Venezuela Communists Knock US Plot (Wolfowitz, Albright)

[arcos]

Source: Prensa Latina

Caracas, Oct 29 (Prensa Latina) The Communist Party of Venezuela denounced on Monday that the US is involved in a subversive plan to thwart the constitutional reform in that country, due to its hopelessness to do so through democratic ways.

Tribuna Popular, organ of the organization's Central Committee, affirmed that between October 7 and 9, US representatives met with Venezuelan opposition sectors to plot the actions.

The source indicated that in the meetings, the opposition was urged to convene social uprisings, sabotage the economy and infrastructure, destroy the food transportation chain and plan a military coup.

Former US National Security Director Paul Wolfowitz, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, among others, attended the meetings.

<snip>


Read more: http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B2FBB249C-0149-4CD3-B023-14B4B8DBD387%7D)&language=EN

---

From what I've read, I don't think the Venezuelan constitutional reform is a good idea.

But damn! Can't the US EVER let other countries decide by themselves what they think is best?

[rjones2818]

1. Is there oil in Venezuela?

Yeppers...that's why we're interfering.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

2. Of course, US corporacrats want to knock off Chavez 'cause he's calling the shots,...

,...for his own people rather than playing the global empire game. He irritates the shit outta' big oil companies, especially.

[aquart]

3. I'm still trying to imagine Albright and Wolfowitz in the same room.

[ShortnFiery]

4. Hey, it's "all in the family" of neo-cons/neo-liberals? Condi Rice was Albright's

Dad's (Josef Korbel's) FAVORITE STUDENT. :wow: :scared:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5516648

Please consider: The American People are NOT getting the unvarnished truth from the leadership of EITHER political party. :(

[cascadiance]

9. Yes, still feel he should have liked my dad better! :)

My dad also had Josef Korbel as his advisor too at Denver. Too bad he didn't "recruit" Condi for a career in international studies and let her continue being a music major.

[ShortnFiery]

36. Overall, IMO, Albright is OK, but some things she has commented about regarding

the "sanctions on Iraq" having killed over 500,000 children. Perhaps it was out of context - but even so. It saddens me that, even indirectly that many children had to die because of lack of supplies for Treatments due to our strict sanctions.

Now HRC just stated this evening that she believes that sanctions will WORK with IRAN?!? :crazy: They haven't worked for Cuba and they will only inflame more hatred for Americans within the Middle East.

Sanctions only seem to harm the "common people" NOT those within the political and power elites of these sanctioned countries.

IMO, the vast majority of the time sanctions against trade in oppressed countries usually are ill-advised if not downright harmful to the average native. :shrug:

[Mika]

5. Not hard for me to imagine it.

Madeleine Albright on 60 minutes - "worth it"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK_QshS2EW8


-

[Wilms]

6. Wake up and smell the coffee. n/t

[philly_bob]

7. Me too. Evidence in this thread is slim . Three questions.

(1) The Prensa Latina link is in Spanish and requires registration. Somebody find out more.
If Albright and Wolfowitz met recently to discuss regime-change in Venezuela, I'd like to know about it. This one Prensa Latina link that I can't access is not enough evidence.

(2) Wolfowitz of course is Mr. Smart-and-Wrong NeoCon, the worst possible choice for any international decision-making. But I previously had a higher opinion of Albright. Is Albright really a NeoCon? Geez, I hope not. The evidence that her father also taught Condoleeza is not convincing (and frankly I didn't have time to listen to the full 60-minutes interview).

So two questions remain open:

(1) Did Albright & Wolfowitz recently meet?

(2) Is Albright a neocon?

For extra credit:

(3) What Democratic presidential candidate, if any, is Albright advising?

[Bacchus39]

10. Prensa Latina is a Cuban government owned news agency

that is all you need to know.

http://www.worldpress.org/newspapers/AMERICAS/Cuba.cfm

[Peace Patriot]

14. Why is that "all we need to know"? Please support that assertion.

And who would you recommend as more objective or more reliable on Latin American issues?

[Bacchus39]

18. how about, any one else??

n/t

[Vidar]

15. "All we need to know" in the sense that being Cuban based automatically

makes them a more objective & unbiased source than any of our American based news monopolies. I'm sure that's what you meant to say, Bacchus.

