Thirty-seven Colombians deported for alleged complot against Chávez

[Judi Lynn]

Source: El Universal - right wing opposition newspaper

CARACAS, Monday March 09, 2009

Thirty-seven Colombians deported for alleged complot against Chávez

Politics
A group of 37 Colombians, who were deported from Venezuela for allegedly being members of a paramilitary group that attempted to assassinate President Hugo Chávez, complained of mistreatment. The Colombians, some of them considered as illegal aliens in Venezuela, were arrested by members of the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (Disip), which is the intelligence police in Venezuela, from January 27 to Friday, March 6. They were accused of forging a plot to assassinate Chávez.

One of the deportees complained to Colombian newspaper La Opinión, published in the city of Cúcuta, that they were beaten in the house where they lived in Caracas. "They told us that we were there to kill President Chávez", EFE reported. "We were locked in a room. They did not allow us to make phone calls. The food was a mess." The fact was reported when a Colombian national learned about the detention of his fellow citizens.


Read more: http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/03/09/en_pol_art_thirty-seven-colombi_09A2247843.shtml

[Judi Lynn]

1. To refresh your memory on who these people were, please review these articles, photos:

Barracs at the property of opposition activist Robert Alonso located in the outskirts of Caracas. Colombian paramilitaries lived there for 46 days in preparation for attacks on military bases.
Credit: Carlos Rios - Radio Nacional de Venezuela

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Is Washington planning a bloodbath in Caracas?
by Stuart Munckton
April 05, 2005

The Venezuelan government headed by President Hugo Chavez repeatedly accused the US government of planning a “new aggression” against Venezuela, including a plot to assassinate Chavez, despite pro-Chavez forces winning nine national elections in six years. Caracas claims to have information of an assassination plot to be carried out “within 100 days” against Chavez, although the government has refused to reveal its sources.*

While Washington has dismissed the accusations as “ridiculous”, further evidence was provided by a mid-March interview on Miami’s Channel 22 TV station with former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez.

A March 17 /Washington Post/ article, entitled “Anti-Bush fears assassination”, reported that the previous week “former CIA operative and prominent Bush supporter” Rodriguez, when asked by his interviewer about the assassination plot accusations, stated ‘‘that he had information about the administration's plans to 'bring about a change' in Venezuela, possibly through 'military measures’”.

Rodriguez went as far as to set out possible scenarios. He said that an air-strike aiming to kill Chavez was one possibility, pointing to the bombing raid then US President Ronald Reagan ordered in 1986 to kill Libyan President Muammer Qadhafi (Qadhafi survived the raid, but his daughter was killed). The Cuban news agency Prensa Latina reported on March 15 that in the interview Rodriguez had stated that he personally expected to participate in a CIA operation to kill Chavez.

The /Washington Post/ pointed out that “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 in Havana or Caracas.”
(snip/…)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7579

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Venezuelan elite imports soldiers
by Marta Harnecker
May 23, 2004

venezuelanalysis.com

If anything has become clear following the discovery of an incursion of a significantly large paramilitary group into the country, it is that the 'anti-Bolivarian and anti-Venezuelan oligarchy and its masters in the north' have not been able to recruit Venezuelan soldiers for their subversive objectives and 'have been forced to recruit them in another country,' as expressed President Chavez in front of tens of thousands of people, who gathered in Caracas this past Sunday, May 16th, to demonstrate their rejection of paramilitary activity and to express their support for peace.

Since 'the conspiracies against Venezuela do not end with the capture of mercenaries in Caracas,' there must be many other infiltrators in other areas of the country; since this is not an isolated action, but one whose efforts to stop the process continue, one can reach but only one conclusion: it is necessary to prepare oneself for self-defense. This is why the President considered it opportune to take advantage of the occasion and to announce three strategic lines for defending the country. The most radical proposal was a call for the population to massively participate in the defense of the nation.
A week earlier, on the 9th of May, on the outskirts of Caracas, a paramilitary force was discovered, dressed in field uniforms. Later, more were found, raising the total to 130, leaving open the possibility that there are still more in the country. The three Colombian paramilitary leaders of the group are members of the Autonomous Self-Defense Forces (AUC) in Northern Santander state in Colombia.

