Chavez says 1 dead in clash with unknown group along Colombia border

[Judi Lynn]

Source: International Herald Tribune/Associated Press

Chavez says 1 dead in clash with unknown group along Colombia border
The Associated Press
Published: June 1, 2008

CARACAS, Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez says one person has died in an armed encounter between Venezuelan soldiers and an unidentified subversive group along the Venezuelan-Colombian border.

Chavez says Venezuela's interior minister told him of Friday clash but did not know who the subversives were or what they were doing.

It wasn't clear if the encounter took place in Venezuela or Colombia.

Relations between the neighbors have been strained since Colombia raided a rebel camp in Ecuador last March, claiming to find evidence there that Chavez had financed Colombian guerrillas.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/31/america/LA-GEN-Venezuela-Colombia.php

[Judi Lynn]

1. Presumed Colombian paramilitaries kidnap 3 in Ecuador

Presumed Colombian paramilitaries kidnap 3 in Ecuador

The Associated Press
Thursday, May 29, 2008

QUITO, Ecuador: Ecuadorean officials say an armed group apparently crossed the border from Colombia and kidnapped three men.

The Ministry of Defense said Thursday that the attack in the eastern jungle may be the work of right-wing Colombian paramilitaries. They call it a violation of Ecuador's sovereignty.

Witnesses say about 30 people in military uniforms accused the kidnapped men of cooperating with leftist Colombian rebels and then took them back across the border.

It is unclear if the victims are Colombian or Ecuadorean.

More:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/29/america/LA-GEN-Ecuador-Raid.php

[arcadian]

2. They are probably U.S. special operations forces

Delta Force or Navy SEALS or at least trained by them.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Well there's on less now

isn't there.

[Pavulon]

15. Probably not...

we have a long history of killing people in Latin America in quiet wars. Lopsided use of air power, including stealth technology, allows for a small force to kill people in jungle warfare. infrared allows aircraft to see and attack individuals on the ground.

Probably farc or some imaginary pot for him to stir.

[ronnie624]

16. Hardly imaginary.

It's the United States that has a history of 'stirring the pot' in Latin America, not Venezuela.

Your right leaning political views tend to lead you to illogical conclusions, despite the evidence and the obvious patterns.

The relevance of the 'facts' in your first paragraph is rather difficult to discern.

[Pavulon]

17. Pick a country..

Nicaragua for example. People went nuts when an American was photographed with a weapon. However we had been flying ac-130s and other aircraft there for over a year.

The point is that if it was us they would have produced the body on tv to make their point.

Chavez is stirring the pot, he should be careful what he wishes for.

[ronnie624]

18. Just because those who were killed may not be "us"

doesn't mean that the incident wasn't instigated and/or sponsored by "us".

Don't forget the history and patterns of U.S. interventions in Latin America. Doing so makes your 'analysis' utterly meaningless. They must be factored into any attempt to understand the implications of recent events there.

The Venezuelan government does not have a history of "stirring the pot", but again, the United States does have such a history. I'll go with higher probability.

[Pavulon]

19. Cuba does..

and he certainly seems to be enthralled with that model. Unless they have a dead body of an American they can say whatever he likes.

His alignment is yet to be determined.

Both the US and USSR played war in LA and other places around the world.

How else do Cubans get to Angola?

Never view events without context.

[ronnie624]

20. Cuba's history of sending doctors to other Latin American countries

doesn't qualify as the same sort of intervention as that which is practiced by the U.S.

[Pavulon]

21. Or troops to angola?

they were soviet aligned. I guess those 40,000 troops were all there observe. They are a communist dictatorship that does not allow free passage of people or ideas. The USSR obviously played war there and so did we.

Context is important.

[ronnie624]

22. Angola has nothing to do with this topic.

I still say that Venezuela does not have a history of interventions in the affairs of other Latin American countries, whereas the United States does. This fact is very important in any discussion about the geopolitics of this region.

This is an example of your attempts to distract from the issue, and avoid discussion of U.S. crimes in Latin America.

[Pavulon]

23. Someone brought up cuba, angola and communist expansionist

activity go along with that. They are the framework that many US and Soviet activities were based on. The us acted in LA during a cold war with the USSR. This is documented history. Criminality is subjective. Context is missing from your posts.

Chavez has a history of mouthing off. Poor coup victim, none of his pimps bring up his own coup attempt.