[Bacchus39]

17. yes, obviously the Cuban Government propaganda... I mean news agency is unbiased

completely objective in their reporting even if at odds with the Cuban government position. no doubt about it.

I think they did a hard hitting news story that verified that there we no gays in Iran.

[Peace Patriot]

21. Bacchus39, your answers about this matter are flippant and uninformative.

Please point us to some instances of the unreliability of La Prensa, so we can judge the matter for ourselves. You say "anyone else" is reliable. But that is just not true. Our corporate media is extremely UN-reliable on Latin American issues, and on the Latin American left, in particular. A good example is their trumpeting of the Bush State Department disinformation that Chavez is a "dictator," which is demonstrably not true. We see this time and again in Associated Press articles, which attribute this allegation to "his critics" (never naming the source, or putting the matter in quotes with an attribution). THAT is unreliable. Ask the people of Venezuela, who keep electing the guy, by bigger and bigger margins, in highly monitored and transparent elections. Who has he "dictated" to? Who has he oppressed? And WHERE is AP getting this allegation from?

La Prensa names their source. We can take it for what it's worth. I don't know a bloody thing about the communist party of Venezuela, except that it's very small. But I don't have any particular reason to disbelieve them. I wonder about this news NOT coming from the Venezuelan government. Perhaps it is a leak. But I'm not ready to dismiss it out of hand, just because it comes from Cuba. Our UN-official government propaganda organs--AP, the WSJ, the WaPo and the NYT, et al--are a lot slimier and harder to catch, in their propaganda. And it seems to me that you are encouraging stupidity in your "ex cathedra" statements about Cuba. Why shouldn't we seek many sources of news, including La Prensa, since our own corporate news monopolies are so notoriously prejudiced against the left, and so clearly the mouthpieces of war profiteers and global corporate predators?

[arcos]

27. Prensa Latina CAN be unreliable..

However, in this case it is not. Several other Spanish language news outlets, including right wing ones, reported about this... however, the only link I found in Englsh was Prensa Latina.

[eridani]

29. But you have to be registered to read it

Could someone reasonably fluent in Spanish register and help us out here?

[cascadiance]

11. I think that Albright has more corporate ties than I'd like, but she's not a neocon.

She wanted to have Condi work on I think it was Dukakis's campaign a while back, at which time Condi refused, saying "she was a Republican".

Korbel has passed away some time ago, and Madeline Albright told James Zogby in an interview on his "Viewpoint" show that she thinks that she channels her father more than Condi does... I don't think she expressed a lot of love for Condi in that interview.

Like I said in this thread earlier, Albright's father was also my dad's advisor at Denver too, and I certainly don't think our family is "neocon"!

[CoffeeCat]

8. Albright and Wolfowitz at the same meeting...

...planning this stuff?

Is there ANY doubt whatsoever that the power-political elite in this country
are ALL neocons? Some are Democrats and some are Republicans.

All of the power players are in on the fix.

I can count on one hand--the members of Congress who do not swim in this toxic
pool. You either play the game and commit their crimes--or you are shut out
and positioned as a liberal whack job (or worse).

No wonder the Dems never speak out. No wonder we don't have a white knight
telling us the truth and revealing the rotten corruption. They've all got
the goods on each other. This political corruption and taxpayer-funded crime
spree has been happening for decades now.

There isn't an honorable person--with any clout--remaining in Congress.

Our government is a big, fat crime syndicate.

Government "By the people, for the people and of the people". That no longer
exists.

[IndianaGreen]

53. One is a DLC/PPI neolib, and the other a PNAC/AEI neocon

They are two sides of the same imperialist coin.

BTW, Albright supports Hillary.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

12. It's funny how some people on DU

accept Prensa Latina and the Communist Party of Venezuela as authoritative sources while, at the same time, throwing mud at right-wing sources of the same reliability (or lack thereof).

[arcos]

28. Prensa Latina can be unreliable in some cases...

This is NOT one of them.

[eridani]

30. We really need to see sources here

Can you translate some of the other Spanish ones?

