Sources in Washington D.C. have revealed that Bush 2 administration officials are again seeking to "stimulate" a regime change in Venezuela after a USA-backed coup d'etat against democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez Frias failed when US puppet dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga moved to dissolve parliament, the judiciary and the constitution in one fell swoop.
Our sources (which must remain confidential, but have been verified) say that Venezuelan nationals, recruited on the promise of fast-track US citizenship and benefits, have been trained in the arts of USA terror tactics at the US Army School of Americas-SOA (renamed 3 years ago as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation-WHISC) at Fort Benning (Georgia) were relocated to training camps at Iquitos in the northern jungles of Peru under the direction of US Southern Command (Latin America & Caribbean) regional HQ at Fort Buchanan (San Juan, Puerto Rico).
SOA/WHISC commanders are said to be "smarting" over their failure to impose a US-backed military/civilian dictatorship in Venezuela in April 2002 when democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez Frias was swiftly returned to power after US-puppet dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga dissolved parliament, the judiciary and Venezuela's constitution in one fell swoop. Carmona Estanga was not able to control the massive surge against him as millions of Venezuelans took to the streets repudiating his imposition and demanding the return of reformist Chavez Frias.
Covert US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives are already in place in Venezuela as the SOA/WHISC prepares for what it is calling "a second bite at the cherry." Bush 2 Latin America 'enforcer' Otto Reich has been holding top level meetings with strategists from the Venezuelan political opposition in Washington D.C. who also had meetings there last week with shadowy Venezuelan billionaire Gustavo Cisneros and former US White House insider Henry Kissinger.
Corrupt Venezuelan Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV) president Manuel Cova and Coordinadora Democratica (CD) representative Timoteo Zambrano have met with senior US State Department officials, including Reich, although both are attempting to whitewash their visit to D.C. as simply a round of information meetings they could equally have held with anti-Venezuelan US Ambassador Charles S. Shapiro at the Colinas de Valle Arriba bunker in Caracas. Cova and Zambrano were also meeting with Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General, former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria and US congressmen, including Massachussetts Democrat Frank Barney, a member of the secretive US Select Committee on Homeland Security, where he serves on the Subcommittee on Infrastructure & Border Security and the Subcommittee on Intelligence & Counterterrorism.
While, on the face of it, US State Department spokespersons are calling on all side in Venezuela's tumultuous electoral process to respect established norms and procedures, radical opposition meetings with USA-OAS Roger Noriega and Senator Charles E. Shannon have led IC operatives in D.C. to dig deeper into Beltway motives while senior diplomat Peter DeShazo (who recently visited Caracas to speak personally with President Chavez Frias) is seen as having a more mediative role in alliance with former US Ambassador and Latin America expert John Maisto.
Meanwhile, SOA/WHISC troops are hunkered down ready to be drafted into Venezuela as soon as opposition-inspired violence breaks out. US Air Force and Navy contingents are being made ready at a Southern Command base on the Caribbean island of Aruba (Dutch Antilles) to provide logistic and material back-up to an invasion force. A US Navy hospital ship is also said to be on standby to sail to a position off the Venezuela's northern coastline at first signal of "the balloon going up."
The remaining question is no longer IF, but WHEN!
From VHedline.com
Posted by marc at February 3, 2004 07:24 PM | TrackBack