Some of the captured Colombian fighters have a long history as members of paramilitary forces. Others are reservists of the Colombian army and yet others were specifically recruited for the task in Venezuela and were surely tricked. Among these there are several who are minors.
(snip)
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5579
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Uribe admits anti-Chavez plot planned in Colombia

AFP, SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA
Monday, Dec 19, 2005, Page 7
Venezuelan former soldiers plotted against President Hugo Chavez's government at a Colombian military building, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said.
Uribe made the stunning disclosure on Saturday at the Caribbean resort town of Santa Marta where he is meeting with Chavez, and after analyzing documents furnished by Chavez.

"The Venezuelan soldiers who are in Bogota went to a building to meet with members of the Colombian military. President Chavez gave us these documents ... we analyzed them and this morning I said to President Chavez: `I must tell you the truth: this is a building of Colombia's public forces,'" he said.

Uribe said that intelligence efforts against the Venezuelan government are conducted in the building, and took full responsibility for the affair.
The two presidents met for six hours amid a climate of unusual goodwill on Saturday to discuss the purported Bogota-based conspiracy against the Venezuelan president, which Chavez first disclosed to his Colombian counterpart during a meeting in Venezuela on Nov. 24.

Seven Venezuelans involved in a 48-hour coup against Chavez in April 2002 have been linked to the new plot. Businessman Pedro Carmona, leader of the failed military-civilian coup, enjoys political asylum in Colombia, where he is working as a university professor.
(snip)

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/12/19/2003285082

[The abyss]

2. LOL, this is the same bunch?

I love it! How do you find this stuff?

Judi, thanks for posting.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Yep, the same guys. It appears now they have been shipped back home,

they have been telling people that once they got to Venezuela they were abused. You may have seen the information they gave the Venezuelan government years ago that they were not allowed to leave their quarters once they arrived, and were literally being held as prisoners. Their only way out would have been to either complete the take over, and the murders required to get all the way to Chavez, or to be discovered and arrested by the Venezuelan government!

So this is a story some of them volunteered long ago, and they seem to be sticking to it, after Chavez sent them back to Colombia, back to their families.

And this particular plot lead finally all the way to the Colombian President's head of the D.A.S., a combination FBI, CIA, etc. Uribe spent six hours in conference with Hugo Chavez apologizing, explaining what happened.

At some point later, his D.A.S. head, Jorge Noguero ran off! He hid in Europe or somewhere until he was located by Interpol and returned for trial.
He also was discovered by their Attorney General Mario Germán Iguarán to have given lists of names of union workers they wanted killed, and others, to the paramilitaries (death squads) who went out and zapped 'em, sometimes with witnesses to get the point across.

Creepy guys, The abyss!

[Bacchus39]

7. no, they were the ones picked up in January and accused incorrectly of being paramilitaries n/t

s

[Bacchus39]

8. yeah, these people were innocent here's a link that clears it up

IV. Presumed Colombian Paramilitary Forces Detained in Venezuelan Capital
Venezuela's vice president, Ramon Carrizalez, announced last week that
31 Colombians, presumed to be paramilitary forces, had been detained in the Caracas suburb of Petare. Carrizalez said they were investigating the motives of their presence. The detention comes less than two weeks after six other presumed paramilitaries were detained in the nearby city of Maracay, along with weapons, grenades and, two kilograms of explosives. In May 2004 the Venezuelan government announced the detention of a group of 130 Colombian paramilitaries, most of them on a large estate near Caracas owned by opposition leader Roberto Alonso. According to President Hugo Chavez the detainees were training to lead a military uprising and assassinate him. In 2007 the last of these detainees were pardoned by Chavez and sent to Colombia as a gesture of good faith

and from the most reliable source too


http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/audio/4184

[Arctic Dave]

16. Pardoned doesn't tranlate to innocent. It means they were let off the hook.

[Bacchus39]

18. the pardoned ones were released in 2007. these people were accused without reason

they were picked up in January of 2009, accused of being paramilitaries without cause it seems, and deported to Colombia now. they were in Venezuela illegally but I have yet to see anything other than accusations that they were paramilitaries.