[Bacchus39]

44. yeah, this is an accusation by the communist party nothing more

n/t

[Bacchus39]

46. it reliably gives the Cuban government spin since it is a Cuban goverment "news" agency

surely you can accept that.

[Peace Patriot]

13. Well, if Wolfowitz and Albright and the Bush Junta are against it, you can be sure

it's good for Venezuela and its people, and the region. It's kind of like the formula for determining what crimes the Bush Junta is guilty of: When they accuse others of something, you know that's what THEY are doing. Good rule of thumb.

This guide to Bush Junta behavior is especially relevant with regard to Venezuela and Hugo Chavez. They accuse him of being a "dictator." Nothing could be further from the truth when you look at the FACTS about Venezuela's political system. And, of course, we know who the would-be dictators of the world really are. We know that they have slaughtered a half a million people to get their oil. We know that they have tortured thousands. We know that they are asserting all sorts of radical fascist policies and actions, with a 25% approval rating at home, and have stolen three successive elections, the latest two with Bushite-corporate controlled electronic voting machines, run on 'TRADE SECRET' programming, with virtually no audit/recount controls. That is a dictatorship.

Venezuela, on the other hand, has a genuinely elected government and National Assembly (congress). They use electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tabulated--and they handcount a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud. (Know how much WE handcount? Better find out, cuz that's the whole ballgame.) Further, Venezuela has the most highly monitored elections in the world--by the OAS, the Carter Center, EU election monitoring groups and others who have unanimously certified Venezuela's elections as honest and aboveboard. As a consequence, Venezuela has one of the liveliest political cultures in the western hemisphere, in which it is truly possible for a poor man or woman, on the basis of merit, intelligence and virtue, to rise to the top, and in which the government ENCOURAGES maximum participation by all citizens in political discussion and government decisions.

A good example is the current process of revising the Constitution. It is a lengthy process with many proposals, currently being hotly debated in the National Assembly and the country, ultimately to be placed BEFORE THE VOTERS for a vote of the people.

The National Assembly is ALSO elected, in highly transparent elections. Chavez has won two presidential elections and one U.S.-funded recall election by increasingly big votes--63% in the last election (Dec. '06)--and currently enjoys an approval rating of 70%. Like FDR, he has big coattails, and helped sweep Chavistas into office. But there is by no means uniformity and unity in the National Assembly. It is generally pro-Chavez but is composed of many fractional interests and parties, and is so democratic (with a small d) that, when rightwing students were out protesting Chavez's denial of a broadcast license renewal to RCTV, they invited the students INTO the National Assembly to debate the issue, in front of the National Assembly.

Here is an article about the Constitutional reforms, well worth reading:

"Venezuelan Legislature Approves 30 Articles for Constitutional Reform"
October 22nd 2007, by Gregory Wilpert – Venezuelanalysis.com
Caracas, October 22, 2007
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2750

The article states that the National Assembly has approved the Constitutional proposal that will permit the president to run for re-election after two terms (which, of course, the Bush Junta disapproves of, and calls "dictatorial," because that's how Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal succeeded--the people just kept voting him into office, for FOUR terms; he, too, was called a "dictator"--by the rightwing corporatists, robber barons and greedbags of that era). Here are some of the other proposals (to be voted on by the people):

"Articles that had already been approved earlier last week include the prohibition against discrimination based on health or sexual orientation (art. 21), the lowering of the voting age from 18 to 16 (art. 64), a requirement for gender parity in candidatures for public office (art. 67), the toughening of requirements for initiating popular referenda (art. 71-74), the right to not having one's primary residency expropriated (art. 82), the creation of a social security fund for the self-employed (art. 87), the reduction of the workweek from 44 to 36 hours per week (art. 90), the protection of Afro-Venezuelan culture, in addition to indigenous and European culture (art. 100), stronger self-management rights for university students (art. 109), and new forms of social and collective property (art. 115)." (--Wilpert)

An additional National Assembly-approved change would provide communal councils with 5% of the nation's budget (art. 167). This may be the MOST important proposal of all, for it is the means by which entrenched corruption (or new corruption) in use of government money is being circumvented. The communal councils are LOCAL community groups, formed in neighborhoods or among small business owners, coops or farmers, who are invested with the power to decide where government money is going--what projects are truly needed. The power is closest to the ground, in other words--and greatly encourages participatory democracy (real democracy--not top-down decisions).

