Interpol puts Chávez, Correa on the spot

[Zorro]

Source: Miami Herald

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his Ecuadorean counterpart Rafael Correa can scream and yell as loud as they want, but the fact is that they have been caught red-handed supporting a terrorist group that is trying to topple the democratically elected government of Colombia.

Last week, after Interpol -- the top international police body -- issued a much awaited report certifying the authenticity of 37,872 computer files from Colombia's FARC guerrillas containing hundreds of references to Venezuela's and Ecuador's active support for the armed rebel group, Chávez and Correa reacted -- as they always do -- with insults and accusations against the U.S. ``empire.''

Pretty much like he did a few months ago when a Venezuelan delegation was caught trying to smuggle $800,000 in cash into Argentina for his political allies in that country, Chávez claimed that the Interpol forensic investigation into the three laptop computers and two external hard drives seized by Colombia's armed forces in a March 1 raid into a FARC camp in Ecuador was ''a circus.'' Chavez called Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble a ''mafioso'' and a ''vagabond.'' Correa's discharge was similarly virulent.

Except that this time, it will be harder even for the most gullible Chávez and Correa supporters to take their claims of innocence seriously. The investigation carried out by Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, France, involved 64 police officials from 15 countries, led by forensic computer experts from Singapore and Australia, who were picked independently by their countries' police authorities. Together, they spent 5,000 hours examining the computers.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/andres_oppenheimer/story/537153.html

[Meshuga]

1. Anybody who shows something about Chavez in negative light

is by default a "mafioso".

[Andrushka]

2. Not LBN

Miami Herald? "caught red-handed"?!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Tocque Deville]

3. This isn't "news"

And the Miami Herald is a joke. Here's a link to Carl Bernstein's
expose` on CIA operatives posing as Miami Herald reporters.

http://danwismar.com/uploads/Bernstein%20-%20CIA%20and%20Media.htm

I use this section of DU as a nice little news aggregator. It
would be good if there were some standards as to what qualifies
as news. Propaganda from the Miami Herald doesn't cut it.

[struggle4progress]

11. DU has strict standards for LBN. See the rules

[backscatter712]

4. After seeing "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised",

I'm pretty skeptical about this article.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[judasdisney]

44. Fascinating how the moderator supports Neocon trolls who defend Latin American Neocons.

[Zorro]

45. You should thank them

instead of insulting them, judas.

[Judi Lynn]

46. It's a shock every time I see it. From what I've observed in the past,

by watching a troll who used to infest this place a long time, known trolls DO send alerts on Democrats and get their stuff deleted when it contradicts what the trolls have written.

You wouldn't think it would happen but I've seen it, and I've been someone whose posts got deleted the same way.

You just have to work around these clowns. Eventually the truth gets through REGARDLESS of their stupid machinations.
You WILL get the last laugh, along with everyone else of good faith here.

[judasdisney]

48. Zorro defends Latin Neocons, Skinner defends Zorro.

[Judi Lynn]

49. Very sorry to hear it, judasdisney. We're going to get the truth out, one way or another, however.

It's a real surprise after seeing the extreme rancor and disruption he has spread in his brief time here. He's been working overtime.

Somehow progressive people ARE going to find a way to communicate without having trolls shoved down our throats. Just a matter of time.

[Zorro]

50. The truth is out there

You just choose to condemn it because it contradicts your agenda.

You can always set up your own website and restrict membership to those in your mutual admiration society, if you don't like being challenged in an open forum.

Progressive people acknowledge and condemn FARC atrocities.

[Zorro]

51. I don't think so

If anything you were being protected.

[sasquatch]

5. When the revolution comes, all the Batista loyalist in Miami are going to be used as shark chum

[happydreams]

6. Oh boy. Interpol chief Ronald "Ignoble" is a Bush thug.

The guy spearheading this specious crock of shit investigation is Bushboy from a way back.

