Chavez Accuses US of Trying to Assassinate Him (articles - all English)

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Published: Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Bylined to: Laht.com

Assassination risk kept Venezuela's President Chavez away from El Salvador

Laht.com: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez did not attend the inauguration of Mauricio Funes as El Salvador's head of state because of the risk of assassination, the Andean nation's foreign minister said on Tuesday. "That's right, thanks to intelligence reports on international right-wing groups, it was learned there was a high risk and the right decision was taken to suspend the President Chavez' visit and reschedule it for another time," Nicolas Maduro said in a communique. "Risks and threats like this go along with the crazy idea of Venezuela's right-wing opposition to try and take the head of state's life," he said.

The foreign minister thus confirmed the words of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who said on Monday in El Salvador that Chavez did not attend the ceremony for "security reasons."

Maduro said that "he did not rule out that groups with a long history as active members of the CIA and international terrorism are involved" in the matter, and specifically named a member of the Venezuelan opposition, Alejandro Pena Esclusa and the Cuban-born Venezuelan citizen Luis Posada Carriles. "Pena Esclusa has been involved all his life with the CIA and different violent movements, including the (failed) 2002 coup (against Chavez), and belonged to those violent groups of the far right that operated in Central America for a long time together with Posada Carriles," Maduro said.

A federal grand jury in Texas recently indicted Posada, a former CIA operative, for perjury and obstruction of justice over statements he made about his involvement in bombings in Cuba that left one man dead. Prosecutors allege that the Cuban-born Venezuelan citizen lied under oath about his presumed participation in bomb attacks on Havana hotels in 1997. The charges are based on statements Posada made to US immigration authorities after being apprehended in 2005 for illegally entering the country. Posada, 81, already is accused of immigration fraud and providing false testimony when he requested US citizenship four years ago, and the trial on those matters is set to begin on August 10.

A hero to some in Miami's Cuban-exile community, Posada is currently free on bail and thought to be living in South Florida.Besides the attacks on hotels in the Cuban capital, Havana and Caracas accuse Posada of involvement in the 1976 bombing of a Cubana de Aviacion airliner over Barbados that left 73 dead. Posada was jailed in Venezuela in 1976 for his alleged role in the jetliner bombing, but escaped in 1985 while awaiting a second trial. Venezuela has repeatedly sought his extradition, but a US immigration judge refused to allow him to be sent to Venezuela or Cuba because of what he said was the likelihood the ex-CIA operative would be tortured, an assertion indignantly rejected by Caracas.

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Published: Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Bylined to: Wire Services

President Chavez alleges US intelligence agencies behind assassination plot

Wire Services: President Hugo Chavez alleged that US intelligence agencies were behind a purported assassination plot that prevented him from visiting El Salvador. Mr Chavez had planned to attend the inauguration of leftist President Mauricio Funes in the Central American nation on Monday, but said he cancelled his trip due to the alleged plot.

"I don't doubt that the intelligence organisations of the United States are behind this," Mr Chavez said, accusing them of plotting with Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles to murder him. He said Venezuelan intelligence services have "very precise information" that they were planning to launch rockets at the Cubana de Aviacion plane he was going to travel in. The US State Department has denied similar accusations by Mr Chavez in the past.

Venezuela has asked the US to extradite Mr Posada, a former CIA operative and opponent of former Cuban president Fidel Castro who is accused of plotting the 1976 bombing of a Cuban plane off Barbados that killed 73 people on board. The 81-year-old Mr Posada is accused of plotting the bombing while living in Venezuela but denies involvement.

Mr Chavez has previously accused the US of plotting to overthrow him or invade Venezuela, but this was the first time he has made such accusations since warmly greeting President Barack Obama at an April summit in Trinidad & Tobago. "I'm not accusing Obama," he said. "I think Obama has good intentions, but beyond Obama there's an empire -- the CIA and all its tentacles -- Terrorists and paramilitaries."

Mr Chavez also repeated a demand for the US to turn over Mr Posada to stand trial in Venezuela, saying: "Send us that murderer."

