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Hugo Chavez is starting to look, more and more, like Manuel Noriega.

Chavez and FARC
by Gustavo Coronel

On January 10 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made his State of the Union speech before the National Assembly. To the enthusiastic applause of the audience he said: “ The FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] are not terrorists but armies with a legitimate political posture. We respect them …. I ask the European Union that their label of terrorists be erased". Just hours before, in the Colombian jungle, and as the FARC were handing two hostages over to Venezuelan authorities, the Venezuelan Minister of the Interior, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, said to the guerrilla members: “President Chavez wishes to let you know that we pay great attention to your struggle. Keep up your fighting spirit and your force. You can count on us".

This explicit endorsement has been shocking, coming from the leader of a nation that has diplomatic relations with neighboring Colombia, where the FARC has been, for over 40 years, the main enemy of society and of all democratic governments. FARC was created in 1964, made up of members of the Colombian Communist Party who established the so-called “Republic of Maquetalia" in the jungles of the country. They defined themselves as “Marxist-Leninist and Bolivarian," and began funding their campaign of assassinations and bombings by selling raw cocaine. They are the biggest of the narco-terrorist rings in the world and -- with a membership variously estimated at 10,000 to 16,000 -- one of the largest terrorist groups in the world.

In the 1980’s FARC separated from the Communist Party and became increasingly involved with drug trafficking. Its top hierarchy of seven members is led by septuagenarian Manuel Marulanda. Its main sources of financing are kidnapping, protection money and drug trafficking. Kidnapping, done for ransom, brings in some $200 million per year. Often, however, hostages are not released or are assassinated even after ransom is paid. A U.S. Peace Corps volunteer, Richard Starr, was kidnapped in 1997 and held for three years until his mother raised the $250,000 ransom. German citizen Lothar Hintze was kidnapped and held for five years, although his wife paid ransom three times.

Protection money is extorted from peasants who live in FARC-controlled areas. In later years more income has been coming to the group from drug trafficking, an estimated $400 million per year. Venezuela is the transit country of choice for about 300 tons of cocaine being shipped every year to the U.S. and Europe by FARC operators. The Russian mafia has established close contacts with the group. Frank Cilluffo, from CSIS, testified to the U.S. Congress in 2000 that Russian planes fly into the Colombian jungle carrying arms and ammunitions to the guerrillas in exchange for cocaine. Brazilian drug lords and Venezuelan military commanders have also been reported to work closely with the terrorists.

The FARC have killed an estimated 100,000 people in Colombia, most of them civilians, and caused the displacement of over two million Colombians from their normal places of residence. Some of the killing has been especially gruesome, from the massacre of seven peasants in 2004 (that was the object of a strong U.N. resolution of condemnation) to the cold-blooded execution of eleven provincial deputies in 2007, after five years of captivity. The Red Cross determined they had been shot in the head at close range, after their release had been promised by the FARC.

A 2005 U.N. report stated: “For year 2004 the FARC continued to commit grave breaches of human rights such as murder, torture and hostage-taking affecting civilians, including women, boys and girls and ethnic groups". Human Rights Watch has denounced their use of gas cylinder mortars against the civilian population. By Executive Order 13224 of President Bush, of October 2001, the U.S. designated the FARC as a terrorist organization, an example followed by the European Union.

This is the organization that Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez has openly embraced. A report of the U.S. Homeland Security for 2007 reads: “Venezuela has virtually ceased its cooperation in the global war on terror [and] tolerated terrorists in its territory". The public request just made by Chavez to withdraw the definition of terrorist to the FARC has already been met with indignation in Colombia and Europe. Former Colombian President Andres Pastrana is calling for a break in diplomatic relations with Venezuela. The Colombian presidency has issued a strong statement rejecting Chavez’s request.