Ronald Kenneth Noble (born 1957) is an American law enforcement officer. He was elected Secretary General by the 69th INTERPOL General Assembly in Rhodes, Greece, in 2000, and was unanimously reelected to a second five-year term by the 74th INTERPOL General Assembly in Berlin, Germany, in 2005. From 1994 until 1996 he was the Undersecretary for Enforcement of the United States Department of the Treasury in which he was responsible for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He served as the chief of staff of the Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice from 1988 until 1989. He is a 1979 graduate of the University of New Hampshire and a 1982 graduate of Stanford Law School. Mr. Noble also is a tenured professor at the New York University School of Law, on leave of absence while serving at Interpol.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Noble

Just look at how they homed in on this little bit of easily corrupted evidence. :eyes:

Time to get an independent investigation into this matter.

I suggest this www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Calvin guy to head the investigation! He gives Zorro hell I tell ya! :rofl:

[happydreams]

10. This is getting creepy. Mr. "Ignoble" has warned of possible bomb threat

at the Olympics. Well, Delmart Vreeland suggested the same thing 7 years ago.

Interpol Says Terror Attack At Olympic Games Possible : Homeland ...Apr 25, 2008 ... The head of Interpol said on Friday that there is a “real possibility” that the Beijing Olympics will be targeted by terrorists or that ...
www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2008/04/25/interpol-says-terror-attack-at-olympic-games-possible/ -

[judasdisney]

24. Very helpful info, thanks. Looks like the Ruling Class is an organized International Front

[happydreams]

31. No kidding. Ignoble as head of Interpol after being Poppy's boy

makes one wonder.

[struggle4progress]

7. Andres Oppenheimer might want to read the Interpol report before making claims

about what Interpol found. What the Interpol report says Interpol actually did was: (1) obtain two (unnamed) "experts" (from Australia and Singapore), neither of whom could speak Spanish; (2) allow the "experts" to make disk images of the materials; (3) transport the disk images back to Australia and Singapore in Colombian diplomatic pouches; (4) have the experts examine date stamps on the disk images to determine when files were created; and (5) produce many pagers of recommendations to the international police community on the proper handling of computer files

The experts seem to have discovered that the Colombians did not handle the machines properly for about a week, but did not find evidence that any of the document files they actually examined were created after about 3 March

The value of this forensic may be gauged from the fact that
some files were apparently created in 2009. Concerning these, the Interpol experts seems to have concluded that either the computer calendar was incorrectly set when the files were created or that the files were created on a machine with an incorrectly set calendar and then transferred to the machines from which the disk images were taken. Interpol very helpfully suggests that Colombia not rely on those files

Unfortunately for the credibility of Interpol, its Secretary General Ronald Noble, formerly of the US Secret Service, misrepresented all of this in his press conference

It is unclear in what (if any) sense Interpol has really "certified the authenticity" of the files. Interpol explicitly disavows any role in interpretation: meanwhile, Andres (of course) follows the Colombian government interpretation, but since he has not read the Interpol report, it is natural to suspect he is merely being fed his lines

[happydreams]

9. Who woulda thunk it, so Noble is "Ignoble" as Hugo says. Nice work

[Peace Patriot]

8. Interpol found that 48,055 files had been "accessed, created, modified or deleted"

while the laptops were in the custody of the Colombian military. I think that pretty much settles the matter of the reliability of this "evidence."

The head of Interpol appears to be an asshole--or didn't read his own report. The experts who wrote the report took care to use non-Spanish speakers to analyze only the issue of ownership, NOT THE CONTENTS OF THE FILES. The report has NOTHING TO SAY about the CONTENTS, and furthermore says that the laptops could not be used as evidence in a court of law, because basic "chain of custody" protocols were violated.

-----

COLOMBIA: Interpol Notes Improper Initial Handling of FARC Laptops
By Constanza Vieira
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42391

"Using their forensic tools, they (the Interpol experts) found a total of 48,055 files for which the timestamps indicated that they had either been created, accessed, modified or deleted as a result of the direct access to the eight seized exhibits by Colombian authorities between the time of their seizure on 1 March 2008 and 3 March 2008 at 11:45 a.m."

-----

BoRev.net has some good stuff on the date-stamps (with the year 2009 in them). More DU discussion at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3314746

I want to know why the Colombian military would DELETE files from these laptops.

