WikiLeaks Drags Libya and Venezuela Through the Mud

[Zorro]

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You've got to hand it to WikiLeaks: the whistle-blowing outfit sure has impeccable timing. Even as forces loyal to Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi fire on protesters in a mounting massacre and human rights calamity, Julian Assange has released U.S. diplomatic cables which should prove acutely embarrassing to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Venezuela has been a long-time ally of Gadhafi's, and some reports even suggested that the Libyan leader might have recently fled to Caracas in an attempt to save his own skin .

WikiLeaks cables lay bare the tight diplomatic and political alliance between Gadhafi and Chávez. In 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Caracas wrote Washington about an African-South American summit held on the Venezuelan island of Margarita. Chávez had called the meeting in an effort to highlight the historic unity between long-oppressed continents, though such public relations efforts were severely undermined by the roster of participants which included autocrats like Gadhafi and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. According to U.S. diplomats, Chávez and Gadhafi congratulated each other on their "revolutions" during the ceremonies. From there, the rhetoric got more and more ridiculous. "The meeting with Gaddafi," U.S. diplomats wrote, "provided the opportunity for rhetorical assaults on capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism."

Bizarrely, Chávez declared "What Simon Bolívar is to the Venezuelan people, Gaddafi is to the Libyan people." Gadhafi then praised Chávez for "having driven out the colonialists," just as he had driven out those in Libya. "We share the same destiny, the same battle in the same trench against a common enemy, and we will conquer," Qaddafi said. As if these exchanges were not preposterous enough, Chávez then took advantage of the occasion to award Gadhafi the "Orden del Libertador," Venezuela's highest civilian decoration, and presented the Libyan leader with a replica of Simon Bolívar's sword...

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More at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/wikileaks-drags-libya-and_b_826785.html

C'mon Hugo, how about definitively expressing solidarity with your ally Moamar? Weren't you criticizing Obama just a couple of weeks back for not expressing support for the Mubarak regime?

[joshcryer]

1. Link to the actual cables? I know it's early yet.

That's one thing I don't like about wikileaks, they have exclusivity with media outlets, and are inkling out every cable as it meets with national news.

But, yeah, I think Chavez' relationship with Gaddafi has been well established here on DU.

[joshcryer]

2. I found the cable! Weirdest part? I learned ASA 3 was to be hosted by Libya.

ASA is the Africa-South America Summit. Otherwise the cables aren't very controversial.

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/10/09CARACAS1284.html

I hope that they will be able to honor the http://www.voltairenet.org/article162310.html">96th declaration of ASA 2, but since it was made with a regime that will no longer be recognized we'll have to see.

[Name removed]

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