Tag Archives: drug traffiking

Jul
27
2012
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In Case You Missed It… Articles Roundup Week of 7/27/12

jp venezuela1 articleLarge In Case You Missed It… Articles Roundup Week of 7/27/12

An aircraft burned in a drug raid in Apure State. Afterward, traffickers appeared to have reclaimed the airstrip for drug flights. (Courtesy of: Meridith Kohut for The New York Times)

Hugo Chávez is making good on his threat to remove Venezuela from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after a recent ruling against his government. The action is just one more in a series – including allegedly plotting a coup in Paraguay and threatening the Spanish oil company Repsol – that have many analysts warning that Chávez is setting a dangerous precedent of radicalization in the region. With the elections just over two months away, Chavez’s government has dramatically increased spending and tightened its control of the media. Venezuelans continue to worry about the country’s high crime rate and investigations show that the drug trade continues unchecked. Meanwhile, Venezuelans remain uncertain about Chávez’s health and alleged recovery.

Hugo Chavez says Venezuela will pull out of regional human rights court, condemns decision, Washington Post

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that his government will pull out of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in protest after a ruling that he called a travesty.

Chávez a threat to the hemisphere, Miami Herald

During a recent interview on A Mano Limpia, hosted by Oscar Haza on WJAN-Channel 41 (Florida), President Obama declared that Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez has not posed “a serious” national security threat to the United States.

Paraguay prosecutor calls Lugo to testify in probe against Venezuelan foreign minister, Associated Press

Paraguay’s former President Fernando Lugo must testify in an investigation over alleged Venezuelan meddling during his impeachment, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Venezuela’s Chavez Threatens Repsol Over YPF Arbitration Case, Bloomberg

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez warned Repsol SA (REP) to “think carefully” about taking action against Argentina after it nationalized its YPF SA (YPFD) unit, indicating the Spanish company may face ramifications in Venezuela.

Facing election, Hugo Chávez ruthlessly consolidates his power, Washington Post

NOT FOR THE first time, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has declared himself cancer-free and ready to resume a full schedule.

Chavez says he won’t stop taking over airwaves, AP

President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that he will not stop seizing control of Venezuela’s airwaves to give his trademark marathon television and radio addresses despite complaints from his challenger that it gives him an unfair advantage during the country’s presidential election campaign.

Venezuela’s productivity problem, Foreign Policy

While much of the developed world is mired in sluggish growth or downright recession, a few days ago Venezuela came out with healthy GDP figures.

Me or your own eyes, The Economist

ÉDGAR TORRES, a toddler in the Venezuelan state of Aragua, was asleep in bed when a gang from up the hill came looking for his mother’s 16-year-old godson.

Cocaine’s Flow Is Unchecked in Venezuela, New York Times

The Venezuelan government has trumpeted one major blow after another against drug traffickers, showing off barrels of liquid cocaine seized, drug planes recovered, cocaine labs raided and airstrips destroyed.

Chávez’s allure, Venezuela’s disaster, Miami Herald

When Churchill was once asked about some aspect of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy, he made a memorable statement, tinged with humor: “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

 
May
11
2012
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Another Former Judge Alleges Drug Trafficking Ties in Venezuelan Government

Velasquez Alvaray SoiTV Another Former Judge Alleges Drug Trafficking Ties in Venezuelan Government

After weeks of controversy surrounding Eladio Aponte Aponte’s testimony that high-ranking Venezuelan officials were complicit in the illegal narcotics trade, a second former Venezuelan Supreme Court judge, Luis Velásquez Alvaray, has stepped forward. On Wednesday, Velásquez Alvaray publicly accused Venezuelan government officials and members of the judiciary of corruption and of aiding drug traffickers and guerrilla organizations, via SoiTV, a Miami online channel.

Velásquez Alvaray, who currently resides in Costa Rica after having himself been charged with corruption, accused a group of judges and prosecutors that operate under the name “Band of Dwarves”, of extortion and bribery. He claims that the groups is led by former vice-president José Vicente Rangel, and known for penetrating the whole country with their influence. Velásquez Alvaray calls them a criminal gang, describing them as the “worst perversion from the judicial point of view that could exist.”

He also accused Rangel of being the mastermind behind the controversial murder of prosecutor Danilo Anderson, who died after a device under the driver’s seat of his car containing an explosive erupted. The bomb was apparently activated remotely by a cell phone.