[bitchkitty]

31. Oh, right.

They just went to Venezuela for the climate.

[Bacchus39]

32. there are lots of Colombians in Venezuela n/t

s

[bitchkitty]

37. I'm sure.

And I'm sure they all live together and have military training. It's all very innocent.

And a little tweeting bird just flew out of my ass and told me when the world would end.

[Mika]

39. The ever reliable, coming to the defense of RW thugs and henchmen.

As long as they're anti socialist or anti communist you're here jumping in to defend whatever the hit men (economic or paramilitary) are up to. :puke:

[struggle4progress]

20. Colombian paramilitaries seem to set up camp in Venezuela regularly

Venezuelan troops nab Colombian paramilitaries
18 Apr 2005 21:30:56 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Patrick Markey
CARACAS, Venezuela, April 18 (Reuters) - Venezuelan troops have captured five Colombian right-wing paramilitaries in Venezuela's remote Amazon region, in the latest border incident involving the two nations, officials said on Monday.

A Venezuelan National Guard patrol seized the five members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as the AUC, and a cache of arms and ammunition in the Yapacana national park in southern Venezuela, they said.

"These five suspects had no alternative but to hand themselves over," regional police commissioner Victor Bolivar told local radio. "These irregulars are members of a cell of the AUC."

He said the group had been extorting payments from local Indian villages in the area. Government officials said evidence showed the group was involved in drug-trafficking ... http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N18677508.htm



VENEZUELA: Peasants march against paramilitaries
<From Green Left Weekly, June 28, 2006>
Coral Wynter & Jim McIlroy, Caracas

The June 20 Diario Vea reported that more than 4000 campesinos (peasants) marched in the town of Guasdualito, in Apure state, near the border with Colombia. The protesters alleged that right-wing paramilitaries are infiltrating Venezuela from across the border and are responsible for a campaign of terror against campesinos.

In May, Luis Tascon, a deputy in the National Assembly, said that paramilitaries had been responsible for killing 1700 people in the country’s south-west. Paramilitary forces in Colombia are backed by the country’s armed forces, which receive millions of dollars of funding from the US government. Right-wing Colombian paramilitaries have been detained inside Venezuelan territory.

The march, which was organised by the Ezequiel Zamora National Campesino Front, was against paramilitary violence ... http://www.greenleft.org.au/2006/673/6344


Policía venezolana incautó gran arsenal y uniformes militares de origen estadounidense

En un allanamiento a una residencia particular en el este de Caracas fueron arrestadas cuatro personas y fue incautado un ''gran número'' de uniformes militares hechos en Estados Unidos, fusiles de asalto, más de 6 mil cartuchos, pistolas 9 milímetros y bombonas de gas manipuladas, así como armamento que fue calificado por el ministro del Interior como ''de ataque''
TeleSUR _ Fecha: 20/11/2007

Efectivos policiales y de la Guardia Nacional venezolana incautaron este martes un arsenal de guerra y uniformes militares de fabricación estadounidense, en un operativo durante el cual fue allanada una residencia en una zona exclusiva de este de Caracas y fueron arrestadas cuatro personas ... En el allanamiento fueron arrestados cuatro ciudadanos, tres venezolanos y uno de nacionalidad colombiana: Jorge Iván Álvarez, Miguel Antonio Dávila, Luver Jacinto Atencio González y Arturo Guayabal (colombiano con cédula de residente en Venezuela) ... http://www.telesurtv.net/secciones/noticias/nota/20965/policia-venezolana-incauto-gran-arsenal-y-uniformes-militares-de-origen-estadounidense/



