Following last week’s Colombia military rescue of hostages held by FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), Venezuela strongman Hugo Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe agreed to meet this Friday in Caracas. Earlier this year at a presidential summit in Brazil Chavez told Uribe: “We haven’t been giving money to the FARC.” But a laptop found by the Colombian military earlier this year, whose contents have been confirmed authentic by Interpol, suggests otherwise.The documents showed: Venezuela appears to be making concrete offers to help arm the rebels, possibly with rocket-propelled …
What is there in May air that brings out the combativeness in Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez? In less than two weeks, Venezuela’s strident, socialist leader has finished nationalizing his nation’s steel industry, given the green light for new purchases of Chinese and Russian-made arms, and denounced German Chancellor Angela Merkel as an heir of Hitler after she criticized Chávez’s oil-driven “socialism of the 21st century.” Furthermore, Chávez accused Colombia of plotting to start a war with Venezuela in order to draw the U.S. into intervening in his country. Last week Interpol’s …
On April 26, Barack Obama supporter Bill Richardson met with Venezuela President Hugo Chavez in an attempt to secure the release of Americans being held in Colombia by the Marxist-inspired Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Besides helping to legitimize Chavez’s longstanding goal of becoming a regional power, the meeting did not produce any tangible results. Chavez later claimed Venezuela had “lost the contact we had with the FARC.” As the Wall Street Journal reports today, that is unlikely. In early March the Colombian government captured a FARC leader’s laptop …
The Christian Science Monitor reports today that “liberals from around the world” are flocking to Caracas “to experience Hugo Chavez’s experiment in socialism.” Liberals here in the United States worried about the carbon credits they’d have to purchase to offset a flight to Venezuela might consider visiting Massachusetts instead. We already knew that ex-Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA) eagerly appeared in U.S. television advertisements promoting “our good friends in Venezuela” who allowed Chavez’s Citgo to supply reduced-price heating oil to Massachusetts residents. And we already knew that Rep. William Delahunt backed …
When Congress returns from spring break March 31, President Bush is likely to send the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement to Capitol Hill, triggering an up or down vote on the deal within 90 days. If Congress can put aside its fealty to Big Labor, then the trade deal will easily be approved. Unfortunately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) insists on raising bogus objections about curbing violence toward union leaders in Colombia. Pelosi ignores the fact that the number of murders of trade unionists has dropped 75% since Colombia President Alvaro …
Hugo Chavez is taking full advantage of the death of FARC leader Luis Edgar Devia Silva (aka Raul Reyes) to distract Venezuelans from their crumbling economy. This morning Venezuelan defense minister Gustavo Rangel announced his country was sending 10 battalions of troops to the Colombian border and on Tuesday night Venezuelan state television broadcast images of tanks heading to the border. Chavez has long lionized the cocaine trafficking and kidnapping FARC as “an insurgency born out of efforts to combat Colombia’s moneyed elite.” On television Sunday night Chavez called for …
