Latin America

President Bush recently met with Maria Corina Machado, who faces sixteen years in prison in Venezuela after being charged with conspiracy by Chavez’ government in September of 2004. Chavez tries to paint Machado as an agent of the Bush Administration, pointing to how the non-profit group she is vice president of, “Sumate” (or “Join In”), and received $30,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy. This past September she the organization received another $107,000.

Machado’s organization has been a very vocal critic of Chavez, pointing to “electoral irregularities” and teamed up with the five opposition parties to boycott the elections in December 2005 for the National Assembly. The opposition pointed to the fact that the Supreme Court decided who would be on the Election Council, and not the National Assembly (which now consists mostly of Chavez allies). The Human Rights Watch has taken Machado’s side, saying that there are “violations of due process.”

Chavez has also made headlines due to meetings between Venezuelan and Iranian representatives. Recently he stated, “Iran and Venezuela, these two brothers, are and will be together forever. Iran, confronted by the United States, has our solidarity.” He also made headlines when he made an apparently anti-Semitic statement: “The world has enough for all. But it turned out that some minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ, descendants of those who threw Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way in Santa Marta, there in Colombia, a minority took the world’s riches for themselves.” Rabbi Marvin Heir of the Simon Wiesenthal Center has demanded an apology from Chavez.

Pro-Marxist revolutionary and pro-terrorist activity by Castro and Chavez has not ended. Kenneth Rjock reported on recent meetings between Cuban intelligence and leftist militants and terrorists in Venezuela. The meetings were attended by a Cuban general, Arab militants operating out of Isla Margarita (which, he said, are financially connected to Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda), FARC and ELN Colombian terrorists, FALN terrorists from Puerto Rico, and a radical leftist group from Trinidad.

Rjock reported on how a Syrian terrorist going by the name “Kamal” had entered the triple-border area, acquired Venezuela identity documents upon arrival, and then flew to New York to participate in a plot to bomb Madison Square Garden and an automobile tunnel under the Hudson River. Kamal was funded by two Venezuelan Arabs, Khaled Khalil and Majed Khalil, who had made a living off of exporting computers out of Miami. Their American visas are now revoked. An associate of the Khalils gave $200,000 to Kamal to conduct surveillance for the plot. Rjock also claimed that when foreign agents enter Margarita, Arab residents sometimes take up temporary residence in Cuba. Margarita is also where Castro secretly meets with Chavez.[9]

Rjock has also reported on a secret agreement made between Iran and Venezuela. The Iranians agreed to sell long-range missile to Chavez that would be transported on Venezuelan-flagged vessels traveling to Cuba. If true, this may be an indication that Cuba is interested in obtaining Iranian technology for ballistic missiles as well.[10] The Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has also stated that Chavez asked for assistance from the Iranians in creating a militia on the Basij model in Venezuela. Iran, he said, has begun instructing a Venezuelan army commander on how to accomplish this.[11]

Europe is split on the threat from Chavez, even though they are mostly united in opposing Castro, which shows that much of the West doesn’t fully grasp who Chavez is or what is goal is. Spain, led by a Socialist who is no friend of the U.S., has a state-owned shipyard named Navantia which is selling eight patrol boats to Chavez, and the French have agreed to sell the weapons for the boats.

Chavez’ undiplomatic manner, though, is winning us friends. Chavez, who constantly says the U.S. is planning an invasion, recently claimed that the Americans would cross over from Curacao, which is Dutch territory 40 kilometers off of Venezuela’s coast. This caused fear in the Netherlands that Chavez could use the accusation to launch a pre-emptive assault on the island. It caused such uproar that a member of the Dutch parliament, Zsolt Szabo called for the government to beef up the defenses of the island. The Defense Minister rules out the possibility of a Venezuelan assault, but did say that Chavez “casts big eyes on the scraps by the coast of Venezuela which form part of the Netherlands Kingdom.” Some critics say that the more hawkish politicians in the Netherlands are using the issue to build support and put a focus on national security.