Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09CARACAS904
2009-07-16 21:44:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Caracas
Cable title:  

FROM BOLIVIA, CHAVEZ REPEATS ACCUSATIONS OF USG

Tags:  PGOV KDEM VE 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO9538
PP RUEHAG RUEHROV RUEHSL RUEHSR
DE RUEHCV #0904 1972144
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 162144Z JUL 09
FM AMEMBASSY CARACAS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3393
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHWH/WESTERN HEMISPHERIC AFFAIRS DIPL POSTS PRIORITY
RUMIAAA/HQ USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L CARACAS 000904 

SIPDIS

HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD
DEPARTMENT PASS TO AID/OTI (RPORTER)

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/13/2029
TAGS: PGOV KDEM VE
SUBJECT: FROM BOLIVIA, CHAVEZ REPEATS ACCUSATIONS OF USG
INVOLVEMENT IN HONDURAS COUP

Classified By: ACTING POLITICAL COUNSELOR DARNALL STEUART, FOR REASON 1
.4(D)

C O N F I D E N T I A L CARACAS 000904

SIPDIS

HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD
DEPARTMENT PASS TO AID/OTI (RPORTER)

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/13/2029
TAGS: PGOV KDEM VE
SUBJECT: FROM BOLIVIA, CHAVEZ REPEATS ACCUSATIONS OF USG
INVOLVEMENT IN HONDURAS COUP

Classified By: ACTING POLITICAL COUNSELOR DARNALL STEUART, FOR REASON 1
.4(D)


1. (C) Summary: President Chavez, while giving a speech
July 16 in La Paz celebrating Bolivia's bicentennial,
repeated accusations that the USG -- and the State Department
and CIA specifically -- were behind the coup in Honduras. In
a message he has been pushing for weeks, Chavez contended
that President Obama may not have been aware of what his
government was up to. He also sought to drag Bolivia into
the conflict by hinting that the USG might provoke a similar
coup in La Paz in order to impose a Micheletti-like interim
government -- apparently seeking to recast the Honduran
conflict as a greater battle between "imperialist" forces and
the Latin American left. End Summary.

--------------
"THE EMPIRE IS THE EMPIRE"
--------------


2. (SBU) Chavez announced July 16 during a bicentennial
celebration in Bolivia that the "U.S. State Department caused
the coup, I don't have the least doubt, those military in
Honduras would not have taken a step without the endorsement
of the military from the U.S. base in Honduras and without
the endorsement of the Department of State." He commented
that "the empire is the empire, the CIA is the CIA, and the
State Department has all of its mechanisms, you can't doubt
it. In all of the coup d'etats that have taken place in the
last 200 years in this continent, the United States has had
its hand in (all of them)." He asserted that President Obama
was not informed regarding the alleged coup involvement but
contended that "Obama is the one who has to respond, not me."


3. (SBU) Chavez reiterated that ousted President Zelaya
must return and that interim Honduran President Roberto
Micheletti is condemned to the "garbage dump of history."
Chavez noted, however, that "the hour of the gorillas" is
over and that now is the "hour of the people." He described
the "gorillas" as demonstrating what a true dictatorship is
-- "kidnappings, killings, no freedom of press." He added
that "that is the kind of democracy that they want to impose
here in Bolivia, in Venezuela, never will they succeed in
imposing those disguised dictatorships of democracy." Chavez
said "we are here in the battle fighting for our
independence, and now it is true that nothing and no-one will
interrupt the path to our independence. The more that
goriletti threatens us, the more that the empire threatens
us, the more that the oligarchs exist, they cannot stop the
charge of this new history."


4. (C) Comment: Chavez has been repeating his outlandish
assertions of USG involvement in the Honduras coup since it
began and now is trying to include Bolivia in the mix,
apparently an attempt to recast the Honduran issue as a
larger conflict between the "evil empire" and his fellow
left-wing revolutionaries in the region. Although he is
playing to his base with these statements, he also appears to
genuinely believe that the reversal of the "revolution" in
one Bolivarian state threatens them all.
CAULFIELD