Venezuelan Arabs Stung by U.S. Charges Like Arab nations and communities around the globe, most of Margarita's well-established Muslim traders bitterly oppose the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, seeing it as an unlawful and unjustified attack against their race and religion. But the Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians who have made this tropical resort and duty-free zone their home for decades are even more angry about what they see as another American affront, this time leveled directly against them.
Allegations by a top U.S. military chief that Margarita is a base for radical Islamic groups posing a potential terrorist threat have angered both the 12,000-strong Arab community and the government of Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez. "We have nothing to do with terrorism here. Pure business, that's what we do," Naim Awada, who emigrated from Lebanon 20 years ago, told Reuters in his clothing store in Porlamar. All around him, shop names like Nabil Import, El Laden Mustafa and Flower of Palestine attest to the strong Arab presence on Margarita, an island of tourist hotels, arid hills and abundant beaches off Venezuela's eastern Caribbean coast. Arab community leaders and Venezuela's government say the allegations by the Pentagon's top soldier for Latin America, Gen. James Hill, are really part of a wider campaign by foes of Chavez to try to discredit the populist president abroad. They say Chavez' opponents, who have failed to topple him over the last year despite a short-lived coup and a crippling two-month anti-government strike, are seeking to paint him as a dangerous anti-U.S. maverick collaborating with terrorism. The debate is more than just academic for Washington because Chavez, a former paratrooper and coup plotter elected in 1998, rules over the world's No. 5 oil exporter that is also one of the top suppliers of crude oil to the United States.***
9 posted on 04/22/2003 9:37:27 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Also
Speaking at a conference labelled "The Middle East Terrorist Connection in Latin America and the Caribbean," Bishop indicated that the tri-border area shared by Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, in addition to Margarita Island off Venezuela, Colombia, and Trinidad & Tobago are among the places in the hemisphere where international terrorist groups are engaged in illicit activities. Bishop said that international terrorist groups in these areas are engaged in laundering money, forging documents, and transporting drugs, arms and illegal aliens. These activities, he noted, generate millions of dollars for terrorists around the world. -- "U.S. Officials Outline Counterterrorism Cooperation in Western Hemisphere ," US Dept of State, International information programs, Washington File, 03 March 2004, via http://www.iwar.org.uk/news-archive/2004/03-03-3.htm
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