Tag Archives: Basque separatist group

Oct
18
2010
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Spain-Venezuela ties strained as Hugo Chávez stonewalls ETA investigation

This article was originally posted by The Christian Science Monitor

 A standoff between Spain and Venezuela is heating up as Spanish authorities move toward requesting the extradition of an alleged ETA member working within the government of President Hugo Chávez.

Mr. Chávez said last week that Venezuela would not extradite Arturo Cubillas, the Basque separatist group’s alleged top militant in Latin America, because local law does not allow extraditions of citizens. A Spaniard, Mr. Cubillas became a naturalized citizen in 1993.

But the decision of Spain’s prosecutor general to ask today for the National Court to request the extradition underscores how authorities are under pressure to act more forcefully against Chávez. His defiance and ongoing refusal to cooperate with Spanish authorities could ultimately trigger a powerful reaction from Europe and the United States, including labeling the country a state sponsor of terrorism, analysts say.

“If [the Spanish government] wanted to, it could pressure Europe and its allies, including the US, to include Venezuela in the list of state sponsors of terrorism,” says Oscar Elía, an ETA expert with the Madrid-based Strategic Studies Group who has written extensively about the Basque group. “This could blow over if Chávez was more helpful, but he doesn’t even deny it. Instead he is defiant and arrogant.”

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Oct
13
2010
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Spain’s Attorney General asks Venezuela to “hand over or prosecute” ETA member

This article was originally posted by El Universal

Spanish Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido asked the Venezuelan Attorney General Office to determine whether deported ETA member Arturo Cubillas has supported the Basque terrorist group ETA, in which case Venezuela should “hand over or prosecute him.”

Conde-Pumpido told reporters that “if there are reasonable grounds” that Cubillas, who works for Hugo Chávez’s government since 2005, has supported the Basque separatist group ETA in Venezuela, he “should be handed over to Spain or investigated and prosecuted in the (South American) country,” Efe reported.

“They should hand him over or prosecute him,” the Spanish Attorney General stressed. He added that the Venezuelan Attorney General Office should investigate Cubillas because “international support to terrorist groups will not be tolerated” by the Spanish Attorney General.

“In this case, we will get to the bottom,” said Conde-Pumpido. Meanwhile, President of the Spanish National Court Ángel Juanes said that Venezuela’s willingness to cooperate in the fight against ETA “could be improved.”

 
Apr
8
2010
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Venezuela’s Strongman Splurges on Russian Weapons

Washington Post Editorial
April 8, 2010

RUSSIAN PRIME Minister Vladimir Putin boasted after returning from a visit to Venezuela on Monday that he had sold President Hugo Chávez another $5 billion in weapons — a huge sum for a Latin American country that is deep in recession and busy rationing its water, electricity and hard currency. Take it as one more sign of the political, economic and human rights meltdown underway in a major U.S. oil supplier — and where it may lead.

The last time we looked in on developments in Venezuela, in January, we pointed out that Mr. Chávez had reacted to the unraveling of his economy and his shrinking popularity by stepping up repression of the opposition. That continues: In the past couple of weeks, the government arrested and brought criminal charges against three more leading critics. One is a former state governor and presidential candidate who said in an interview that Venezuela has become a haven for drug traffickers and terrorists. A second is the owner of the last television network that dares to criticize Mr. Chávez; the third is a deputy in the National Assembly who had denounced corruption.

Mr. Chávez’s move against former governor Oswaldo Álvarez Paz came after a Spanish judge issued an indictment accusing the government and armed forces of facilitating contacts between Colombia’s left-wing FARC terrorists and those of the Basque group ETA, who were allegedly concocting plots to assassinate the Colombian president and other leading politicians. Mr. Paz’s “crime” was to talk about this development. The Spanish dossier is one of several demonstrating material support for terrorism by Mr. Chávez, who has made little secret of his preference for the FARC over Colombia’s democratic government.

That brings us to the latest round of arms purchases from Russia, which come on top of $4 billion in weapons that Mr. Chávez already ordered from Moscow. The arsenal includes T-72 tanks, Mi-17 helicopters and advanced fighter jets — weapons suitable for the conventional war with which Mr. Chávez has repeatedly threatened Colombia.

The Obama administration’s response has been to soft-pedal most of this. Political arrests are met with perfunctory-sounding statements of concern. About the flood of Russian weapons, aimed at intimidating one of the closest U.S. allies in Latin America, the State Department observed that “we’re hard-pressed to see what legitimate defense needs Venezuela has for this equipment . . . we can probably think of better things that could be invested on behalf of the Venezuelan people.” Colombians — and average Venezuelans — can only hope such nonchalance is justified.