BRV REACTS TO COUNTRY REPORT ON TERRORISM

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CARACAS 001199 SIPDIS SIPDIS HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD FOR FRC LAMBERT E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/05/2026 TAGS: PGOV PTER PREL VE SUBJECT: BRV REACTS TO COUNTRY REPORT ON TERRORISM CARACAS 00001199 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT R. DOWNES FOR 1.4 (D) -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blasted the Department's Country Report on Terrorism in almost real time April 28, claiming that the USG was the real terrorist state. The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry followed his remarks April 29 with a communique detailing alleged U.S. "terrorist" abuses in extravagant prose. The quickness of the BRV response to our written report was atypical, but the hysterical contents of the communique have become commonplace. End Summary. ¶2. (U) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lashed out at the Department's Country Report on Terrorism during a ceremony kicking off Venezuelan Labor Day events in Caracas April 28, the date of the U.S. report's release. Upon receiving a note about the report during his speech, Chavez extemporaneously began accusing the USG of harboring terrorists for not extraditing accused Cuban airline bomber Luis Posada Carriles. Chavez recalled that April 28 was the 41st anniversary of U.S. military intervention in the Dominican Republic, which he described as another example of U.S. terrorism. On 30 April, Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales attended a ceremony in Havana celebrating the first anniversary of Chavez' "Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas," in which Cuban leader Fidel Castro called the Cuba section of the report "crap." ¶3. (U) The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry released to the press on April 29 a communique that condemned the report with the flowery language typical of Bolivarian documents. The communique referred to the USG as the "imperial center." It said, "a cold and immoral shamelessness impregnates all of this report about Venezuela." According to the Venezuelan report, the "shamelessness" was the USG's opposition to BRV arms procurement allegedly necessary to patrol borders. The purported "immorality" consisted of alleged "Bush administration" support offered to asylum seekers Luis Posada Carriles, Jose Antonio Colina, and German Varela. The USG's Iraq policy, it said, was "shameless AND immoral." The communique continued, "the painful experience that many Latin American countries have lived through teaches (that the) imperial center unleashes these campaigns of false accusations...to prepare the political environment for a calculated attack." The Venezuelan report called the U.S. report's allowance that the BRV targeted Colombian paramilitaries a "contradiction." Pro-BRV tabloid Diario Vea ran a story the same day on the response of Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez, who adhered to the same themes. Alvarez argued that the claims that terrorists used Venezuelan territory as safehaven were inaccurate because the BRV had handed paramilitaries over to Colombian authorities. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶4. (C) We can expect future BRV reactions to criticism of its counterterrorism record to center on these same counteraccusations, all of which are part of Chavez' regular repertoire. Venezuelan documents such as this communique seem to try outdo each other with their Chavista rhetoric. Not much free thinking is occurring in Venezuelan institutions. The BRV's quick reaction is noteworthy. The Venezuelan Government often has to wait for the press to translate excerpts of U.S. reports before criticizing them, CARACAS 00001199 002.2 OF 002 but the BRV appears to have tracked this one down and translated it on its own. Given the incompetence of the Foreign Ministry here in Caracas, Chavez can probably credit his Embassy and lobbying machinery in Washington for his quick notification on this issue. BROWNFIELD