U.S. threatens, but Venezuela doesn’t flinch
By
John Catalinotto
Published Aug 11, 2005 9:06 PM
Every step the Bolivarian government in
Venezuela takes to assert its sovereignty is met with frantic charges from
right-wing U.S. officials. As of Aug. 8, Washington has provided no evidence to
back up any of its wild charges against the government of President Hugo
Chávez.
In a July 27 letter to anti-Cuban U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros
Lehtinen of Florida, Mat thew Reynolds, the State Depart ment’s leading
congressional affairs official, claimed to have found “mounting
evidence” that Venezuela was using oil money to fund
“anti-democratic groups” in Bolivia, Ecuador and elsewhere in order
to destabilize the region.
The Venezuelans quickly denied the charges.
Venezuelan Ambassador Álvarez said: “There is no evidence
whatsoever. We have good relations with all the countries of the
region.”
He mentioned Bolivia, Brazil, Colom bia, Ecuador and Peru,
and the Caribbean. “We are using energy as a way of promoting real
integration of the continent,” he said.
The Chávez government
has used increased revenues from high oil prices to fund social services at
home. It has also offered oil at good rates to promote trade among the Latin
American countries and in the Caribbean.
Many suspect that
Chávez’ program, which helps Latin America be more independent from
U.S. and other imperialist control, is what really irks Washington.
The
State Department cited no evidence for its charges.
Chávez also
angered the U.S. government recently by purchasing 100,000 AK-47 rifles from
Russia for Venezuela’s army. This upsets Washington in two ways. First, it
means Venezuela is no longer dependent on U.S.-built weapons systems. Second,
these are weapons for a people’s army that can become a guerrilla
resistance in case there is an invasion by an army with superior arms and
technology. This is what the Pentagon, to its dismay, found out in
Iraq.
Through Plan Colombia, Washington has turned the pro-fascist
government of President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia into one of its biggest
recipients of arms, includ ing helicopters and jet fighters. There are rumors
that Washington is looking to the Colombian army as a possible force to enter
Venezuela and overthrow the Chávez government.
So it is a normal
use of the Big Lie for Washington to charge that Chávez bought the
100,000 rifles to help arm the FARC guerrillas in neighboring
Colombia.
Chávez denied the U.S. charges emphatically on Aug. 4.
“They accuse us of buying arms to give them to the guerrillas—no,
they’re for our troops,” Chávez said. “They are a
terrorist state, but they accuse us of being terrorists.”
An Aug. 7
report in Ireland Online said that Venezuela’s defense minister has signed
a deal to buy Chinese radar systems for use with Venezuela’s air force. On
Aug. 8, Chávez accused agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency of
spying on his country, and broke all relations with the DEA. He said the DEA was
using its cover as drug-trafficking investigators to “carry out
intelligence” on the president and Venezuelan government.
Along with
buying arms for Venezuela’s military, the Chávez government is also
shoring up popular support worldwide for the government there. On Aug. 8, the
World Youth Festival opened in Caracas, Venezuela, with 15,000 to 20,000 young
people from over 140 countries getting an opportunity to experience a part of
Venezuela’s revolution. And recently Tele Sur, an alternate news source to
the imperialist-dominated media, opened up for Latin America with Venezuelan
support.
While the threats from Washington are apparent and come without
justification, Chávez’ response shows that he and Bolivarian
Venezuela refuse to submit to these threats.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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