Venezuela Begins Media Counter offensive in Washington Against Terrorism Charges

By Andrew Cochran - The Venezuelan Embassy in Washington sent a mass e-mail today with four attachments, intending to blunt growing concern in Washington that the Chavez government has cooperated with Colombia's FARC terrorists. The counteroffensive is especially aimed at discrediting a resolution introduced by U.S. Congressmen to urge that the Bush Administration designate Venezuela as a "state sponsor of terrorism." We discussed the evidence of such cooperation, obtained by the Colombian military from the computer of killed FARC commander Raul Reyes, at our March 19 panel on Capitol Hill. One of the participants asked our panelists if the documents are "a smoking gun on Ecuador and Venezuela?" Jonathan Winer, the Clinton Administration' s first Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Law Enforcement, described them as "Pretty close. They are a smoking shotgun, and there a lot of pellets." Steven Monblatt, the first Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism at the Organization of American States (OAS), and before that, the Deputy Coordinator of Counter-Terrorism at the State Department, said, "these documents are about as incriminating as you can find." Since then, more of the documents have been analyzed, and the NEFA Foundation today released a new report by Douglas Farah on their contents. Doug, a veteran of the Latin American drug smuggling and terrorism issues, adds that FARC sent Chavez about $150,000 when Chavez was jailed after his failed 1992 coup attempt. He also writes, "The Colombian government has agreed to allow Interpol access to all the hard drives in order to carry out a forensic analysis to show the contents have not been tampered with. A final report from Interpol is scheduled for April. But already there are clear indicators of the authenticity of the documents. Based on information in the computers, authorities in Costa Rica raided a house near the capital of San Jose and found a safe containing $480,000 in cash. In addition, as analyzed below, a stash of 30 kilos (66 pounds) of depleted uranium, discussed in internal FARC communications, was recovered." (NOTE: Jonathan Winer reported on the uranium find here on March 26. You can also read all CT Blog posts on this issue.)The Venezuelan Embassy's release is a list of denials. It does not address FARC's $150,000 contribution to Chavez or the recent discoveries, and also glosses over the ongoing INTERPOL review of the documents. It also proudly proclaims Venezuela's refusal to join the U.S. and European Union in treating FARC as a terrorist group. Apparently FARC's kidnapping of over 6,800 Colombian and foreign citizens between 1996 and January 2008, and the killing of over 3,200 people between 2003 and January 2008, means little to the Chavez government. The Embassy also released detailed information on the potential harm to the U.S. economy as a threat in the event that the Administration designates Venezuela. April 1, 2008 04:34