Colombian militia camp found inside Venezuela
April 30th, 2008

... Caracas, April 30 (IANS) Venezuela’s armed forces have discovered a camp set up by a Colombian militia group inside the country and arrested four of its members, Spain’s EFE news agency reported Wednesday quoting a top military official. The secret camp of the outlawed United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, or AUC, was found last Thursday in the western state of Zulia near the Colombian borders, General Jesus Gonzalez said, adding that the camp was set up to train the right-wing paramilitaries.

He also said that several documents, 19 uniforms with AUC insignia, weapons, munitions, explosives and 80 kgs of cocaine were found from the site ... http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/colombian-militia-camp-found-inside-venezuela_10043707.html



Presumed Colombian Paramilitary Forces Detained in Venezuelan Capital
January 28th 2009, by Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, January 28, 2009 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- 31 Colombians, presumed to be paramilitary forces, were detained in the Caracas suburb of Petare, the Venezuelan vice president Ramon Carrizalez announced yesterday.

He said they are investigating the motives of the 31 Colombians' presence. "It is part of an ongoing process that is based on an investigation we have been conducting for some time," he said.

Carrizalez informed that they had seized weapons, grenades and, two kilograms of explosives in the city of Maracay, near Caracas. "The fact that paramilitaries have entered Venezuela isn't a fantasy."

On January 17 six other presumed paramilitaries were detained in Maracay, Aragua state, along with the above-mentioned weapons, and were to be deported back Colombia pending a response from the International Police (Interpol) ... http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4147

[Judi Lynn]

21. What a post! As soon as I scanned it I had to secure it for my files.

I'm coming back here later tonight to study them closely, as this is very important. Seeing the one about demonstrations from the citizens against these monsters was spectacular.

Thank you so much. Will revisit this material later. You've shared something never posted here before, and it's damned useful.

[Judi Lynn]

24. This is AMAZING. Your second posts describes a campesino protest against Colombian death squads

operating in Venezuela in 1993 which was BEFORE HUGO CHAVEZ, the paras being hired by landowners to slaughter Venezuelan citizens with whom they refused to share their huge tracts of land during a LAND REFORM. From that article:

In May, Luis Tascon, a deputy in the National Assembly, said that paramilitaries had been responsible for killing 1700 people in the country’s south-west. Paramilitary forces in Colombia are backed by the country’s armed forces, which receive millions of dollars of funding from the US government. Right-wing Colombian paramilitaries have been detained inside Venezuelan territory.

The march, which was organised by the Ezequiel Zamora National Campesino Front, was against paramilitary violence; in defence of Venezuela’s national sovereignty; and in support of the Bolivarian revolution, the radical process of social change that is gripping the country. This process has included an ambitious land reform program that is redistributing idle land from large landowners to previously landless peasants. This has angered large landowners, who have been accused by campesinos and the government of collaborating with the paramilitaries to defend their interests.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2006/673/6344

Damn! Hooray for our side. Thank you so much. We got even MORE information!

On edit:

Just finished reading the great information you've shared. It really cleared things up for me. I had missed this before, due to a scarcity of time available to get my reading done. I never would have known this quickly without having seen them here tonight.

Found this paragraph worth sharing again:

Made up of rural defence cooperatives formed more than 20 years ago to battle leftist rebels, most of the AUC militias degenerated into death squads, carrying out massacres of peasants, journalists and trade unionists suspected of having sympathy for the leftists.

The more that information on these murderous clowns and losers gets out, the better we'll ALL be. Once enough people know about them, then maybe Congress will stop sending them our money, and our blessings!

Thank you.