If he had a body he would produce it.

The issue is not american activity but chavez's claim of a dead guy.

[Judi Lynn]

25. How odd, dragging out a body. Who does THAT?

You are delerious, I'm afraid! Wouldn't you imagine all the witnesses from the same area would come forward and say that's a lie if this information were NOT accurate? The opposition papers and tv stations would snap that up in a flash.

As for your attempt to drag Africa in as an example of Cuba "communist expansionist" activity, you're going to have to bow to reality on that one:

SECRET CUBAN DOCUMENTS ON HISTORY OF AFRICA INVOLVEMENT

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 67
Edited by Peter Kornbluh

NEW BOOK based on Unprecedented Access to Cuban Records;
True Story of U.S.-Cuba Cold fear Clash in Angola presented in Conflicting Missions

Washington D.C.: The National Security Archive today posted a selection of secret Cuban government documents detailing Cuba's policy and involvement in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. The records are a sample of dozens of internal reports, memorandum and communications obtained by Piero Gleijeses, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, for his new book, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (The University of North Carolina Press).

Peter Kornbluh, director of the Archive’s Cuba Documentation Project, called the publication of the documents “a significant step toward a fuller understanding Cuba’s place in the history of Africa and the Cold War,” and commended the Castro government’s decision to makes its long-secret archives accessible to scholars like Professor Gleijeses. “Cuba has been an important actor on the stage of foreign affairs,” he said. “Cuban documents are a missing link in fostering an understanding of numerous international episodes of the past.”

Conflicting Missions provides the first comprehensive history of the Cuba's role in Africa and settles a longstanding controversy over why and when Fidel Castro decided to intervene in Angola in 1975. The book definitively resolves two central questions regarding Cuba's policy motivations and its relationship to the Soviet Union when Castro astounded and outraged Washington by sending thousands of soldiers into the Angolan civil conflict. Based on Cuban, U.S. and South African documents and interviews, the book concludes that:

• Castro decided to send troops to Angola on November 4, 1975, in response to the South African invasion of that country, rather than vice versa as the Ford administration persistently claimed;
  
  
• The United States knew about South Africa's covert invasion plans, and collaborated militarily with its troops, contrary to what Secretary of State Henry Kissinger testified before Congress and wrote in his memoirs.
  
  
• Cuba made the decision to send troops without informing the Soviet Union and deployed them, contrary to what has been widely alleged, without any Soviet assistance for the first two months.

.....
Gleijeses also interviewed over one hundred fifty protagonists, among them the former CIA station chief in Luanda, Robert Hultslander who spoke on the record for the first time for this book. "History has shown," Hultslander noted, "that Kissinger's policy on Africa itself was shortsighted and flawed." He also commented on the forces of Jonas Savimbi, the rebel chief recently killed in Angola: "I was deeply concerned ... about UNITA's purported ties with South Africa, and the resulting political liability such carried. I was unaware at the time, of course, that the U.S. would eventually beg South Africa to directly intervene to pull its chestnuts out of the fire."

In this first account of Cuba's policy in Africa based on documentary evidence, Gleijeses describes and analyzes Castro's dramatic dispatch of 30,000 Cubans to Angola in 1975-76, and he traces the roots of this policy—from Havana's assistance to the Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961 to the secret war between Havana and Washington in Zaire in 1964-65 and Cuba's decisive contribution to Guinea-Bissau's war of independence from 1966-1974.

"Conflicting Missions is above all the story of a contest, staged in Africa, between Cuba and the United States," according to its author, which started in Zaire in 1964-65 and culminated in a major Cold War confrontation in Angola in 1975-76. Using Cuban and US documents, as well as the semi-official history of South Africa's 1975 covert operation in Angola (available only in Afrikaans), this book is the first to present the internationalized Angolan conflict from three sides—Cuba and the MPLA, the United States and the covert CIA operation codenamed IAFEATURE and South Africa, whose secret incursion prompted Castro's decision to commit Cuban troops.