Velásquez Alvaray showed the camera several incriminating documents; the worst was the actual record of Hugo Chávez ordering the arrest of his former presidential rival, Manuel Rosales. “The order was to arrest Manuel Rosales however possible, even though there was no proof against him,” he claimed. Politics has long been a contact sport, but to actually arrest one’s political opponent without cause is not an act that most democratically-elected leaders would countenance.

He went on to describe the two biggest drug trafficking groups operating in the country: “the Cartel of the Suns,” which he believes is composed primarily of generals, and the “Syrian-Lebanese Cartel,” which he argues is comprised of senior government officials. There apparently is proof of the involvement of many of these civil and military personalities in drug trafficking, extortions and homicides. It is this “war of cartels,” as Alvaray called it, that is tearing Venezuelan civil society apart. He claimed that the president of the Supreme Court, Luisa Estella Morales, is fully aware of the situation, but has done nothing to resolve or address the issue.

Links between many members of Chávez’s regime and the Colombia guerrilla organization FARC were also drawn; “I rely on information from the Colombian intelligence bodies on the current operation of the FARC in Venezuela,” and presented evidence of an alleged report which says that “the guerrillas are operating in Venezuela with more force than ever before.” Chávez’s brother, Adán, was one of the many accused.

These declarations emerge three weeks after another former Venezuelan Supreme Court judge, Eladio Aponte Aponte, accused Venezuelan officials of drug links and corruption, and turned over proof to the DEA. This is not the last we can expect to hear about this discouraging issue: according to a U.S. official, Aponte is preparing to speak publicly on these issues in the coming weeks.

 
Apr
27
2012
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ICYMI: Whistle-blown

An impeached judge says the courts are subservient and corrupt
 The Economist
Apr 28th 2012

WHEN Hugo Chávez became Venezuela’s president, in 1999, he promised an overhaul of the country’s notoriously venal judiciary. But according to charges made by a recently dismissed supreme-court justice, the flaws Mr Chávez vowed to rectify are nothing compared with what has transpired under his rule.

On March 20th the legislature removed Eladio Aponte from the court. Previously a colonel and the chief military prosecutor, he joined it in 2004 when Mr Chávez expanded it and appointed 17 loyalists. He was accused of giving government credentials to Walid Makled, an alleged drug baron. The government had long been aware of his actions, and Mr Aponte says that Mr Makled was seen at the time as a legitimate businessman friendly to Mr Chávez. Extradited last year from Colombia, Mr Makled is now on trial in Caracas for drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit murder. On April 25th he said he had paid Mr Aponte millions of dollars.

Mr Aponte was not criminally charged in connection with Mr Makled’s case. Nonetheless, he still fled the country. Weeks later he showed up in Miami, where he is said to be collaborating with the American authorities.

Now that he is safely abroad, Mr Aponte has minced no words. On April 18th he gave an interview to SOÍTV, a Miami-based television channel, in which he recalled that senior officials “from the president down” would phone him with instructions on sensitive cases. In his account, Elías Jaua, the vice-president, held weekly meetings with leaders of the judiciary–which is constitutionally separate from the executive–and would have those who disobeyed him fired. He also said there is a long-standing order not to release political prisoners, who the opposition says number over a dozen. They include María Lourdes Afiuni, a judge who has spent over two years in pre-trial detention.

Mr Aponte’s most explosive claims involve the government’s links to guerrillas and drug traffickers. Asked about its relationship with Colombia’s FARC, Mr Aponte said he was told to “turn a blind eye to all those gentlemen” (see article). In one case, he said, Henry Rangel Silva, now the defence minister, ordered leniency for a lieutenant-colonel who had been arrested for cocaine-smuggling. He was later freed without trial. Mr Aponte also accused Clíver Alcalá, a general, of being the country’s “drug tsar”. Both men were already on the United States Treasury Department’s blacklist of alleged collaborators with the drug trade.

The government has dismissed Mr Aponte as a discredited turncoat offering no proof. “He sold his soul to the devil,” said Nicolás Maduro, the foreign minister. But if Mr Aponte has evidence to back up his assertions, America could issue indictments of Venezuelan officials.

Politics and biology, however, may move faster than the wheels of justice. Both countries will hold presidential elections this year. And Mr Chávez, who is running for re-election, just spent two weeks in Cuba undergoing radiation therapy after the recurrence of his pelvic cancer. With no heir apparent, tensions within his party are rising. Mr Aponte may not be the last high-level defector in 2012.

To read this article on The Economist, please click here.