Terrorism in Venezuela

On Sunday, May 9th Venezuelan authorities arrested a large group of Columbian paramilitaries on a ranch near the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. It appears the Columbian paramilitaries were part of a plot to launch another coup against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez:

"According to statements released this morning [May 9] by [Venezuelan Police] Commissioner Miguel Rodriguez, the terrorist plan consisted of attacking a military installation in Caracas this week, possibly the Urban Security Command of the National Guard. On Monday, the paramilitaries were to be taken to another ranch, where they would receive final training with arms and ammunition, and do the assault on Wednesday. "We were going to attack a military base that has tunnels underneath containing arms," said the presumed paramilitary. The purpose, according to one of the anti-Chavez "generals," was to steal arms from the base to give to a 3,000 strong paramilitary group who were to come to Venezuela in 8 days." (for the full article click here).

The Columbian government has congratulated Venezuela on its apprehension of "terrorists". Yet has done nothing to combat the infiltration of Columbian paramilitaries into Venezuela.

Direct evidence of collusion between Columbia, the U.S., and right-wing Venezuelans has not yet been found. But there is a pattern of cooperation emerging. The U.S. government provides funding to Venezuelan opposition groups to the tune of one million US dollars per year (click here for details).

The U.S. government is also heavily involved in providing military aid to Columbia under the rubric "Plan Columbia", which has recently been condemned by the Harvard Political Review (click here for details).

Luckily the coup plotters in Venezuela appear to lack solid leadership, and Columbia has its own leftist guerilla problem to deal with. Perhaps most important, however, is that the U.S. is currently distracted by its war in Iraq, and the majority of American military resources and personnel are caught up in that effort.

But as Haiti has demonstrated, the Bush Administration is not adverse to supporting coups against democratically elected governments, particularly in what American governments seem to consider their backyard, specifically Latin America and the Caribbean. They simply use proxy forces to attain their objectives.

Unlike Haiti, Venezuela has a standing army whose lower and middle ranks are largely loyal to president Hugo Chavez. Chavez also enjoys the support of the majority of the voting population. The foiled coup attempts in 2002, and this past weekend clearly demonstrate that support. Any proxy force that does attempt to stage yet another coup would likely have a serious fight on its hands. I suspect it will require direct American military involvement, or assassination to successfully dislodge Chavez.