Government spokesmen from Guatemala, Argentina and Ecuador have expressed their disagreement with Chavez’s posture. The European Union has simply “taken note of President Chavez’ request". The Spanish press has been particularly severe. An editorial in Madrid’s ABC calls Chavez “the FARC’s lawyer" while El Mundo calls for his international isolation. Bogotá’s main daily, El Tiempo, speculates on a possible military alliance between Chavez and the FARC.

Not by coincidence Colombian President Uribe is meeting, as I write this, with the Colombian Military High Command.

Hugo Chavez is starting to look, more and more, like Manuel Noriega.

By tasco66 on Jan 16, 2008, 09:57 in Politics & the war.

billyb says on Jan 16, 2008, 10:34:

Chavez is supposedly dating Neomi, maybe if she keeps fucking his brains out he'll be too satiated and busy to be making any trouble.

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Enrique187 says on Jan 16, 2008, 11:02:

Neomi who?

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Tinto (Moderator) says on Jan 16, 2008, 11:22:

Naomi Campbell, the former model. She's got quite a rap sheet. Maybe it takes a thug to love a thug.

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Enrique187 says on Jan 16, 2008, 11:28:

boy shes really hit the bottom of the barrel to date that guy.

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droble77 says on Jan 16, 2008, 13:31:

LOL! I think she's a flaky leftist type. She caught some flak a few years back for saying that meeting Fidel Castro was one of the most exciting moments of her life.

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tasco66 says on Jan 16, 2008, 15:14:

Washington Post

Ally to Kidnappers
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez endorses Colombian groups known for abductions, drug trafficking and mass murder.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008; A14

ON THURSDAY, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), an organization that in the past decade has kidnapped more than 750 people who remain missing, released two captives into the custody of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The FARC, which decades ago discarded the Marxist ideology it wielded in the 1960s for the mercenary causes of abduction and drug trafficking, is anything but an altruistic movement, so many wondered what it would get in exchange for the propaganda coup it handed Mr. ChÃ¡vez.

The shocking answer arrived the next day: In a four-hour address to the Venezuelan Congress, Mr. ChÃ¡vez described the FARC and another Colombian group, the Army of National Liberation (ELN), as "not terrorists" but "genuine armies." He claimed that they possessed "a Bolivarian political project that is respected here," a reference to his own, half-baked "socialism for the 21st century." And he demanded that they be recognized as lawful belligerents by the United States and Latin American and European governments that now classify them as terrorist organizations. In short, Mr. ChÃ¡vez was endorsing groups dedicated to violence and other criminal behavior in a neighboring Latin American democracy, and associating his agenda with theirs.

It was encouraging to see the revulsion this statement instantly produced in Latin America, where terrorism has caused incalculable damage. But the message the FARC channeled through Mr. ChÃ¡vez was really aimed at Europeans and Americans. Some in Washington, London and Madrid, where kidnappings are rare, are happy to embrace Mr. ChÃ¡vez -- former congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, for example, can be heard in radio advertisements touting his alliance with the Venezuelan leader. The FARC may think it can similarly find allies. Filmmaker Oliver Stone is already sold: He recently called the FARC "heroic."

The answer to this logic was provided by the press office of Colombian President �?lvaro Uribe, who has been waging what is, in fact, a heroic battle against the brutal gangs that for decades have plagued his country. "The violent groups of Colombia are terrorists because they finance themselves through a business that is lethal to humanity: drug trafficking," the press office said. (The FARC exports hundreds of tons of cocaine annually, and an increasing portion of it passes through Venezuela.) "The violent groups of Colombia are terrorists because they kidnap, place bombs indiscriminately, recruit and murder children, murder pregnant women, murder the elderly and use antipersonnel mines that leave in their wake thousands of innocent victims." All these assertions have been well documented by Western human rights groups that are otherwise hostile to Mr. Uribe's government.

No wonder even governments allied with Mr. Chávez, such as those of Argentina and Ecuador, recoiled from his appeal. Latin American leaders who until now have seen in Mr. Chávez a crude populist who buys his friends with petrodollars are faced with something new: a head of state who has openly endorsed an organization of kidnappers and drug traffickers in a neighboring, democratic country. "You can't be legal in your own country and accept illegality in another," said Guatemala's newly elected president, �?lvaro Colom. Venezuela's neighbors now must calculate how to respond to a leader who has violated that fundamental rule.

