qaeda connection is front page news, and the embattled leader is drawing fire for not wanting to face his actions.
" - Zany dictator Hugo Chavez has really gone off the rails this time," said Caracas street vendor Felipe Lopez, 28, while studying the documentation published by dozens of the country's newspapers.
"Dictatorial thugs like Hugo Chavez are dangerous to his own people and to the rest of the world."
Desperate for change, voters have renewed their call for free and democratic elections. Hugo Chavez, showing his dictatorial streak, has publicly announced that he will not call elections anytime soon, that he will not finance such elections, and in the event that elections were to be held anyway, he will not abide by their outcome.
Soledad Bravo, a popular Venezuelan folk singer and former Chavez supporter, distanced herself from the strongman, and urged the world to act:
" - Freeing ourselves from Chavez is our duty to history."
-Shane
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