It's funny, you know, how the Bushites and their war profiteering corporate news monopolies dwell on particular issues--such as a reasonable provision that permits this very popular president to run for office again (a condition that we had, in this country, through the 1950s), or Chavez's lawful and rightful denial of a broadcast license to RCTV (something governments do all the time)--items that our fascist press can play up as "dictatorial" (by ignoring the facts)--but they are SILENT about the Chavez government's honest elections and active efforts to EXPAND democracy, and to empower the vast poor majority which has never before been served by government.

These rightwing assholes and corporate fascists no doubt shudder at the thought of ordinary people determining the use of their government's resources. Chavez may be very popular (like FDR was), but name me a "dictator" who has gone to such trouble to create a good working democracy with participation by all sectors and all citizens. We could use some of that here. Democracy. No wonder the Paul Wolfowitz's and Madeline Albright's of this world are plotting against it!

---------------

www.venezuelanalysis.com has a lot of very informative articles on Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution (which includes Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina, leftist allies in Brazil, Uruguay, Nicaragua and Chile, and large people's movements throughout Latin America. Its articles are mostly from the point of view of the Bolivarians (very refreshing, given the rightwing propaganda we are subjected to). Here's a good one, about Venezuela's influence in the world:

"Venezuela and Europe: Towards a Different Kind of Politics"
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2754

[Vidar]

16. I wish we could recommend individual posts, for yours certainly merits it.

Thanks for the great links.

[CRH]

49. Peace Patriot, you are truly, a peace patriot. ...

Thank you for your post(s) and links. Always informative, always documented, always a refreshing view, of the other side of the story.

[Judi Lynn]

52. It's good to see the creation of amendments to address the areas which were not addressed

in the first document. It's an important stage for the country.

Thanks for the links. Appreciated reading the remarks by Rodrigo Chaves. They are moving exactly in the right direction. There was no reason in the world for the former oligarchy to be wholly dependent upon U.S. corporate power for instructions and advice and identity. Pathetic.

Broadening Venezuela's circle of friends is exactly what the doctor ordered.

[Peace Patriot]

19. The U.S. and Venezuela: Constitutional Worlds Apart

Excellent article! Here's the intro...

"The U.S. and Venezuela: Constitutional Worlds Apart"
August 24th 2007, by Stephen Lendman

"Although imperfect, no country anywhere is closer to a model democracy than Venezuela under President Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias. In contrast, none is a more shameless failure than the U.S.A., but it was true long before the age of George W. Bush. The difference under his regime is that the mask is off revealing a repressive state masquerading as a democratic republic. This article compares the constitutional laws of each country and how they're implemented. The result shows worlds-apart differences between these two nominally democratic states - one that's real, impressive and improving and the other that's mostly pretense and under George Bush lawless, corrupted, in tatters, and morally depraved." (MORE)

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2566

---------------------

I really don't know if the communist party of Venezuela can be trusted on the Wolfowitz/Albright reported meeting, or how reliable La Prensa is on this. I can't find anything about it at Venezuela Analysis, a very informative web site, which is kept quite current. But there have been several well-documented U.S. plots against Chavez, including a recent one hatched among the rightwing death squads in Colombia, with close ties to the U.S./Bush supported Uribe government--although Uribe himself has distanced himself from these plotters, as did the Venezuelan opposition candidate, to his credit. The plot had to do with overturning Chavez's election victory in Dec. '06 with another coup attempt. (H. Clinton's PR firm--Penn and Schoen--was involved, with a false poll that purported to show that Chavez had lost.) The Bush Junta has poured millions of our taxpayer dollars into Venezuela opposition groups. And that's just the part we know about. I have no doubt at all that the Bush Junta has black budgets for destabilizing Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, and assassinating its leaders, and for preventing Bolivarian revolutions in other countries, such as Peru and Paraguay.