Conflicting Missions also argues that Secretary Kissinger's account of the US role in Angola, most recently repeated in the third volume of his memoirs, is misleading. Testifying before Congress in 1976, Kissinger stated "We had no foreknowledge of South Africa's intentions, and in no way cooperated militarily." In Years of Renewal Dr. Kissinger also denied that the United States and South Africa had collaborated in the Angolan conflict; Gleijeses' research strongly suggests that they did. The book quotes Kissinger aide Joseph Sisco conceding that the Ford administration "certainly did not discourage" South Africa's intervention, and presents evidence that the CIA helped the South Africans ferry arms to key battlefronts. The book also reproduces portions of a declassified memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and Chinese leader Teng Hsiao-p'ing which shows that Chinese officials raised concerns about South Africa's involvement in Angola in response to Ford and Kissinger's entreaties for Beijing's continuing support. The memcon quotes President Ford as telling the Chinese "we had nothing to do with the South African involvement." Drawing on the Cuban documents, the book challenges Kissinger's account in his memoirs about the arrival of Cubans in Angola. The first Cuban military advisers did not arrive in Angola until late August 1975, and the Cubans did not participate in the fighting until late October, after South Africa had invaded.

In assessing the motivations of Cuba's foreign policy, Cuba's relations with the Soviet Union, and the nature of the Communist threat in Africa, Gleijeses shows that CIA and INR intelligence reports were often sophisticated and insightful, unlike the decisions of the policymakers in Washington.

More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB67/

[Pavulon]

26. This started with dead american post..

if they had one it would be news. Chavez would be all worked up to a nice froth. Another poster brought up cuba sending doctors, cuba has quite another background.

As much as you want to deny it there was a cold war, cuba was soviet alligned, and both the USSR and the US manipulated politics in latin america.

Nothing is pure, even the beloved chavez was a coup leader prior to being subject to one himself.

BTW your info is wrong. Cuba was given airlift support by the dead nation they once aligned with.

Angola was another US/USSR proxy war. After all that trouble from cuba Angolans figured out Marxism is bullshit.

[Judi Lynn]

27. It was because of his stand against a bloody predator Hugo Chavez became a national hero.

Origins of the Coup

The 1992 Coup Attempt in Venezuela has its origins based in the system of 'partyarchy' and the government's subjective control of the military. From 1959, Venezuelan politics had been dominated by two major political parties, the Democratic Action party (AD) and COPIE. During the pre-Bolivarian era, these two parties had formed themselves into a loose coalition which became known as a 'partyarchy', rule by parties.

This type of government soon led to problems with corruption, particularly in the wake of an oil boom. Oil revenues had been up 54% during the Perez government of 1975 to 1979. Money was diverted from the government into the hands of officials. The courts who had aligned themselves along party lines were reluctant to convict those accused of corruption. Corruption and partyarchy were later blamed for many problems including an economic crisis in the 1980s. The coup was also partially caused by the way the Venezuelan government had chosen to run the military. Under an objective military system, the military and civilians are separated. A subjective system relies on the military working together with the civilian population. Middle ranking military officers were sent out in the field to work with civilians. The main goal was to democratize the military. The exact opposite would happen. When military officers, including Hugo Chavez, saw the conditions in which Venezuela's poor lived, they became disenchanted with the country's system of government. Corruption was blamed for the problem This feeling was being felt by the nation's citizens as well. By 1990, the government had ceased attempts to satisfy them. People began searching for alternatives to the corruption of Venezuelan democracy. Riots erupted in 1989 to protest government corruption.


The MBR-200

The MBR-200 (Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionaro 200) was founded by lieutenant colonels Hugo Chavez Frias and Francisco Arias Cardenas. They used the Venezuelan revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar as their group's symbol. Their main dispute was the corruption of Carlos Andres Perez as well as Venezuela's ongoing economic difficulties and social turmoil. In the view of these two men, the entire political system had to be changed in order for social change to occur.


The coup unfolds
After an extended period of popular dissatisfaction and economic decline <1> under the neoliberal administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez, Chávez made extensive preparations for a military-civilian coup d'état <2> Initially planned for December, Chávez delayed the MBR-200 coup until the early twilight hours of February 4, 1992. On that date, five army units under Chávez's command barreled into urban Caracas with the mission of assaulting and overwhelming key military and communications installations throughout the city, including the Miraflores presidential palace, the defense ministry, La Carlota military airport, and the Historical Museum. Chávez's ultimate goal was to intercept and take custody of Pérez before he returned to Miraflores from an overseas trip.