The Miami Herald has lost all credibility on South America. You would be absolutely clueless as to what's happening on that continent, if that's all you read. What a disservice they are doing to their readers! It's like reading Judith Miller and "Curveball" on Iraq WMDs. It is more than bad reporting. It is disinformation.

[Wilms]

17. .

:thumbsup:

[Peace Patriot]

12. "...a Venezuelan delegation was caught trying to smuggle $800,000 in cash into Argentina"

ONE MAN was caught by Argentine customs with $800,000 in his suitcase. He's a two-Jaguars-in-the-driveway Miami "businessman" with dual U.S./Venezuelan citizenship, who somehow managed to get himself invited onto a private jet carrying Venezuela oil executives. The Argentine customs officials let him return to Miami, where he turned up as state's witness for the Bushbot U.S. Attorney, who is accusing two other Venezuelans and a Uruguayan (not part of any delegation) of "failing to register as agents of a foreign government," because they allegedly talked to the two-Jaguars guy and asked him not to implicate Venezuela. There is no evidence--zero, zilch--that these men were agents of Venezuela. The accusation that the money was meant from Chavez to Cristina Fernandez, who was running for president of Argentina (she won, without any help from Chavez) comes from the two-Jaguars operative himself, who tried to take the money into Argentina, who is also state's witness. His word.

It appears to me to be a botched Bush-CIA caper out of Miami, with the Bushites trying to salvage at least some headlines out of the situation.

The VP of Venezuela said, if we wanted to send cash to Fernandez, why would we put it on a private jet that had to go through customs, and not on Chavez's official plane, the next day--when Chavez visited Argentina--with diplomatic immunity?

This simple, logical question caused me to burst out laughing, and I hope it does that to you, too. One possible answer is that the two-Jaguars operative could not get on the official plane, because...what he was doing had nothing to do with the Venezuelan government! Another is that it was possibly his intention to get caught by customs. (Cuz, can anybody be that stupid? To try to get $800,000 in cash through customs? Just lying there in bricks in your suitcase, as described by the customs official?)

The most recent news of this caper is that the two-Jaguars guy has been moved to an undisclosed location and given "protection"--but from whom, it is not clear. (Does Venezuela do renditions?) (Note: An Argentina court has sworn out an arrest warrant on this guy, for fraud.)

[Zorro]

14. Guilty plea in suitcase cash stash

<snip>

A Venezuelan pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in the alleged cover-up of a plot to smuggle $US800,000 ($854,500) into Argentina to fund a presidential election campaign, officials said yesterday.

Carlos Kauffmann, 35, was one of five men accused of acting on behalf of Venezuela's anti-US government in a case that touched off corruption allegations in Argentina and diplomatic tensions between the Washington, Caracas and Buenos Aires.

Kauffmann entered a guilty plea on Friday to a charge of conspiring to act as an agent of Venezuela without registering with the United States government and could face five years in prison. He agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, according to a plea agreement released by the US Attorney's Office in Miami.

<snip>

More at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/guilty-plea-in-suitcase-cash-stash/2008/03/04/1204402418799.html

[Peace Patriot]

15. I feel sorry for this patsy, but a guilty plea on BushWorld charges is meaningless.

They could have all kinds of things on him and his loved ones.

Think of who we're dealing with, and the sheer volume of oil involved.

The story is ridiculous on its face. And tell me this, say it's true, say Chavez... :rofl: ..say Chavez decided to use Miami mafia to get lots of cash to Cristina Fernandez...I mean the very same guys who would like to cut him up and throw his body parts out of an airplane...but hey, Chavez is smart, he figures, 'who would suspect Miama mafia--the perfect currier for my dirty cash?' ...so he hires a guy with two Jaguars in his driveway in Miami to fly to Argentina with $800,000 cash in his suitcase...

:rofl:

I can't get past this. Chavez could have taken it on HIS OWN PLANE WITH DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY! Don't you get it? Or, if he didn't want to be bothered, better to send it to Evo Morales to hire a campesino to carry it over the border on a donkey! The asshat walked into Argentine customs with $800,000 in neat bricks sitting right in his suitcase!

