U.S. begins to isolate Venezuela - Chavez regime results in Cubanization of Western oil power

Imagine if Fidel Castro discovered enough oil in Cuba to permit his nation to become part of the powerful cartel known as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Some in U.S. intelligence and even the State Department believe something as bad or worse has indeed happened with the rise to power in Venezuela of President Hugo Chavez.

In fact, when OPEC ministers met in Caracas, Venezuela, last week, the host country refused to seat a representative from newly liberated Iraq because of its ties to the United States.

Venezuela, which opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, won't recognize Iraq's delegation to an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting July 31, the oil minister said Friday.

Rafael Ramirez said no Iraqi official would be allowed to attend any OPEC meeting until an "internationally recognized" government is in place.

"They can't attend the OPEC meeting," he said. "Perhaps some Arab states might meet with them informally."

But Chavez didn't just oppose the U.S. intervention in Iraq. It would not be unfair to say he supported the other side.

Venezuelan military defectors say the radical Chavez not only gets his political inspiration from Fidel Castro, he has developed ties with terrorist groups throughout the world, including al-Qaida, and was at least cordial in relations with Saddam Hussein before his government was overthrown.

As Air Force Maj. Juan Diaz Castillo, who was Chavez's pilot, told WorldNetDaily, "the American people should awaken and be aware of the enemy they have just three hours' flight from the United States."

Diaz has tried to warn U.S. officials of Chavez's direct involvement with international terrorism and his formation of a bloc of Latin American countries opposed to the United States.

"My objective here in the U.S. is to show who Chavez really is and the danger he represents for the whole Western Hemisphere and especially in Venezuela."

Diaz said he was part of an operation in which Chavez gave $1 million to al-Qaida for relocation costs, shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. He is one of more than 100 military officers who have quit the Chavez regime as the president tries to hang on to power amid a month-long general strike that has cut off oil exports, his primary source of income.

In addition to his purported al-Qaida links, Chavez has been warmly received in travels to Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea, China and Libya.

Now there are rumors in Caracas that U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro may soon be declared persona non grata.

Sources close to the top say Chavez believes the ambassador's increasing involvement in national affairs is aimed personally against him. Some officials reacted with a sigh of relief as ambassador Shapiro left on a two-week vacation.

"It is a breath of fresh air," said one official reacting to Shapiro's departure. The ambassador, who had just attended a meeting with Executive Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel, talked to journalists on his way out of the meeting and said: "The U.S. and Venezuela have a memorable relationship," reflecting on the long lasting cooperation between the two countries.

But the ambassador could not refrain from dealing with the immediate problem of the troubled country and told the media the most important thing on the agenda is "naming a new board of the national electoral college as a beginning of fulfilling a 29th of May accord signed between the government and the opposition." Local media were quick to say that Ambassador Shapiro's remarks echoed the views of many who believe only a new electoral college can pave the road to a possible referendum which could end the regime of Chavez.

The relationships between Washington and Caracas deteriorated following the 1998 landslide election victory of Chavez, a revolutionary paratrooper who in 1992 led an unsuccessful coup against the democratically elected President Carlos Andreas Perez. At that time the colonel led the Revolutionary Simon Bolivar Movement, a clandestine group of left-wing officers. Observers say it is ironic the former rebel officer, who led hundreds of soldiers to the capital in a bloody coup which resulted in the deaths of 120 people, is now accusing others for plotting against his regime. The coup was quelled by soldiers loyal to the government and Chavez ended up in jail where he stayed for two years. The president, once a coup leader, is now warning his supporters, known as "The Red Berets," of a coup against his regime.

The colonel gradually became a popular figure, the hero of the left, and the champion of the poor and the underprivileged. Those groups backed him in his election campaign during which he preached for social and economic reform. His clandestine group was renamed to The Movement of the Fifth Republic. Chavez took over from President Andreas Perez, sentenced for embezzlement and corruption. Perez is now hiding in the Dominican Republic.

It was easy to blame the previous administration and the country's elite and the Catholic Church for being all corrupt. These accusations haunted Chavez himself as disillusioned workers and a group of army officers forced his temporary removal on April 12, 2002, and the appointment of an interim government. The new government, under attack by The Red Berets and pro-Chavez officers, created a situation in which the caretaker government could not survive and within days Chavez was back in office.

Following his return to power, the president strengthened his agenda on a number of fronts, mainly through dramatic speeches and heated rhetoric. These speeches were aimed against the traditional Venezuelan power brokers, the banking system, the capitalist-style economy and the Church.

While busy pressuring the electorate to gradually change the "Bolivarian Constitution" to fit his agenda, he demonstrated a warm and friendly relationship with Castro. Intelligence analysts believe this friendship between the two paved the way for the Cuban intelligence's move into Venezuela and the army. Some in the opposition are accusing the president of hiring Cuban bodyguards and agitators, who, from time to time, participated in anti-opposition attacks further destabilizing the country. Chavez was also the only western democratically elected president who in 2002 made a point of visiting Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. This on its own demonstrated his anti-American attitude and his defiance of President Bush.

