The future stability of Venezuela and the survival of the “Bolivarian Revolution” increasingly focuses on the health of Venezuela’s indispensable but stricken autocrat. Before June, the scenario called for Hugo Chavez to rule in Venezuela until 2031. Suddenly, a post-Chavez era in Venezuela, which seemed unimaginable weeks before, moved immediately closer. While the Chavez has not leveled entirely with his nation, the international press is now reporting the diagnosis: colon cancer. “President Hugo Chávez appears to be suffering from colon cancer.” “One source close to Chavez’s doctors told Reuters he …
On June 24, a Joint House Committee hearing on Venezuela’s Sanctionable Activities made a concerted effort to shed light on President Hugo Chavez’s dangerous ties to Iran. Representative Connie Mack (R–FL) and others expressed a deep-seated concern that the sanctions recently placed on the government-controlled oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), were insufficient. In May 2010, the Obama Administration placed sanctions on PDVSA for providing at least two shipments of petroleum additives to Iran, a country that is currently sanctioned for its nuclear weapons program and, according to the State …
In a hospital room in Havana, Hugo Chavez sits in a track suit wanting people to believe that he is fit to lead, unaffected by a recent slippage of health. Yet, reading between the lines, Venezuela’s elected authoritarian is not in the pink. On June 10, Chavez checked into a Cuban hospital to have an abscess in his pelvis removed. As he recovers, the ailing Chavez is pictured fraternizing with his best friend and mentor, Fidel Castro, and current Cuban dictator Raul Castro. The official press in Venezuela has offered …
June 10 marked an important step forward in Colombia’s efforts to build enduring democratic security and pursue justice: Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, signed the Victims’ and Land Restitution Law. In the past, violence perpetrated primarily by paramilitary groups and guerrillas displaced 4 million Colombians, forcing them off as much as 16 million acres of land. The Victims’ Law has the potential to provide aid to those who have lost relatives or a significant amount of land as a result of violence in the past. The reparations will vary depending …
On May 28, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya returned home nearly two years after the June 2009 actions that removed him from office for violations of the national constitution. Accompanied by Venezuela’s foreign minister Nicholas Maduro and delivered via Air Hugo Chavez, Zelaya was greeted by thousands of cheering admirers. He returned under a deal struck with current Honduran President Porfirio Lobo on May 22. The agreement was brokered with the assistance of the unlikely combination of democratic Colombia and authoritarian Venezuela, and it enjoys the blessing of U.S. Secretary …
With considerable prodding from Congress—especially from the new Republican majority in the House—the Obama Administration and Department of State announced on May 24 that it is placing Venezuela’s national oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) on its list of companies sanctioned for their work in helping expand Iran’s petroleum and gasoline production. The action followed PDVSA’s sale of $50 million in petroleum products in late 2010. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, moreover, has not backed down on his promise to supply Iran with 20,000 barrels of gasoline per day.
The Berlin-based daily Die Welt published a news story on May 13 citing “Western security sources” who reported that Venezuela’s authoritarian strongman Hugo Chavez secretly met in February 2011 with the chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Air Force, Amir al-Hadschisadeh. The pair, according to Die Welt, finalized the location for a missile base, said to be located on the Peninsula de Paraguana, a jut of land 120 kilometers from the Colombian border. Engineers from the Iranian state-owned construction agency Khatam al-Anbia, Die Welt added, have already begun preliminary work …
The record will show that the May 9 extradition by Colombia of Walid Makled Garcia to Venezuela constitutes a major lost opportunity for the Obama Administration to interrogate and prosecute a Venezuelan drug kingpin with close ties to high-level Venezuelan officials and to expose the depth of narco-corruption within the Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela. Makled’s extradition follows the decision by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the Colombian courts to honor the Venezuelan request for extradition over a similar request made by the U.S. In exchange for Makled, the …
The Sixth Cuban Communist Party Congress and the Cuban people learned on April 19 that Fidel Castro is now fully retired. The Bearded One has become, so it appears, just another private citizen. Showing up wearing a blue track suit, helped to his seat by an aide, and appearing every day his 84 years of age, Fidel Castro relinquished all party and state posts for the first time in over a half a century. The four-day Party Congress was convened to accomplish two things: (1) open the doors for a …
The government of Colombia has made it official that it intends to send drug trafficking kingpin Walid Makled to Venezuela rather than the United States. It is a disappointing decision by a close ally in the international effort to combat illicit drugs and transnational crime. A major crime catch has slipped though the hands of the Obama Administration.