[struggle4progress]

28. The 1993 date is wrong and seems to be an HTML problem at that website: the story references

events much later than 1993, the URL contains "2006" and a notation at the bottom of the story indicates a 2006 source for the story

[Judi Lynn]

34. Yeah, what IS that? I have another article which also has that early date attached.

Now that I've seen it twice I am deeply curious what it means.... Hope to find out sometime.

VENEZUELA: Guns, drugs and thugs: the threat from Plan Colombia

17 November 1993

Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, Caracas

National and state governments are attempting to tackle the threat posed to Venezuela by right-wing paramilitary groups that have infiltrated the regions of the country bordering Colombia, particularly the state of Tachira.

From December 2005, when Venezuelan army colonel Heber Aguilar assumed leadership of the Tachira state police, there has been a drastic change in the situation, with a greater police presence in the streets. Aguilar told the July 13 Ultimas Noticias, “The job has not been easy. First, we must fight and keep fighting against internal corruption. More than 80 police have resigned, and some have been dismissed for being involved in crimes. Many of those collaborate directly with paramilitary groups ...”

More than 150 police out of a total of 2500 in Tachira are being investigated for alleged involvement in crime. Aguilar added that they had created special groups to operate in the municipalities near the border — the Tactical Group for Joint Actions and the Rapid Response Group.

Tachira’s governor, Blanco la Cruz, claims “Plan Colombia” has increased the penetration of the paramilitaries into Venezuela. Plan Colombia is the Washington-funded counterinsurgency war against left-wing guerrilla movements in Colombia, especially the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — the FARC — under the cover of waging a “war on drugs”. The Center for International Policy estimates that the US government spent US$631.6 million on military and police assistance programs for Plan Colombia last year.

The Colombian armed forces that are the beneficiaries of Washington’s largesse have long been known to be linked to right-wing paramilitary groups.

In 2001 Human Rights Watch reported that many Colombians told its researchers “that paramilitaries are so fully integrated into the army’s battle strategy, coordinated with its soldiers in the field, and linked to government units via intelligence, supplies, radios, weapons, cash, and common purpose that they effectively constitute a sixth division of the army ... certain Colombian army brigades and police detachments continue to promote, work with, support, profit from, and tolerate paramilitary groups, treating them as a force allied to and compatible with their own.”

La Cruz told UN that Plan Colombia is used to justify the paramilitary presence in Venezuelan territory, and that this forms part of the strategy of the US government to confront Venezuela’s left-wing President Hugo Chavez, whose Bolivarian revolution threatens US imperialism in a region long-considered Washington’s “own backyard”.

Some Venezuelans believe that Plan Colombia is being used as part of a military “pincer” movement against Venezuela to destabilise Bolivarian democracy and eventually force Chavez from power.

La Cruz said: “The zones that suffer this problem most intensely are south of Lake Maracaibo in Zulia, Alto Apure, and, obviously, Tachira. In these states, the paramilitaries, helped by the Colombian government, have taken control of various areas, buying up farms with the money from extortion, kidnapping and, principally, drug-dealing.”

In Tachira the most frequent crime is extortion, which is almost never denounced publicly, allowing the paramilitaries to act with impunity. In the first six months of 2006, kidnappings markedly decreased, in comparison to the previous three years, but they are still a major problem.

Laws have been presented to the National Assembly to specifically deal with the border security situation. La Cruz said that his administration was having meetings with the Supreme Court’s president to find ways of protecting judges who act against the paramilitaries. The July 18 UN reported that he said: “We are also having a meeting with the attorney-general of the republic, as well as the president, to talk about this issue, as it has implications on a national level.”

The Venezuelan people have mobilised against the paramilitary threat. On June 17, thousands of campesinos (peasants) from six states arrived in Guasdualito, in Apure state, for a march against Plan Colombia and “against the paramilitaries who are aiming to destabilise the Bolivarian revolution”, a spokesperson stated. This was the first protest of such breadth to occur on the border.