Not being bound to swear to the dogmas of any master

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Colombiche says on Jan 16, 2008, 16:04:

Hugo Chavez is certainly starting to look more and more like our beloved Panamanian Pizza Face.

No me den trago extranjero, que es caro y no sabe a bueno.... (Rafael Godoy)

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webmanco says on Jan 16, 2008, 17:23:

Wasn´t it PineAple Face?

...A yo, déjenme queto y no me jodan má! ...

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Colombiche says on Jan 16, 2008, 17:41:

Pineapples have a heart.

To me Noriega always looked more like a pizza, one of those pan pizzas from Pizza Hut -> cheesy, crusty and greasy.

No me den trago extranjero, que es caro y no sabe a bueno.... (Rafael Godoy)

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webmanco says on Jan 16, 2008, 17:53:

a heartless pineaple that is

...A yo, déjenme queto y no me jodan má! ...

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Colombiche says on Jan 16, 2008, 17:55:

Pero que yo le veo cara de "pixa" (como decimos en colombia)

No me den trago extranjero, que es caro y no sabe a bueno.... (Rafael Godoy)

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webmanco says on Jan 16, 2008, 17:57:

(Como decimos en (Colombia)

...A yo, déjenme queto y no me jodan má! ...

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Colombiche says on Jan 16, 2008, 17:59:

Bueno, como dicen pues, yo despues de mucho trabajo aprendi a decir "pitza" y no "pixa" asi que saquenme de ese corrinche.

No me den trago extranjero, que es caro y no sabe a bueno.... (Rafael Godoy)

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scotty says on Jan 17, 2008, 00:34:

looks more like Musilini

Get Rhythm, when you got the blues. Johnny Cash

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Chelesupercono says on Jan 17, 2008, 09:03:

Oliver North once said that after meetings with Noriega, he had to take a shower asap.....that Noriega was pure scum......sos with Chavez....

never go to bed with someone crazier then you are, you will do it and you will regret it.......

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Sr Tertius says on Jan 17, 2008, 12:17:

Ollie North said that? If someone shouldn't be speaking of scum is that SOB!

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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SiV says on Jan 17, 2008, 12:30:

Please explain: how is Chavez starting to look like Noriega?

Stultórum númere infinitum est.

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Mr. Hollywood says on Jan 17, 2008, 13:04:

At least we now know that North sometimes showered.

I always thought he was more into laundry.

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poco says on Jan 17, 2008, 13:09:

Quote: The FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] are not terrorists but armies with a legitimate political posture. We respect them

-----------------
Humm, this is not exactly correct. What he said was worse. He said,, (repeated many times on TV) was that FARC are NOT terrorists,, they are soldiers.. Ha,, no doubt what he said,, members of FARC are SOLDIERS.

What an idiot. Chavez has more in common with O.J. Simpson (or Homer,, maybe?) ie: I'm getting sick of hearing about both of them.

Anyway,, Chavez does NOT act like Noriega,,, Noriegas big fault was being affiliated with the drug business,, specifically,,,, laundering money. So far,, except for supporting the FARC, Chavez does not appear to have any direct drug ties.

CHAVEZ; Always honking his horn.

"When you men get home and face an anti-war protester, look him in the eyes and shake his hand. Then, wink at his girlfriend, because she knows she's dating a pussy." Quote - General Tommy Franks

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Sr Tertius says on Jan 17, 2008, 15:28:

"At least we now know that North sometimes showered."

I actually thought he licked himself, like most weasels do.

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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timeforachangeofid says on Jan 17, 2008, 19:05:

I don't think Noriega ever ran on anything. I don't think he was elected. That's one of the many big differences. But they are both pretty ugly dudes.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. Albert Einstein

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