Look, I don't know which sides of which sidewalks this guy was working, or where this cash came from, but I do know this: a) Hugo Chavez is not STUPID, and b) even if it's true, that he would send $800,000 in cash into Argentine customs with this disreputable character, WHAT BUSINESS IS IT OF THE U.S. ATTORNEY IN MIAMI?! It's a matter between Venezuela and Argentina. It is none of our business.

They're wasting my tax money on THIS--while cocaine streams into this country from Colombia like the River Styx?

The thing was a fracking set-up. It smells to high heaven. And I don't care who "confesses" to it. These Bushite criminals have been spying on everybody, blackmailing anybody who gets in their way, torturing people, slaughtering people, "rendering" people to torture dungeons in eastern Europe, and setting up dirty tricks all over the landscape. They are scum. I have no reason to believe ANYTHING they say in accusation of others. They are congenital liars, who have been using the Dept. of Justice for political repression and persecution. So now they're extending that crime to South America. Great! That's a fine bit of diplomacy from the land of the free, home of the brave.

[Peace Patriot]

16. For those who would like to get educated on Bushite "justice"...

Blacklisted by the Bush government...domestic spying under Bush
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x360261

[Peace Patriot]

22. Here's a little more info on Puke "justice"...

All TX State AG's cases in last 2 years target Dems
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3307625

[Zorro]

19. Defendant in Argentina Election Plot Pleads Guilty

<snip>

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- A Uruguayan man pleaded guilty to acting as an agent for the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in covering up a plot to influence Argentina's presidential election.

Rodolfo Wanseele Paciello, 40, admitted today in federal court in Miami that he and four other men tried to silence Florida businessman Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson. On Aug. 4, Antonini carried a suitcase containing $800,000 that was seized at a Buenos Aires airport. Prosecutors say the cash was intended for the campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who was elected president of Argentina Oct. 28.

According to court papers, Wanseele admitted today that he ``knowingly acted'' as an agent of the Venezuelan government, and said he was related by a former marriage to a Venezuelan intelligence agent who coordinated the cover-up...

<snip>

More at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a.iqEjKy9kwE

Three guilty pleas from innocent people....hmmm...seems like an awful lot to me...

[Peace Patriot]

21. Yeah, that is a lot of guilty pleas. The story still stinks to high heaven.

The Bushite kneecappers and fingernail pullers must have been working overtime.

[happydreams]

34. I smell Rove in all of this. I'm sure he was tampering with Venezuelan voting

operations around the time of that cliff hanger vote on the Constitutional amendment. What exactly has he been doing lately beside fighting off sub-poenas for the Siegelman caper?

These defendants are probably linked to Rove. I can just smell it. I wonder if any of them met with Rove?

[happydreams]

32. Kauffman???? A good ol' Latino name.

Pardon me if I remain skeptical.

:eyes:

[happydreams]

33. Kaufman is a drug dealing, money laundering sleazeball. Probably

a CIA cutout. The article states he operated "on behalf of Venezuela's anti-US government". Chavez is NOT anti-US he's anti-Bush and there is nothing linking Chavez to this operation. It is a bumbled idiotic dumb-ass op if there ever was one and its got a Rovian aroma about it.

Kaufman:
http://feathersblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/venezuelan-chavista-agents-arrested-in.html

Zorro, who the faack do you work for?

[Judi Lynn]

35. What a cheesy way to make a living! Holy smokes.

It must be all of these better jobs were taken, already!

[happydreams]

36. I sure would like to look up Kauffman's family....

tree. I Wonder if he's the kid of a WWII Nazi who got to S. America on the ratline.

:hi:

[Judi Lynn]

38. It wouldn't be a total shock, would it? They embedded themselves throughout South America,

even working in high government positions, like Klaus Barbie, and ALL with the total support, as you knew a long time ago, of the C.I.A.

I'd like to find out more about all of these characters, too. They've been using Latin Americans for their dirty work for decades, haven't they? They cross borders, have gone all over the world on their dirty missions.