More than 150 campesinos have been murdered over the last four years, with the killers believed to be paramilitaries and other thugs in the employ of large landowners who feel threatened by Chavez’s radical land reform program, which has confiscated some large estates and handed them over to landless peasants.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2006/673/6344

[struggle4progress]

35. There are thousands of pages at the site with the same date

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.greenleft.org.au+%2217+November+1993%22

Click on one and view the source with your browser: the HTML
for the ones I examined all contained

div style='font-weight: bold'></div>
17 November 1993<div id='articleCntent'>

It's not going to originate from anything exciting: a sloppy
cut-and-paste habit in webpage layout or something like that

[Judi Lynn]

36. Glad you checked on this. I hope I can remember it's not what it seems when I see this again.

Truly confusing.

The articles themselves are gold, however!

Thank you.

[Tempest]

26. I noticed Bacchus39 disappeared after you posted this

Apparently he had no retort.

[Bacchus39]

27. still here. I am finding it quite amusing people continue to comment on a false story

n/t

[struggle4progress]

29. If you think I'm providing a false story, in my post which contains a number of distinct stories

stretching over several years, perhaps you could take the time to identify which story you consider false and provide some evidence to support your view

Simply accusing me of providing "a false story" in my prior post is not particularly informative

[Bacchus39]

30. the original poster provided incorrect information, and repeated it

the Colombians released were not the same ones in the photos and other info she provided. there has no info confirming these people were paramilitaries, simply accusations

[Tejas]

38. They're on a roll, quit injecting facts

:)

[Judi Lynn]

40. To the Democratic posters I respect, it appears these are two different sets of scums from Colombia.

I am almost always pressed for time, and didn't take enough time to really focus well enough to see this group of death squad guys is different from the other.

Later in this thread struggle4progress provided more information on additional instances of Colombian death squads, hired killers from Colombia being brought across the border into Venezuela, not to hide from the law at home, but TO KILL VENEZUELAN CAMPESINOS.

They are there to slaughter people. They have established a history in their own country of savagery beyond forgiveness in this life. You can find out more than you feel comfortable knowing by doing searches on Colombian death squads or paramilitaries torture chainsaws mass graves in any combination.

Thank you for taking the time to try to make sense of these things with those of us who won't forget, and WON'T GIVE UP.

[jeff30997]

3. Nice CIA financed fiasco.

Bay of Pigs II ?

[Judi Lynn]

5. No doubt! n/t

[The abyss]

6. That would be about right!

Well said!

[aikanae]

14. US 2002 coup attempt.

Bush Administration officials acknowledged meeting with some of the planners of the coup in the several weeks prior to April 11, but have strongly denied encouraging the coup itself, saying that they insisted on constitutional means. Because of allegations, an investigation conducted by the U.S. Inspector General, at the request of U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, requested a review of U.S. activities leading up to and during the coup attempt. The OIG report found no "wrongdoing" by U.S. officials either in the State Department or in the U.S. Embassy.

A television crew from Ireland representing the Irish state broadcaster RTE, which happened to be recording an unrelated documentary about Chávez at the time, was caught at the heart of the coup as it unfolded in the presidential palace. The crew's footage clearly contradicts explanations given by anti-Chávez plotters, the Venezuelan private media, the United States Department of State, and the communiques issued by the then White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_coup_attempt_of_2002
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_America/US_Coup_Venezuela.html

[espiral]

9. Parte II

Eh, here we go again, I suppose...

Like a pack of bourgeois students hazing the poorest boy in
the dormitory, CIA Co will never tire of these antics. In a
way, it is almost darkly comical.

[barbtries]

12. welcome to du

:hi:

[espiral]

15. re: barbtries

Hi- thanks! :)

[GreenTea]

10. We fund the CIA & they do as they please answer to no one have secretive covert operatives & forces

The CIA a long time fascist organization meant only to overthrow progressive & liberal countries people and governments for the American fascist imperialistic corporations, always with the help secretly, from our military, along with much republican support, again, all funding through our tax dollars with no accountability!

