Is The CIA Trying to Kill Venezuela's Hugo Chávez?

[Venezuelanalysis.com's Chris Carlson says that in recent weeks, President Hugo Chávez has increasingly warned that the United States has plans to kill him and is stepping up its activity against him and his government. Could there be any truth to all of this? A quick look at the connections between the CIA and the General Ramon Guillén Dávila shows that it definitely is a possibility. --Ed]

Is The CIA Trying to Kill Venezuela's Hugo Chávez?

By Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com

April 19, 2007

"I want to kill that son of a bitch," said the Capitan of the Venezuelan National Guard, Thomas Guillen in a recorded telephone call with his wife. In the call, played on Venezuela's state TV channel last month, the Capitan reveals his and his father's plans to kill President Hugo Chávez. The next day, the Capitan and his father, retired General Ramon Guillén Dávila, were arrested and taken into custody for conspiring to kill the President of Venezuela. [1]

In recent weeks, Hugo Chávez has increasingly warned that the United States has plans to kill him and is stepping up its activity against him and his government.  Chávez has also claimed that the CIA is working with associates of the famous Cuban terrorist and CIA agent Posada Carriles, designing plans for his assassination. But could there be any truth to all of this?  Could this be a classic CIA-conspiracy to kill another official "enemy" of the United States?  A quick look at the connections between the CIA and the General Ramon Guillén Dávila shows that it definitely is a possibility.

The United States manages to spread its tentacles into different countries around the world in various ways, influencing and intervening in the politics of sovereign nations. In Latin America, one of the most common ways is through supposed "drug operations." The CIA has been known to run "anti-drug" operations in countries like Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador.

In Venezuela, such CIA-created "anti-drug" operations were led in the 1980's by the same General Ramon Guillén Dávila who was recently planning to kill Chávez. According to the Miami Herald, Guillen was the CIA's most trusted man in Venezuela and the senior official collaborating with the CIA during the 1980's. [2]

As head of the Venezuela National Guard, Guillén worked closely with the CIA to infiltrate and gather information about Colombian drug trafficking operations. But instead of curbing drug operations, Guillén and the CIA ended up smuggling cocaine themselves, and the whole thing exploded when 60 Minutes aired an expose in 1993.  The CIA had collaborated with Guillén to smuggle the incredible sum of 22 tons of cocaine into the United States. [3]

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Comments

[Henry]

"What would be more surprising is if the CIA is not searching for a way to get rid of the popular Venezuelan President. After all, Chávez has proven to be quite a threat to the interests of the U.S. Empire and their corporate sponsors. Chávez has sharply rejected Washington's neo-liberal agenda, nationalized major sectors of the economy, freed his country from IMF and World Bank mandates, strengthened OPEC, taken control of the nation's oil industry, and strengthened south-south integration across the world.

However, what is even more threatening to the interests of the empire is that the revolution in Venezuela serves as an example in the region, and is now spreading to other places. Countries like Bolivia and Ecuador are now living their own revolutions, replicating the Venezuelan experience."

1- Major sectors of the economy "nationalized"? None. Most of the telecom sector remains in private hands (example: cellulars). Most of the electrical sector was already public. In the oil and gas sectors, especially the latter, the opposite is true.

2- Before Chávez, Venezuela owed $3 billion to the IMF and the World Bank, a small amount given the size of the Venezuelan economy, certainly not enough to talk of a "mandate".

3- "taken control of the nation's oil industry" TRANSLATION: Chávez now uses PDVSA as his personal piggy bank.

4- What an example! To talk of "revolutions" in Ecuador and Bolivia without blushing! There is one word in Spanish for people like Carlson: Descarado.