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Venezuela (Click here for more Venezuela news)

Venezuela's Chávez Disappears Accusing CIA of Trying To Kill Him

"I don't doubt that the intelligence organizations of the United States are behind this," Chavez said, accusing them of plotting with Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles to murder him. He said Venezuelan intelligence services have "very precise information" that they were planning to launch rockets at the Cubana de Aviacion plane he was going to travel in.

By Jeremy Morgan
Latin American Herald Tribune staff

CARACAS – Speculation has swirled around President Hugo Chávez ever since he didn’t show up at the inauguration of President Maurico Funes in El Salvador last Monday. On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro was reported to have come up with an explanation – but by then the gossip mill was already well into full flight.

Chávez, the minister said, had not be able to attend Funes’ inauguration because there had been information about a plot to assassinate him, and security agents had advised that it would be “of high risk” for Chávez to be there.

"“There was a plan to launch one, or various rockets, at the plane,” Chavez said Tuesday. "I don't doubt that the intelligence organizations of the United States are behind this," accusing them of plotting with Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles to murder him.

Chavez said Venezuelan intelligence services have "very precise information" that they were planning to launch rockets at the Cubana de Aviacion plane he was going to travel in.

Those involved in the supposed plot had “ample histories as active members of the CIA and international terrorism,” according to Maduro.

This is the first time that the old idea that senior officials in Washington were planning to kill Chávez – claims that were frequently trotted out during the Bush Administration – has been raised since President Barack Obama took over at the White House.

Maduro is said to have let all this be known in conversations with reporters after the inauguration ceremony, although the news didn’t surface in Caracas until the following day. He noted that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega had alluded to Chávez’ absence, saying this had been because of “security reasons.”

The information about the alleged assassination plot had been investigated by the security services of El Salvador and, later, of Venezuela, Maduro continued. He said the investigation would continue into this and other threats to assassinate Chávez.

Maduro noted that an individual he named as Alejandro Peña Esclusa and described as a known opponent of the Chávez regime had also been present in El Salvador at the time of the swearing-in. The threats could have been related to that, the minister added, saying that Peña Esclusa had campaigned against Funes.

By the time Maduro proffered his explanation, speculation as to what was going on with Chávez was reaching fever pitch. Neither had he appeared on television for his regular weekly broadcast, Aló Presidente, on Sunday.

The last time he did appear was Friday, when there was talk about him holding a public televised debate with a group of foreign intellectuals and authors who’d spoken at or on the fringes of a democracy forum in Caracas last week.

The most notable of these was Peruvian literary luminary Mario Vargas Llosa, and the plan began to zero in on a one-on-one exchange between him and Chávez. In the end, the idea came to nothing with both sides claiming the other had chickened out.

In the process, Chávez’ plan to stage a four-day marathon edition of Aló Presidente also fizzled.

Since then, the daily newspaper El Nacional quoted what it called “extra-official sources” as saying it had been low ratings that had prompted Chávez to can Sunday’s scheduled edition of Aló Presidente. Official explanations that the program hadn’t gone out for “technical reasons” couldn’t compete with that.

In the circumstances, there’s been no shortage of other possible explanations of the prolonged presidential absence from public view. For instance, there’s the idea that the president has been laid low by food poisoning, or that he’s been struck by the latest bout of flu or gripe to sweep the city.

That possibility was enough to prompt street wages to suggest he was one of a handful of cases of swine flu detected in Venezuela so far. It was also suggested that the president had sunk into a deep depression because the country was in one, too.

Then there was the suggestion that Chávez had been in or perhaps still was in a serious spat with one or more of his ministers, although nobody seemed to have much clue of what this might have been about. That said, one theory had it that Chávez was furious that ministers hadn’t moved quickly to close down Globovisión, the openly critical private 24-hour news station.

Alternatively, perhaps there was a problem with his family; Chávez is divorced, and his ex-wife can at times be vocal in her criticism of him. Or maybe he’d made yet another of his impromptu visits to Cuba, to call on his mentor, the ageing Fidel Castro.

“There was a wave of rumors about my health, my life, my location,” Chavez said.

But if Chávez suddenly seems shy of the public domain, for whatever reason, he’s hardly disappeared from the media focus. He’s still the top story, even when he isn’t actually doing anything.

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