We are just suppose to simply believe these lying CIA thugs who answer to no one? Certainly not some head appointed by a sitting president.

[The abyss]

11. Trust them….

"You've just got to trust us. We are honorable men." Quote from Richard Helms

[GreenTea]

13. Disgusting......

liar & pig was Richard Helms!

[UTUSN]

17. But-but the SOURCE is a "RIGHT WING OPPOSITION" deal-ly!1

Ever-body just HATES Huguito!1 It's ALWAYS a "complot"!1

[Judi Lynn]

23. Spend some of your internet time doing your homework, instead of trying to mock people who know

what they're talking about.

To DU'ers who wonder what "El Universal" is to the coup against Chavez, it's there to be discovered in any search.

HOW HATE MEDIA INCITED THE COUP AGAINST THE PRESIDENT

Venezuela’s press power
Never even in Latin American history has the media been so directly involved in a political coup. Venezuela’s ’hate media’ controls 95% of the airwaves and has a near-monopoly over newsprint, and it played a major part in the failed attempt to overthrow the president, Hugo Chávez, in April. Although tensions in the country could easily spill into civil war, the media is still directly encouraging dissident elements to overthrow the democratically elected president - if necessary by force.

~snip~
After Chávez came to power in 1998, the five main privately owned channels - Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), Globovisión and CMT - and nine of the 10 major national newspapers, including El Universal, El Nacional, Tal Cual, El Impulso, El Nuevo País, and El Mundo, have taken over the role of the traditional political parties, which were damaged by the president’s electoral victories. Their monopoly on information has put them in a strong position. They give the opposition support, only rarely reporting government statements and never mentioning its large majority, despite that majority’s confirmation at the ballot box. They have always described the working class districts as a red zone inhabited by dangerous classes of ignorant people and delinquents. No doubt considering them unphotogenic, they ignore working class leaders and organisations.

~snip~
One step forward" was the triumphant headline in El Universal. Journalist Rafael Poleo, who had filed the account of the first meeting of the rebel leaders, took responsibility (with others) for the document setting up the new government. During the afternoon "President" Carmona offered Poleo’s daughter, Patricia, the post of head of the central information bureau. The decree establishing a dictatorship was countersigned by the employers, the church and the representatives of a pseudo "civil society", and also by Miguel Angel Martínez, on behalf of the media. Daniel Romero, private secretary of the former social-democrat president Carlos Andrés Pérez, and an employee of the Cisneros group, read it out.

The desire for revenge provoked repression. The interior minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, and a member of parliament, Tarek William Saab, were arrested, and heckled and manhandled by a crowd. RCTV triggered a manhunt by publishing a list of the most wanted individuals and broadcast violent searches live, aping the hectic pace of US news broadcasts. The live broadcast on all channels of attorney general Isias Rodríguez’s press conference was suddenly taken off air after only five minutes when he talked about the excesses of the "provisional government" and condemned the "coup".

~snip~
In the late afternoon of 13 April, crowds gathered in front of RCTV (then Venevisión, Globovisión, Televen and CMT, as well as the offices of El Universal and El Nacional), throwing stones and compelling journalists to broadcast a message calling for "their" president to be restored. It was an intolerable attack on the press; terrified journalists broadcast an appeal for help on air - conveniently forgetting that they were supposed to be on the rebel side. "We too are part of the people; we too are Venezuelans and we are doing our duty. It is not possible that the supporters of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez (no mention that he was head of state) should consider us their enemies."

More:
http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezuela

[Peace Patriot]

25. RCTV's televised manhunt against officers of the elected government!

I didn't know about this aspect of RCTV's treasonous use of the public airwaves during the 2002 coup...

"The desire for revenge provoked repression. The interior minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, and a member of parliament, Tarek William Saab, were arrested, and heckled and manhandled by a crowd. RCTV triggered a manhunt by publishing a list of the most wanted individuals and broadcast violent searches live, aping the hectic pace of US news broadcasts. The live broadcast on all channels of attorney general Isias Rodríguez’s press conference was suddenly taken off air after only five minutes when he talked about the excesses of the 'provisional government' and condemned the 'coup'."