[happydreams]

39. Orlando Bosch is another one. He is a CIA trained terrorist who

masterminded a plot to blow up a Cuban airliner with another CIA trained terrorist named Posada . Karl Bosch was the head of the Nazi run combine IG Farben--the guy who industrialized poison gas in WWI. I like how these guys have a latin sounding first name and a German last name. :crazy:

[struggle4progress]

43. US Government paid for Antonini Wilson's expenses

While Guido Antonini Wilson, "the suitcase-cash man," is wanted by the Argentinean authorities because of his alleged involvement in money laundering and his name is included in the Interpol most-wanted list of international fugitives, the South Florida Court revealed that the US Government covers some of his expenses. According to the Court's files, the US government gave Antonini USD 29,682 for security and moving expenses ... http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/04/30/en_pol_art_us-government-paid-f_30A1548609.shtml


And then ... Guido (conveniently) disappeared:

U.S. Relocated Courier of Suitcase in Argentine Election Plot
By David Voreacos and Carlyn Kolker

April 30 (Bloomberg) -- A Florida businessman who carried a cash-stuffed suitcase at the center of an Argentine election scandal has been relocated by the U.S. government, records show. The government paid $29,682 for ``expenses incurred related to security and relocation'' for Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, prosecutors said in an April 25 filing in federal court in Miami. The filing didn't indicate where Antonini, who lived in Key Biscayne, is now living or when he moved ... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aB2Y.fAJzEn4&refer=latin_america

I'd guess his CIA handlers really don't want him extradited to Argentina

[happydreams]

13. Let's get this to the greatest page. Everybody needs some comic relief

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Hydra]

28. This really is complete comic relief

But I swear, I'm sick of these absurdities flying.

[Arctic Dave]

18. TG when posting something like this, please remember to spray after.

The smell is killin me.
X X
/
___

[Zorro]

20. OK, DA

maybe changing your underwear will help, too.

[Prophet 451]

25. So, nothing actually proven as yet

Even if the FARC laptops do contain such references, even if those references are genuine (Interpol also found many modifications from the laptop's time in the hands of the Columbian military) and even if the CO's status as a Bush water carrier didn't affect the invstigation, Chavez and Correa have yet to be charged, let alone convicted of anything.

[eridani]

26. The Miami Herald is for the sociopathic thug elite (or former elite)

--of Latin America. All you need to know is that the folks living behind the high walls with barbed wire and broken glass on top regard the rest of the population of Latin America as disposable human garbage.

[Judi Lynn]

27. U.S. supported, sometimes S.O.A. trained former death squad leaders, bloody right-wing Presidents

who are afraid of being ripped to shreds by the people if they stay in their own countries, turn-coat traitors and bribe takers likewise afraid of the wrath of god from their countrymen, all get washed up to Miami and dumped there, as someone has described the effect is like Latin America has vomited undigestible orts on the shores of Florida.

In the very recent past we've seen leaders of massacres in Peru, a Central American country, and a former President of Bolivia responsible for a dirty slaughter of Bolivian indigenous citizens all hauled out of there for trial, following other similar events prior to that. Leaders of the coup against Chavez piled in there, _Bush-supported creators of the work lockout of Venezuelan workers by their management showed up there leading a joint Cuban "exile"-Venezuelan expatriot anti-Chavez parade, Venezuelan oligarchy have second homes there, along with Venezuelan author of the horrendous, nationally traumatic "El Caracazo" massacre in 1989, an old fart who had his soldiers fire directly into crowds of protesting, unarmed poor people, killing 3,000 of them before becoming impeached has one of his homes there, and, who can forget Richard M. Nixon, author of Watergate, employer of Cuban "exile" criminal brigade, the Watergate burglars, ALSO had another home there. The _{George H. W. Bushes,} and the _{Jeb Bushes} couldn't be pried away from the place, and _{George W. Bush} made trip after trip after trip to Miami during his first 6 years, and picked many, MANY faces from the hardliner "exile" community for his administration, even giving a speech in Miami, with a well-known Cuban terrorist/bomber sitting immediately on the stage behind him, as captured by Miami tv news cameras.

Just a little bit of heaven, a gathering place for all the sell-outs and sociopaths of Latin America. You've got that nailed, eridani.