Chávez held the loyalty of some 10% of Venezuela's military forces;<3> still, numerous betrayals, defections, errors, and other unforeseen circumstances soon left Chávez and a small group of other rebels completely cut off in the Historical Museum, without any means of conveying orders to their network of spies and collaborators spread throughout Venezuela.<4> Worse, Chávez's allies were unable to broadcast their prerecorded tapes on the national airwaves in which Chávez planned to issue a general call for a mass civilian uprising against Pérez. As the coup unfolded, Pérez eluded capture, and fourteen soldiers were killed, and 50 soldiers and some 80 civilians injured, in the ensuing violence.<5> Nevertheless, rebel forces in other parts of Venezuela made swift advances and were ultimately able to take control of such large cities as Valencia, Maracaibo, and Maracay with the help of spontaneous civilian aid. Chávez's forces, however, had failed to take Caracas.<6>

Chávez, alarmed, soon gave himself up to the government. He was then allowed to appear on national television to call for all remaining rebel detachments in Venezuela to cease hostilities. When he did so, Chávez famously quipped on national television that he had only failed "por ahora"—"for the moment".<7>
(snip/...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Venezuelan_coup_attempt_of_Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's a quick look at the absurd way the President of Venezuela at the time was trying to run the country:

On February 27, 1989, Perez increased the price of gasoline and the cost of public transportation. Following an IMF model to garner foreign investment, his austerity policies hit the poorest people hardest. But Perez apparently did not expect Venezuelans to respond to "economic shock" programs with spontaneous protests, which erupted throughout the country. In some areas, rioters torched shops and set up roadblocks.

When the police went on strike, the government lost control. Perez called for a state of emergency. The soldiers fired into crowds. By March 4, the government claimed that 257 lay dead. Some non-governmental sources estimated the death toll at over 2,000. Thousands were wounded.

Perez, who called himself a socialist, first imposed draconian measures on the poor and then had them shot when they objected. The Caracazo as the event became known, not only destroyed Venezuela's aura of stability but put an end to the political system that had replaced the ousted military dictator Perez Jimenez in 1958.

From then on until the Chavez victory, successive Christian Comite de Organizacion Politica Electoral Independiente (COPEI) and Social Democratic Accion Democratica (AD) governments had used the nation's immense oil wealth to distribute drops - or crumbs - just enough to maintain stability.

It took the IMF and World Bank - with strong backing from the Reagan government - and its neo-liberal offensive in the 1980s, to push Venezuelans into action. They rebelled against policies designed to further impoverish them and reward those who needed it least. Although the 1989 Caracazo emerged as an unplanned response to a set of new measure, the uprising also symbolized years of discontent over government corruption. The Caracazo destroyed the shady Perez, the prestige of the two major parties, and it opened the door to a more radical politics, outside the party structure.
(snip/...)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/LAN407A.html





Timeline: Venezuela
A chronology of key events

~snip~
1973 - Venezuela benefits from oil boom and its currency peaks against the US dollar; oil and steel industries nationalised.

1983-84 - Fall in world oil prices generates unrest and cuts in welfare spending; Dr Jaime Lusinchi (AD) elected president and signs pact involving government, trade unions and business.

1989 - Carlos Andres Perez (AD) elected president against the background of economic depression, which necessitates an austerity programme and an IMF loan. Social and political upheaval includes riots, in which between 300 and 2,000 people are killed, martial law and a general strike.

1992 - Some 120 people are killed in two attempted coups, the first led by future president Colonel Hugo Chavez, and the second carried out by his supporters. Chavez is jailed for two years before being pardoned

1993-95 - Ramon Jose Velasquez becomes interim president after Perez is ousted on charges of corruption; Rafael Caldera elected president.

1996 - Perez imprisoned after being found guilty of embezzlement and corruption.

1998 - Hugo Chavez elected president.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1229348.stm

[ronnie624]

28. Castro would have gladly aligned with the U.S.,

but the attitude of the Eisenhower Administration literally drove him into the arms of the Soviets; another example of how 'blowback' results from U.S. meddling. The corporatist political system of the day simply would not allow Cuba to have even a modicum of sovereignty. The political power structure of the U.S. expected Castro to continue in the same manner as Batista. When he refused to allow U.S. industry to maintain its hold on the Cuban economy, resources and labor, plans to overthrow the government commenced immediately, and the first assassination attempts against Castro started in 1960.

