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I have a couple of links in #28240. This is a CIA-drugs caper
waiting to happen if there ever was one, which could be bloodier than
Pinochet.
I tend to think that the Argentine situation makes this messier for
the CIA to go ahead with. South Americans talk now about leaders who
play into the hands of the US, taking the WB/IMF/Citibank money and
embezzling it. This has got to make it a good time for Chavez to
proceed with land reform. His policies are similar to Taraki in
Afghanistan in the late 70's, leading to a CIA coup, a Russian
invasion and 22 years plus of misery and war/drug lords running the
whole show.
Karl Rove has been working at getting the Teamsters to champion
issues like Arctic Drilling, and here the trade unions are most
probably being incited by CIA assets against Chavez. The business
and financial establishment is obviously on board as well.
Bake
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Austin Kelley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The San Francisco Examiner
> 12/28/2001
>
> U.S. cooking up a coup in Venezeula?
> By Conn Hallinan
>
>
> There is the smell of a coup in the air these days. It was like
this in
> Iran just before the 1953 U.S.-backed coup overthrew the Mossedeah
> government and installed the Shah. It has the feel of 1963 in South
Vietnam,
> before the military takeover switched on the light at the end of
the long
> and terrible Southeast Asian tunnel. It is hauntingly similar to
early
> September 1973, before the coup in Chile ushered in 20 years of
blood and
> darkness.
>
> Early last month, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon
and the
> U.S. State Department held a two-day meeting on U.S. policy toward
> Venezuela. Similar such meetings took place in 1953, 1963, and
1973, as well
> as before coups in Guatemala, Brazil and Argentina. It should send
a deep
> chill down the backs of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the
populist
> coalition that took power in 1998.
>
> The catalyst for the Nov. 5-7 interagency get-together was a
comment by
> Chavez in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist assault on the World
Trade
> Center and the Pentagon. While Chavez sharply condemned the attack,
he
> questioned the value of bombing Afghanistan, calling it "fighting
terrorism
> with terrorism." In response, the Bush administration temporarily
withdrew
> its ambassador and convened the meeting.
>
> The outcome was a requirement that Venezuela "unequivocally"
condemn
> terrorism, including repudiating anything and anyone the Bush
administration
> defines as "terrorist." Since this includes both Cuba (with which
Venezuela
> has extensive trade relations) and rebel groups in neighboring
Colombia (to
> whom Chavez is sympathetic), the demand was the equivalent of
throwing down
> the gauntlet.
>
> The spark for the statement might have been Sept. 11, but the
dark
> clouds gathering over Venezuela have much more to do with enduring
matters
> -- like oil, land and power.
>
> The Chavez government is presently trying to change the 60-year-
old
> agreement with foreign oil companies that charges them as little as
1
> percent in royalties and hands out huge tax breaks. There is a lot
at stake
> here. Venezuela has 77 billion barrels of proven reserves and is
the United
> States' third-biggest source of oil. It is also a major cash cow
for the
> likes of Phillips Petroleum and ExxonMobil. If the new law goes
through,
> U.S. and French oil companies will have to pony up a bigger slice
of their
> take.
>
> A larger slice is desperately needed in Venezuela. Although oil
> generates some $30 billion each year, 80 percent of Venezuelans
are,
> according to government figures, "poor," and half of those are
malnourished.
> Most rural Venezuelans have no access to land except to work it for
someone
> else, because 2 percent of the population controls 60 percent of
the land.
>
> The staggering gap between a tiny slice of "haves" and the sea
of "have
> nots" is little talked about in the American media, which tend to
focus on
> President Chavez's long-winded speeches and unrest among the urban
wealthy
> and middle class. U.S. newspapers covered the Dec. 10 "strike" by
business
> leaders and a section of the union movement protesting a series of
economic
> laws and land reform proposals, but not the fact that the Chavez
government
> has reduced inflation from 40 percent to 12 percent, generated
economic
> growth of 4 percent, and increased primary school enrollment by 1
million
> students.
>
> Rumblings from Washington, strikes by business leaders, and pot-
banging
> demonstrations by middle-class housewives are the fare most
Americans get
> about Venezuela these days. For any balance one has to go to local
> journalists John Marshall and Christian Parenti. In a Dec. 10
article in the
> Chicago bi-weekly In These Times, the two reporters give "the other
side"
> that the U.S. media always go on about but rarely present: The
attempts by
> the Venezuelan government to diversify its economy, turn over idle
land to
> landless peasants, encourage the growth of co-ops based on the
highly
> successful Hungarian model, increase health spending fourfold, and
provide
> drugs for 30 to 40 percent below cost.
>
> But the alleviation of poverty is not on Washington's radar
screen these
> days. Instead, U.S. development loans have been frozen, and the
State
> Department's specialist on Latin America, Peter Romero, has accused
the
> Chavez government of supporting terrorism in Colombia, Bolivia and
Ecuador.
> These days that is almost a declaration of war and certainly a
green light
> to any anti-Chavez forces considering a military coup.
>
> U.S. hostility to Venezuela's efforts to overcome its lack of
> development has helped add that country to the South American "arc
of
> instability" that runs from Caracas in the north to Buenos Aires in
the
> south, and includes Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. Failed
neoliberal
> economic policies, coupled with corruption and authoritarianism,
have made
> the region a powder keg, as recent events in Argentina demonstrate.
And the
> Bush administration's antidote? Matches, incendiary statements, and
dark
> armies moving in the night.
>
> Examiner contributor Conn Hallinan is a journalism lecturer and
provost at
> the University of California, Santa Cruz. His column appears every
other
> Friday.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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