I also have no doubt that global corporate predator operatives like Wolfowitz and Albright--whether those two in particular, or others--are involved in all kinds of meetings, discussions and plots to STOP democracy in South America, by any means necessary. The Clintonites have been as responsible as the Bushites for extremely destructive "trade" policy and extremely destructive militarism and fascism via the phony "war on drugs." It is a bipartisan U.S. policy to loot South America, and keep it subservient to U.S. corporate interests (--although there is some rebellion among the real Democrats in Congress, about the "free trade" deal with Colombia, and also Peru). Chavez and the other Bolivarians present a grave danger to ungodly corporate profit (including military-industrial complex, and police state, profiteering off the U.S. taxpayer for the "drug war" that never ends, and never curtails drug traffic). The Bolivarians oppose the World Bank/IMF loan sharks (big global corporate predator financial interests), and are booting them out, and replacing them with the Bank of the South, which supports regional and social justice goals. This alone must be giving fits to the Clintonite "free traders" and Bushite fascists, who are quite kindred spirits, in truth.

[EFerrari]

47. That's what I thought, too. These individuals may not have met

but I know to a certainty that these activities are ongoing. There have been too many credible reports to allow for doubt.

[Joanne98]

20. And now Homeland Security is attacking Chavez!

DHS is really beginning to piss me off. All they were suppose to do is streamline intell. Now they act like they rule the world. Major mission creep. It needs to be repealed.

[philly_bob]

22. Any other sources yet on Albright meeting with Wolfowitz?

I'm kind of left-brained and compulsive when it comes to facts.

Did they or didn't they?

[Judi Lynn]

23. Venezuelan Opposition Parties Reject Referendum on Constitutional Reform

Venezuelan Opposition Parties Reject Referendum on Constitutional Reform
October 25th 2007,
by Kiraz Janicke – Venezuelanalysis.com

Caracas, October 25, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)- Venezuelan opposition groups are planning to use "all means possible to stop the constitutional reform referendum," scheduled to take place on December 2.

Describing the proposed constitutional reforms as a "constitutional coup," a coalition of opposition parties, some of which participated in the short lived military coup against the government of Hugo Chavez in 2002, have called for a massive protest on Saturday, November 3, demanding that the National Electoral Council suspend the constitutional reform referendum. The demonstration is timed to coincide with the foundation of the Bank of the South, which will be launch in Caracas, by seven participating nations on the same day.

The coalition includes Alianza Bravo Pueblo (Brave People's Alliance), Acción Democrática (Democratic Action), Bandera Roja (Red Flag), Alianza Popular (Popular Alliance) and the Comando Nacional de la Resistencia (National Resistance Commando), among others, who argue that the priority for the opposition is not whether to participate in the referendum or to abstain, but rather to mobilize against the reform.

Opposition student groups, which demonstrated against the reforms on Tuesday, have planned another protest at the CNE tomorrow calling for the referendum to be postponed.

More:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2760

[Judi Lynn]

24. Apparently the meeting in question was held in Prague. Found reference to it in a quick search:

The student protests and media coverage are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington within the framework of CIA strategies being advanced to interfere in the domestic affairs of Venezuela. This U.S. funding and support for the student demonstrations reveals the continuing attempts by Washington to discredit and bring down the government that has been democratically elected by an overwhelming majority of the people. Most recently, this interference by the U.S. government can be traced directly to the meeting held in Prague by Condaleeza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and others working for the U.S. State Department.
(snip)

October 24- In a meeting held in Prague, senior Unites States officials gave green light for a plan for acts of sabotage against the constitutional reform in Venezuela. Carolus Wimmer, Latin American Parliament member (section Venezuela), denounced the meeting which was attended by:

• Paul Wolfowitz, ex Deputy Secretary of Defense;
  
  
• Madeleine Albright, ex United States Secretary of State;
  
  
• Aljaksandr Milinkeviv
  
  
• Michaellle Jean and
  
  
• Humberto Celli Gerbasi, a high profile member of the politcal party Acción Democrática (AD).

The meeting took place in Prague, Czech Republic, on October 7, 8 and 9.

The operations approved by the US officials consist of the following anti-government actions:

• Institute legal proceedings at the Supreme Court calling the Constitutional Reform a political coup;
  
  
• Foster social upheaval;
  
  
• Acts of economic sabotage and sabotage against infrastructure, persisting in damaging the food supply by disrupting the transport and delivery chain;
  
  
• Trigger a military coup with all possible means, using Columbian paramilitary forces infiltrated in Venezuela.