So, while rightwing thugs were hunting down and threatening members of the legitimate government, this disgusting corpo/fascist TV station, part of a global empire, was providing "lists" of officials for the brownshirts to search for, terrorize, seize, beat up and even kill--in 'thrilling' live coverage a la Faux News. Then, when the remaining officials of the legitimate government were trying to restore order, they shut down coverage and ran cartoons. I knew about the latter part--also about their other crimes (hosting meetings of the coup leaders, promulgating the lie that Chavez had resigned, broadcasting doctored footage that made it look like pro-Chavez protestors were shooting at coup supporters, and broadcasting the junta's triumphant suspension of the Constitution, the courts, the national assembly and all civil rights). I didn't know about their part in the mob violence against government officials.

The Chavez government would have been justified in shutting the station down immediately and arresting and trying its owners and managers for treason. I imagine they didn't do that--but instead waited out RCTV's license period, and denied a renewal in 2007--because political conditions in the country and in the region, and certainly in the U.S. (our Junta supported the coup--it was organized right out of the U.S./Buswhack embassy)--were still very dicey for survival of Chavez's legitimate, elected government. Venezuela didn't have the numerous leftist allies in the region that it has now. When the Bushwhacks funded/organized a fascist coup in Bolivia, this last September, South America united against it, and gave President Evo Morales strong backing, via the new South American Common Market--UNASUR. UNASUR didn't exist back then, in 2002 (--just the U.S.-dominated OAS), and leftist governments hadn't yet been elected in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay or Nicaragua.

The important thing was restoring stability within Venezuela--after a week of fascist rioting and lawlessness. And it was still unclear what the Bush Junta might do. They had stationed a U.S. navy ship off Venezuela's coast. This was post-9/11, pre-Iraq War, when the Bushwhacks still had some legitimacy in the world. If the Chavez government had taken appropriate action against RCTV in 2002, it might have been used to spark a second coup attempt, with the corpo/fascist media quacks trumpeting Bushwhack bullshit about "U.S. oil supplies in times of peril," and that "dictator" Chavez. 'Look at him, he's shutting down free speech!' They made quite enough of these quacky noises later. It was also not clear, in the period just after the 2002 coup attempt, who-all in the military colluded with coupsters. It was a volatile period, and I think Chavez wisely chose not to move against RCTV at that time.

[Judi Lynn]

33. It's unbelievably vicious. Unforgiveable. How would they have fared here,

if they had pulled that stuff on _{George W. Bush?}

They'd be so thrown far into Guatanamo, you'd never hear from them again.

They all had been working on this, planning it, had their pack mentality working, and it still seems a miracle that somehow, someway, the people who knew what had happened were able to get through the news blackout, the complete monopoly of ALL mass media by the coup-plotting oligarchs, FINALLY, in time to spread the word to the citizens of the city who poured through the streets to protest the armed kidnapping of their President.

I knew they had started tracking down Hugo Chavez's cabinet members, and key supporters, some of them found out and went into hiding, but I also didn't know RCTV was leading its own posse over the airwaves.

How WOULD that have gone over here, after the President was returned by his citizens to office?

This same kind of thing happens regularly in Miami, on the Cuban hate radio stations, from which the hate radio jocks pour out hatred toward people they see as their enemies in town, and even go as far as to publish their phone numbers and their addresses for a little personal follow-up from their listeners. Public harrassment.

In RCTV's case, the harrassment of Chavez supporters went a little farther than that, actively trying to physically catch them and imprison them for their politics.

[rainy]

19. posting so I can read later! I know a man who says he had to leave

Venezuela because he was part of a group that tried to oust Chavez.

[Idealism]

22. Funny how the RW will always fund extremist groups to oust a liberal president

No matter what country it is in.