[happydreams]

37. Now I think the fascists have corrupted vote counting in other countries

as they have in the US. Rove is into it, he's gotta be.

[bvar22]

29. K&R

Viva Democracy!!!!

I pray some of that good stuff (Democracy) migrates to El Norte!


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

[Popol Vuh]

30. For some reason I think the OP

Has no idea what MLK meant when he said:

When machines, and computers, profit motives and property rights; are considered more important than people. The giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the west investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America; only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries. And say this is not just. It will look at our reliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say this is not just. Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order.

And say of war. This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm; killing our nation's homes with orphans and widows of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane. Sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields. Physically handicapped and psychologically deranged can not be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

It is a sad fact that because of content complacency; a morbid fear of communism, our proneness to adjust to injustice. The western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch-anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real. And follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit. And go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism. With this powerful commitment, we shall boldly challenge the status quo.

[happydreams]

40. So this is you guys strategy, hmmmmm.....

Your success in Blitzkrieging the US election process (stealing two Prez elections) has led to exporting your ops overseas. The operation you describe has CIA written all over it. You got the job done on the Constitutional Amendment vote in Venezuela, but Rove overreached with Siegelman. If Rove goes to jail that could crimp your ops real bad, hee, hee.

[MasonJar]

41. Actually the Interpol report was widely misinterpreted according to news on NPR.

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Judi Lynn]

47. The FARC-EP Files, Venezuela and Interpol

Spinning the News - The FARC-EP Files, Venezuela and Interpol

by Stephen Lendman

Global Research, May 19, 2008

First some background. On March 1, the Colombian military (with US Special Forces help) illegally attacked a FARC-EP rebel camp inside Ecuador. US satellite telephone tracking located the site. Washington signed off on the mission. Over 20 people were killed, including 16 or more FARC-EP members while they slept. Key among them was Paul Reyes, the FARC-EP's second-in-command, key peace negotiator and public voice, and lead figure in the Chavez-led hostage negotiations with Colombia.

The action was a clear act of aggression and premeditated murder. It's not how the dominant media played it. Hostile verbal exchanges took place between Hugo Chavez and Ecuador's Raphael Correa on the one hand and Colombia's Alvaro Uribe and George Bush on the other. US presidential candidates, as expected, supported the White House and Bogota.

Tensions heightened further when Colombia's vice-president, Francisco Santos Calderon, revealed his nation's army recovered three laptops and other material at the FARC-EP camp with provocative evidence on their hard drives. He claimed it showed Chavez and Correa have links to the FARC-EP, and Venezuela provided weapons, munitions, and $300 million or so to the rebel group. In addition, the FARC-EP was accused of acquiring 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of uranium, that it wishes to sell it for a radioactive dirty bomb, it also sold 700 kilograms of cocaine for about $1.5 million, and more.

The story is preposterous, but the media grabbed hold of it. No evidence exists, so they invent it. In March, Colombian authorities asked Interpol to examine the computer files for authenticity. The organization released its report on May 15. On its web site, it states that Secretary General Ronald Noble "advised senior Colombian law enforcement officials that INTERPOL's team of forensic experts discovered 'no evidence of modification, alteration, addition or deletion' in the user files of any of the three laptop computers, three USB thumb drives and two external hard disks seized during a Colombian anti-narcotics and anti-terrorist operation on a FARC camp on 1 March 2008."

More:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9016

[Judi Lynn]

52. Rodríguez Chacín denies "direct link" between Chávez and the FARC

Caracas, Tuesday May 20 , 2008
Rodríguez Chacín denies "direct link" between Chávez and the FARC

Minister of the Interior and Justice Ramón Rodríguez Chacín on Tuesday stated that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has not had a "direct link" with the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC).

Rodríguez Chacín added that the "only contacts" between the Venezuelan government and the FARC were carried out by myself, at request of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's government and within the framework of the peace process," reported Efe.

Chávez and opposition Colombian Senator Piedad Córdoba mediated the exchange of 45 hostages held by FARC for some 500 rebels in Colombian jails.

http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/05/20/en_pol_art_rodriguez-chacin-den_20A1593959.shtml
opposition newspaper