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_25394.shtml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You recall, if you watch Latin American news, the large group of Colombian mercenaries found living in temporary quarters outside Caracas at a ranch owned by Cuban-Venezuelan opposition militant, Roberto Alonso, fully armed, uniformed, hired by the Venezuelan opposition.

They gave testimony at the time of arrest concerning how they came to be there and who was responsible and they were allowed to return to Colombia.

You also should have read that Colombian President Uribe apologized to Hugo Chavez, and actually went over in detail all the information he had. His head of intelligence Noguera who fled the country, and who was brought back under arrest was involved in a plot against the Venezuelan government.

[Judi Lynn]

25. Peculiar observation made on Albright & Wolfowitz, something unexpected from a right-wing source:

Albright and Wolfowitz, Two Peas in a Pod
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright distances herself from the foreign policy "realists" in today's Washington Post. She rightly argues, "if all America stands for is stability, no one will follow us for the simple reason that we aren't going anywhere." Her Clinton-era colleague, former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, understood the pitfalls of jumping on the "realist" bandwagon many months ago. Setting aside Albright's distortion on why we invaded Iraq and her administration's spotty national security record, it's good to see another senior Democrat join the ranks of other democracy promoters such as World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz and the late President Ronald Reagan.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2006/05/

[eridani]

32. Turns out that all those defense brigades with their AK-47s--

--actually have something to be afraid of.

[philly_bob]

33. Thanks, Judi. Here's more on Oct. 7-9 meeting in Prague.

Curious collection of people.

Wolfowitz and Albright, to start out with, are an unlikely pairing of American ex-officials. Unlikely, but possible.

Tracked down some of the other alleged attendees.

1) I can't figure out who Aljaksandr Milinkeviv is. He comes up on the web only in connection with this meeting. I assume he is not Alyaksandr Milinkevich, a Bellarussian politician.

2) Michaelle Jean is Governor General of Canada; she is a Haitian-born former journalist.

3) Humberto Celli Gerbasi is identified as a politican for another Venezuelan political party.

A discussion in French, asking why the Canadian government is involved in this, is at http://humanisme.over-blog.com/.

That discussion (and most of the others) are all based on the same source, with the same group of five named people (Wolfowitz, Albright, Milinkeviv, Jean, Gerbasi; always the same order. Note that you can identify sources by a consistent misspelling of Jean's name, with 3 l's as Michaellle, not Michaelle)

I'm skeptical about sources here, but I don't doubt that the neocons would love to maneuver regime change in Venezuela.

If the Prague meeting is true, I bet the standard neocon rags (Weekly Standard, etc.) will start covering Venezuela heavily as a prelude, but I don't see anything yet.

I'd also study the background of the new U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy. Does he seem like a Negroponte-like diplomat/warrior?

I leave this to others to continue.

[Judi Lynn]

26. Kick?

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[unkachuck]

31. kick....

....wow, could this be another glaring example of the US committing 'obstruction of democracy'?

[me b zola]

34. k&r

[Judi Lynn]

35. Venezuelan opposition urges US to press Chavez on reform plan

Venezuelan opposition urges US to press Chavez on reform plan
Oct 12, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A Venezuelan opposition leader met Friday with a top US diplomat to urge the United States to press leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to slow his constitutional overhaul plan.

The Venezuelan politician, Manuel Rosales, met with Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon who reminded reporters Venezuela's constitutional affairs were a strictly Venezuelan debate.

Rosales told AFP nonetheless that "we are suggesting to the US government the possibility of pressuring in international organizations so that the reforms can be made public, debated, and so the (Chavez) government lengthens the time frame" in which it is to be considered.

"The government is setting out to change, in three short months, the basic principles of the Venezuelan constitution," Rosales said.

