Chavez Threatens to Imprison U.S. Officials for Spying

U.S. officials have connections to Venezuelan military officers suspected of spying for the Pentagon, and those officials will be locked up if caught. According to this article from Venezuela's Union Radio, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also denounced plans by the "most vicious, murderous, genocidal, immoral, and brazen" government in the world [America] to put Venezuela on its list of State-sponsors of terror.

Translated By Carly Gatzert

January 27, 2005

Original Article (Spanish)    

In regard to the anti-imperialist struggle that lays behind the Sixth Annual World Social Forum in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez warned the U.S. government that he will imprison any U.S. public official, "but above all, [those in the] military" that attempt to obtain information regarding the Venezuelan National Armed Forces.

"The next time we detect military or public officials trying to obtain information regarding our armed forces, they will be imprisoned," Chavez said just after condemning George W. Bush as the biggest violator of human rights and promoter of terrorism in the world.

Chavez accused Washington of "wanting to include" Venezuela on the list of countries that "sponsor terrorism" when that fellow President George W. Bush's government is the "most vicious, murderous, genocidal, immoral, and brazen" of all "empires."

Chavez also demanded that Washington "cease attacks and genocide in Iraq" and that they withdraw U.S. troops from this Arab country.

"They [Washington] want to include Venezuela on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.  The United States has five of our Cuban patriots imprisoned, and [Washington is] guilty of violating every law, from the torture of [detainees] in Guantanamo to the disappearance of individuals in secret CIA prisons around the world!" Chavez said.

Washington "is protecting two notorious terrorists, (Luis) Posada Carriles - and also for a long time Orlando Bosch … both were Venezuelan policemen found guilty of murder and torture [in Venezuela] and Washington is protecting them on U.S. territory," added the leftist head of state.

Caracas has asked Washington to extradite Posada Carriles, who has been detained in the United States since last May.  [Posada Carriles] is the prime suspect behind the 1976 bombing of a Cubana Air passenger jet that was traveling from Caracas to Barbados and which caused 73 deaths.

The 77-year-old anti-Castro terrorist, originally from Cuba but naturalized in Venezuela in the 1960's, fled a prison in central Venezuela in 1985 while being tried for "homicide and treason."

With regard to the bombing of the Cuban passenger jet, the Venezuelan judicial system acquitted anti-Castro terrorist Orlando Bosch in August 1987, who was imprisoned in [Venezuela] for 11 years under suspicion of intellectual involvement in the crime.

Chavez insisted that the Bush Government intends to put an end to [Chavez'] "Bolivarian Revolution," and that it associates this objective with a case of "espionage" involving a military attache from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas and at least 24 Venezuelan Marines.

"We have just discovered one more case of espionage here … we would like to say [to the United States] that despite the many tools of power and technology they may bring into play, they will never succeed [in controlling] us," claimed the Venezuelan Chief-of-State.

Venezuelan Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel, claimed today that the [Venezuelan] Government "has duly verified confidential information that officials under assignment with the North American military are indeed involved" into alleged espionage.

On Thursday, the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, said that Caracas had not informed him of the alleged "espionage" that would involve John Correa, according to local sources, the Embassy's naval attache.

Chavez emphasized that "the fundamental reason" behind Bush's attempts to end the "Bolivarian Revolution" is his desire to take control of Venezuela's natural gas and petroleum, which Washington controlled for 100 years.

Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest exporter of crude oil and home to the eighth-largest natural gas reserves on the planet, is the fourth most important supplier to the United States, where it owns a network of nearly 14,000 service stations.

Caracas and Washington have maintained bitter diplomatic relations, characterized by an unrelenting exchange of accusations against one another, referring to the "imperialist and interventionist" tendencies of Bush's government and the "totalitarian intentions" of Chavez.