The whole purpose of the Cuban Revolution, was to make the Cuban political system and economy benefit Cubans instead of U.S. corporate millionaires. It seems he had no choice but to turn to the USSR.

[EFerrari]

29. Chavez went on television and asked for forgiveness for his coup attempt.

He handled it with a great deal of integrity.

[EFerrari]

30. Or with a false context. The Soviet Union had nothing to do with

Cuba in Angola.

[bluesmail]

4. Venezuela and Ecuador are surrounded. They are being

provoked into action, TYPICAL.

[formercia]

13. Luring the Venezuelan troops to cross the border in hot pursuit.

I would bet there was a Colombian army unit on their side of the border providing 'Security' in case it happened so they could claim that Venezuela 'Invaded' Colombia in order to justify an armed conflict.

The Venezuelan troops were smart to stay on their side.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Venezuela says troops kill Colombian "subversive"

Venezuela says troops kill Colombian "subversive"
Sat May 31, 2008 7:24pm EDT

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan troops killed a Colombian "subversive" in a border gun battle, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday, an incident that could fuel new tensions between the two countries.

The South American neighbors have maintained a war of words in recent months, with Venezuela accusing Colombia of trying to spark war and sending troops into its territory.

Chavez said the Venezuelan army exchanged gunfire with armed "subversives" near the border, but did not offer details on where the incident took place or which group was involved.

"They fired at each other and one (member) of the subversive group died," Chavez said during a televised speech.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN3140185520080531?rpc=401&

[formercia]

24. A CONTRA by any other name is still a CONTRA.

This smells rotten.

[stillcool]

6. When I read stuff like this....

the divide in our country makes so much sense.

[zeemike]

7. Some more graduates of the School of the America I see n/t

[MilesColtrane]

8. Unidentified?

Hugo, teh Google is your amigo.

http://www.cia.gov

[ronnie624]

9. "It wasn't clear if the encounter took place in Venezuela or Colombia."

Based on recent events, I know which side I would bet on.

[SlipperySlope]

10. If they are unidentified, how do you know they are subversive?

Additionally, subversive by definition means "working from within".

If they are unidentified, how do you know they are from within?

[Judi Lynn]

11. Here's the report, taken from Telesur's news page, and run through google translation tool:

One dead in clash with illegal group in border area between Colombia and Venezuela

_ Mostra ago: 05 hours

In the border area between Colombia and Venezuela and killed an alleged member of an illegal group in Colombia, after Venezuelan deal with a patrol, as confirmed on Saturday the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, during a ceremony in Caracas.

"A unit of Caribs, Venezuelan soldiers Caribs, he encountered a patrol armed, uniformed, with weapons of war. It came shooting and there was a deceased member of another group," said the agent.

However the head of State said ignoring the identity of the irregular group. "It is not known yet which group belong," he said during a meeting with members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

Hugo Chávez reiterated that Venezuela is "deeply affected by internal conflict that Colombia has", with which it shares 219 kilometers of 2 thousand land border. The territories are plagued border "with subversion, crime, drug trafficking, smuggling" by the Colombian conflict, he said.

http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/index.php?ckl=28520-NN

Any fluent Spanish-speaking, trustworthy DU'er is welcome to give us a clearer picture of this article than the one the computer spits out. Google translations are almost always inscrutible!

[Judi Lynn]

12. DU'ers may recall there was an earlier incursion by Colombians in May:

Venezuela protests alleged Colombian cross-border raid
18 May 2008, 0328 hrs IST,
AFP

CARACAS: Venezuela issued an official protest to neighbouing Colombia on Saturday denouncing an alleged cross-border raid by Colombian soldiers.

The Venezuelan protest, which the government made public, said that a 60-man Colombian unit was "intercepted" just beyond the border inside Venezuelan territory on Friday.

Venezuela called on Colombia to "immediately halt these violations of international rights and of Venezuelan sovereignty and territorial integrity."

The soldiers were allegedly stopped 800 meters (yards) on the Venezuelan side of the border with Colombia in the southeastern state of Apure, the statement read.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Venezuela_protests_alleged_Colombian_cross-border_raid/articleshow/3049974.cms

[hack89]

14. Are the borders lawless areas

with many criminal gangs? Honest question - with drug and smuggling gangs in addition to political groups like the FARC and Columbian para- militaries just how many choices are there?