Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Finding terrorist in Venezuela

Thor Halvorssen:

SIMON TRINIDAD is the nom de guerre of Ricardo Palmera, a high-ranking terrorist of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), the deadliest and largest terrorist organization in the world. Thanks to Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, Trinidad was extradited to the United States last month. He now awaits trial for a lengthy list of crimes involving the recent kidnapping and murder of American citizens in Colombia. Trinidad's capture was a victory in the fight against global terror (see Note, below), but it is unlikely that the FARC terrorists will be defeated as long as Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez continues to use his government to harbor, equip, and protect them.

Since assuming the presidency of Venezuela in 1999, Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez has often sympathized with global terrorism. Not only has he proclaimed his "brotherhood" with Saddam Hussein and bestowed kind words on the Taliban, but he also maintains close economic and diplomatic ties with the leaders of Iran and Libya. Moreover, President Chavez is increasingly identified with the FARC terrorists. Although the full extent of Chavez's involvement with FARC is unknown, he has been accused of everything from sympathizing with the group to providing it with weapons and monetary support. The allegations against Chavez are numerous and it is likely that some of them are either exaggerated or untrue. Even so, President Chavez's activities reveal a consistent pattern of sympathy for terrorists.

...

In February 2001, months after the Chavez government denied supporting FARC, the capture of a Colombian terrorist revived the debate. Jose Maria Ballestas, a leader of Colombia's other left-wing terrorist organization, the National Liberation Army (ELN), was captured in Venezuela's capital by Interpol operatives working in conjunction with the Colombian police. Although Ballestas was wanted for a 1999 commercial airliner hijacking, he was immediately released from custody by order of the Chavez government. As the Colombian media cried foul, Chavez officials denied that Ballestas had ever been arrested and claimed that "news" of his arrest was actually a story concocted by enemies of the Chavez government. When Colombian officials responded by releasing a video of the arrest, the Chavez government tried to claim that Ballestas was seeking asylum from political persecution in Colombia. As diplomatic tension reached a fever-pitch, Venezuela re-arrested Ballestas and grudgingly extradited him to Colombia.

Seeking to repair relations with Colombia's president, President Chavez paid a state visit to Colombia in May 2001. While there, he allowed a FARC associate, Diego Serna, to serve as his personal bodyguard. Serna was arrested months later and told the magazine Cambio (published by Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez) that President Chavez was in constant and secret touch with the FARC leadership. Serna remarked that in Colombian television broadcasts of the presidential summit "you can see not only our closeness, but also the confidence and the comments he made to me on various occasions." Indeed, the footage shows Chavez laughing, jostling, and whispering in Serna's ear.

Three months after diplomatic tension over the Serna incident died down, the Chavez-FARC connection surfaced again when Venezuela's intelligence chief, Jesus Urdaneta, publicly denounced Chavez for supporting FARC. A lifelong friend and military colleague of President Chavez, Urdaneta publicized documents showing that the Chavez government offered fuel, money, and other support to the terrorists. The documents included signed letters from a Chavez aide detailing an agreement to provide support for FARC. That aide later became Chavez's minister of justice, a position which gave him oversight of the entire Venezuelan security apparatus.

Less than a week after Urdaneta went public, a group of female journalists released a video showing meetings between Venezuelan military leaders and FARC guerilla commanders. The next day, hundreds of miles away, the Colombian Air Force captured a Venezuelan plane loaded with ammunition. Colombian intelligence established that the supplies were meant for the

FARC terrorists.

The article does not mention Chavez close ties with the hemisphere's oldest communist relic--Fidel Castro. Also not mentioned is Chavez apparent thesft of the most recent recall election. He is a bad guy, but so far he has been smart enough not to prevoke the Bush administration.