Posted by Jonn Lilyea on July 22, 2008
Raul Baduel, Hugo Chavez’ former defense minister, alleges that he was shot at last week.
Gen. Raul Isaias Baduel says gunmen shot at him from a sport utility vehicle on Monday, when he was driving with his son near Venezuela’s capital.
Baduel left the military last year and led opposition to constitutional reforms that would have let Chavez run for re-election indefinitely. Voters rejected the reforms in December.
El Unisersal reports that the Venezuelan government is investigating the allegations;
Minister of the Interior and Justice Ramón Rodríguez Chacín reported that he instructed the Scientific, Criminal and Criminology Investigation Agency (Cicpc) to investigate into a claim filed on Monday by former Minister of Defense, retired General Raúl Isaías Baduel, on a presumed attempt at killing him.
The allegations come after Venezuelan prosecutors filed charges against Baduel for corruption and embezzlement at his former job (al Jazeera link)
Venezuela’s top military prosecutor has rejected claims that a corruption investigation into a former defence minister was in retaliation for his criticisms of Hugo Chavez’s government.
General Raul Isaias Baduel, a former close ally of President Chavez who retired in July 2007 and quickly emerged as a prominent critic of the government, had previously warned that officials planned to bring trumped-up charges against him.
General Ernesto Cedeno, the prosecutor, told state television that the military was investigating whether public funds went missing during Baduel’s tenure as defence minister.
“This is no sort of political retaliation … simply an investigation under the law,” Cedeno said, urging Baduel on Thursday to co-operate in the probe to “clarify the situation” within the judicial system.
This just a few weeks after another anti-Chavez general was jailed for his political views (SFGate link);
An army general protesting the “socialism or death” motto of President Hugo Chavez has been released from military detention, but still could be charged with a crime, his attorney said Wednesday.
Gen. Angel Vivas Perdomo was detained by military intelligence agents Tuesday while driving near his home in the capital.
He was released Tuesday night after being questioned for nearly nine hours, but was ordered not to leave the capital and to report to the military prosecutor’s office twice a month, attorney Jose Zaa said.
Baduel is credited with defeating the proposed Chavez constitutional changes merely by the force of his personality. It’s also been said that the military’s support for Baduel is what prevented Chavez from misleading the voters on the outcome of the referendum.
Posted in Hugo Chavez, Venezuela | 1 Comment »
Posted by Jonn Lilyea on July 20, 2008
Today in Lafayette Park, on Colombia’s Independence Day, local Colombians gathered by the thousands to demand an end to the tyranny of FARC in their homeland from which many were refugees from the affright of that Marxist terrorist organization. My buddy Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective says events were held world-wide today.
The theme of the group assembled in front of the White House was gratefulness to the United States for giving them a safe haven from which to speak out, and gratefulness for the aid the Americans have given the military and government in Colombia. They were adamant about directing their anger at FARC. Even at their protest against FARC in February, they included the now-released Americans in those whose release they demanded.
There were also members of the Colombian military on hand to accept their gratitude for Colombia’s recent successes against the narco-terrorists.
One guy kept saying over and over that the most beautiful women in the world were Colombian, so I did my own research, and this is the result;
Of course, this is just preliminary research requiring a more in depth study, but initially, I think I’ll have to agree with the Colombian gentleman.
Unfortunately, the battery on my video camera crapped out on me today, but I did slap together some brief clips when my battery did work and put it at YouTube. There are more photos at my Flickr Photostream set entitled Colombia Soy Yo. Use whatever you like, but give me credit, please.
Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective has a narrative and more photos.
Noticiero Digital has photos and videos of events around the world.
Posted in Colombia, FARC | 2 Comments »
Posted by Jonn Lilyea on July 7, 2008
An amazing story at Gateway Pundit of the links between US Congressional leadership and FARC. Back in March, I repeated the Wall Street Journal story about Congressman James McGovern who was attempting to undermine this country’s foreign policy by offering his support to FARC guerrillas;
A military strike three weeks ago killed Raúl Reyes, No. 2 in command of the FARC, Colombia’s most notorious terrorist group. The Reyes hard drive reveals an ardent effort to do business directly with the FARC by Congressman James McGovern (D., Mass.), a leading opponent of the free-trade deal. Mr. McGovern has been working with an American go-between, who has been offering the rebels help in undermining Colombia’s elected and popular government.
Today’s story is also from the Wall Street Journal and written by Mary Anatasia O’Grady indicates that McGovern was working under the direction of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi;
[Colombian Senator Piedad] Cordoba…currently under investigation by the Colombian attorney general for ties to the FARC…figures prominently in the captured rebel documents, and is notoriously close to Mr. Chávez.