Experts analyzing Chavez's close relationship with Castro and his Baghdad trip say he is well aware of the power his country gains from the huge oil reserves.

During the period between January and June 2003, as the government was practically forced into negotiations with the opposition, the U.S., free from concerns over the flow of oil, started to take a more open position on Venezuela. Since then Ambassador Shapiro, backed by the State Department, got more and more involved in the internal politics of Venezuela. The ambassador's statements and those of other State Department officials left no doubt the U.S. was hoping a democratic system would allow a referendum to end the political career of the paratrooper dubbed Castro's best friend.

Lately the president is being criticized by some of the same groups who supported him following his 1992 coup attempt. He is now being accused of behaving as a dictator rather than as a democratic head of state. Also criticizing him is the Human Rights Watch organization. A July 18 HRW document on Venezuela dealt with the Supreme Court decision to uphold "prior censorship and 'insult laws.'" The HRW criticized the Supreme Court which based its decision on constitutional changes and threats aimed at the justices.

The court stated that under articles 148 and 149 of the Criminal Code, people can be imprisoned for insulting "by speech or in writing" the president, the vice president, the president of the legislature, the chief justice and numerous other government officials, or by showing them "lack of respect in any other way." Article 150 prohibits anyone from insulting the legislature, the judiciary and the cabinet. Human rights activists pointed out that the court's decisions disregarded, not only democracy and the right of free speech, but also article 13 of the American convention on human rights and censorship. In 1995 the Inter American Commission of Human Rights published a report on 'insult laws' with the conclusion "the special protection desacato laws (laws endangering freedom of the press) ... is not congruent with the objective of a democratic society to foster public debate."

The Chavez administration saw the Supreme Court decision as vindication of their ongoing vocal, at time brutal, attacks on the media. They assumed the media should and could be reined in. Decisions made by the government prohibited television and radio from reporting on violent demonstrations and riots. As the world's human rights communities were sounding the alarm, the president and his top ministers did not yield.

The most alarming move by the president and chief of staff team is the plan to create a reserve territorial army, apparently following the Cuban model. The army will introduce the new units as operational by June 24, 2004, when the territorial reserve force will include 250,000 men, comprised of soldiers and volunteers. The first units were introduced as they paraded with the army on the last Armed Forces Day. The opposition reacted immediately with criticism claiming the Chavez plan was intended to enable the government to declare a state of emergency whenever it suited its purpose.

Western intelligence officers are convinced the new territorials are being formed and trained with direct Cuban involvement. Cuba is also seen as being behind Chavez's friendly overtures to the Colombian left-wing guerrillas.

Rafael Ramirez said no Iraqi official would be allowed to attend any OPEC meeting until an "internationally recognized" government is in place.

If you understand that the rules of economics are principles that describe how the world functions, it becomes clear that OPEC has never had the power that people ascribed to it, and simply isn't the important force in the world its members may wish to believe. You could appoint yourself Supervisor of the Surf, and it would be a great gig, but the surf rolls in and out with or without you. Of course.

But what does it mean to such a make-believe oil-producers group when the largest producers don't come to the meetings? Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and now Iraq, all enormous producers who will not be in attendance at OPEC bowling league events or canasta parties. What is an aspiring Doctor Evil like Chavez to do?

You could start a Doctor Evil fan club, and sure enough that is exactly what Chavez is doing. He is the guy who flew half way across the world to shake hands with Saddam before the fall, who sought out Taliban and Al Qaeda representatives in order to donate money to Bin Ladin after 9/11, who openly supports FARC guerrillas, who has visited with Khadafi, who funds radical military officers all over latin america... The list goes on and on. And who is folding Cuban military personnel into his own military, to assure a second chain of command to watch the first, I suppose, and to do work that his own troops won't do.

At some point it becomes obvious that Chavez is insane. I don't have any doubt that he is bonkers. But that doesn't make him any less dangerous, in fact it is precisely his lack of a grip on reality that may make him very dangerous indeed. He dreams of building a force in the Americas capable of forcing the US out. To do this, he is attracting and giving voice to the most irrational elements in latin america and the world for that matter. Someone who wants to hook up with Al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence, while building a military alliance with Cuba and the FARC is almost prima facia irrational, begging to be added to our Al Qaeda hit list, begging for a confrontation with the US that would leave Venezuelan blood on US hands.

We can't afford to give him his wish, but we had better have some chess players at over at the Pentagon who know what to do. History never really repeats itself, but its cycles can lend a greater understanding on events of the past. I think people are starting to understand Pinochet much better now.

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