Rosales, who lost in last year's election to the staunch critic of US policies, said he also would be taking his concerns to the Washington-based Organization of American States, where he was to meet with its leader, Jose Miguel Insulza.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-HT8xjMjgv96TUmoLKqXJwfkVog

[ShortnFiery]

37. Terrific, a Venezuelan leader with the moral conscious of .... Chalabi.

:crazy:

[Judi Lynn]

38. It's starting to look like the Venezuelan opposition members are spending more time in Washington,

visiting _Bush administration officials, than in their own towns!

You recall in the months leading up to the coup, they were all hiking up there to attend conferences with State Department officials, from the top union boss, Carlos Ortega, who was getting U.S. taxpayer money from NED, to the head of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, to military officers they had managed to corral, to this opposition princess, Maria Corina Machado.



Sumate's Maria Corina Machado



U.S.-paid labor boss, Carlos Ortega, white t-shirt, business
leader,Pedro Carmona,to his right,anti-Chavez coup plotters,
and leaders of the labor lock-out (strike), as guests of the
Cuban right-wing "exiles" in Miami, in an anti-Chavez parade
on a day the REST OF THE WORLD was in the streets, protesting
_Bush's Iraq war.

If you saw the documentary shot from within the Presidential Palace, which contained a lot of material shot of the coup plotters when they took over, you no doubt saw some of these clowns showing up for the celebration! Whoop it up, a-holes!

A couple of them smoked themselves out, and got themselves on the run, as they were in a world of trouble for all the mayhem they created.

They all believe Venezuela should be government by the elitist European-descended scums, just the way it used to be, with all those native Venezuelans and African Venezuelans simply up #### creek for their entire lives.

[ShortnFiery]

39. Our meddling in other countries' domestic affairs really has not worked out well ... perhaps we ...

should consider NOT behaving like "a bull in a china shop" when conducting international negotiations / relations?!?

You never know, peace-mongering and finding common ground may just help us enjoy er ... Positive Blow-back? Wouldn't that be an excellent surprise? <soulful sigh>

[Judi Lynn]

40. Seems impossible to get there from here! Hope it could happen in our lifetimes.

[ShortnFiery]

41. Yes, I agree.

Although my ancestors are hopelessly German and English, I love Latin America. My friends who originally hailed from Puerto Rico help me get my Nebraskan-taught Spanish Accent to sound, somewhat understandable - discernable. :blush:

Yes, having had the pleasure of living in Panama for three years, I hope and pray for those beautiful people to have a better life.

You and me both ... perhaps we can help at some point in time? :hi:

[Judi Lynn]

42. Puerto Rico? I'll bet you've noticed this oddity: Puerto Rico and Cuba have opposite flags!

Puerto Rico, Cuba.
What's all this, then?

Just thought I'd mention it. G'night.

[Bacchus39]

50. they were both among the last Spanish colonies

and they both had failed independence movements prior to the Spanish American war. Not surprising the flags are similar. why not look at the flags of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador to see if you see any similarities.

[Judi Lynn]

51. Well, that rips it! It's time to get to the bottom of this!

Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador.

[Toots]

43. Who cares what the Communist Party of Venezuela has to say

They are what five people? It is even smaller than the Communist Party of America.

[EFerrari]

48. If it turns out to be true, and it looks like it is, then those five people

are telling you something about your government and how they use your tax dollars to thwart democracy in other countries. Who cares? We should.

[NeedleCast]

45. They sure sell us a shitload of oil

You'd think a country we're activly trying to over-throw wouldn't do that. Be kinda counter productive, no?

[philly_bob]

54. Confirmation of meeting. Venezuelan communists cried wolf.

I finally dug up info on the meeting described in the OP. It did happen:

http://www.forum2000.cz/

Indeed, it puts Wolfowitz and Albright in same room (with 448 others).

But take a look at the event and it's hard to justify the alarm in the OP.

The attendees passed a memo of support for Burmese opposition and their main issue seems to be Middle East water rights. I searched for "Venezuela" in the 2007 transcripts and found little.

Meanwhile, the news from Venezuela is that Chavez wants to reform the constitution to eliminate limits on his term as presidency and people are in the streets protesting.

Frankly, it looks as if Chavez supporters, foreseeing Chavez' politically indefensible constitutional reform, attempted to use DU to mobilize support for Chavez as a third-world target of neocon imperialism.

To DU's credit, it didn't work.