She met at the Venezuelan presidential palace with FARC leaders last fall. From that meeting the rebels reported that “Piedad says that Chávez has Uribe going crazy. He doesn’t know what to do. That Nancy Pelosi helps and is ready to help in the swap [hostages in exchange for captured guerrillas]. That she has designated [U.S. Congressman Jim] McGovern for this.”
If the speaker of the House was working with Ms. Cordoba in this scheme, her judgment was more than a little misguided. The rebels write that on a trip to Argentina Ms. Cordoba told them, “It doesn’t matter to me the proposal that Sarkozy has made to free Ingrid. Above all, do not liberate Ingrid.” In short, why give up such a useful pawn?
So members of Congress took it upon themselves to conduct a foreign policy of directly dealing with terrorists in violation of our own policy - and their express purpose was to undermine our national security. They’ve done the same thing in the Middle East since before the Iraq war. The Democrats are making it appear that we have an erratic foreign policy and destroying our credibility in the world.
If anyone ever deserved to be lined up against a wall and shot, it’s these traitorous, pompous, arrogant meddling goofballs. It’s as if we the Keystone cops running Congress.
More from Don Surber.
Posted in Colombia, FARC, Hugo Chavez, Politics, Terror War, US Foreign Policy, Venezuela | No Comments »
Posted by Jonn Lilyea on July 7, 2008
Well, Jungle Mom has been warning readers of this blog about this for years (here and here), but today the Washington Times writes that the US has announced that it’s discovered ties between Hezbollah and Chavez;
An investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) names Venezuelan diplomat Ghazi Nasr al Din and Venezuelan-Arab businessman Fawzi Kanan as key links between the two.
“It is extremely troubling to see the government of Venezuela employing and providing safe harbor for Hezbollah facilitators and fundraisers,” said Adam Szubin, political affairs director of OFAC.
Mr. al Din has served as charge d’affaires at the Venezuelan Embassy in Syria and as director of political affairs at the embassy in Lebanon.
The Treasury Department made the accusations in a June 18 statement, which summarized an investigation of Venezuelan-registered businesses that are thought to be laundering money for Hezbollah.
Yuh, it’s troubling, but since most of our own Christian missionaries in Venezuela have been removed and replaced by Shi’ite clerics for more than a year, who is surprised? Which news agency will summon the intestinal fortitude to ask Obama what he intends to do about this?
Posted in Hugo Chavez, Terror War, US Foreign Policy, Venezuela | No Comments »
Posted by Jonn Lilyea on July 2, 2008
Of course, by now everyone’s heard of the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt from FARC guerillas along with the US citizens Farc has been holding for more than five years. Venezuela’s El Universo has the background on the rescue;
The Colombian Army rescued safe and sound ex presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three US citizens and 11 military officers held as hostages by the rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), on Wednesday announced Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos.
“They were rescued in an operation aimed at infiltrating the FARC first squad, the same that has held a large number of hostages for years. Through several procedures, we also could infiltrate the FARC Secretariat. Since hostages were divided into three groups, we managed to have them gathered at one single place and then moved to the south of the country, where they would supposed to report to (new FARC top leader) Alfonso Cano,” said Santos.
The minister added that arrangements were made so that the hostages were picked up in pre-established place by a helicopter belonging to a ghost organization and that a FARC leader known as César and another member of FARC Secretariat traveled together with the hostages to hand them over to Cano.
Santos said the freed hostages are flying in choppers to San José del Guaviare, capital city of the Guaviare region.
“This operation, called ‘Check,’ is unprecedented and a proof of Colombian military forces’ quality and professionalism,” pointed out Santos.
Actually, there must’ve been a mistranslation. According to their Spanish language article it was operation “Jack”
“Esta operación que se denominó ‘Jaque’, no tiene precedentes y pasará a la historia por su audacia y efectividad, dejando muy en alto la calidad y el profesionalismo de las Fuerzas Armadas colombianas”, señaló Santos.
McClatchy reports that John McCain had just finished a visit to Colombia moments before the rescue;
McCain, Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Sen. Lindsey Graham took turns praising Uribe, who’s raised a ruckus within Colombia’s political establishment during the past week by asking the country’s Congress to let him run for president an unprecedented third time.
Leftist critics of Uribe have said he’s trying to perpetuate himself in office like a “dictator.” Human rights groups have been saying for months that the president hasn’t placed enough priority on reducing atrocities against peasants committed by the military.
However, Colombians overall have given Uribe extraordinarily high ratings, with 70 percent saying they view him favorably.
Under Uribe, guerrillas in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are on the brink of defeat, major cities have become mostly safe for the first time in years and the economy has grown steadily.
The news just keeps getting better for Colombians.
There’s Spanish-language video of the homecoming from to my buddy Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective.
I’m betting there are some angry screams coming from the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.
Posted in Colombia, FARC, Hugo Chavez, Terror War, US Foreign Policy, Venezuela | No Comments »
Jonn Lilyea
