UN JOURNALISME D'INVESTIGATION

11 janvier 2012

A 9 mois de la présidentielle au Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, candidat à la réélection malgré son cancer, vient de commettre l’irréparable contre la démocratie avec la désignation d’un tel scélérat à ce poste-clef.

Jugez du peu avec le pedigree de Henry Rangel Silva que mes lecteurs ici connaissent bien : agent actif des FARC dont Chavez abrite les chefs au Venezuela, ce général a aidé les terroristes colombiens à négocier l’achat d’armements, est recherché pour trafic de drogue par les USA qui ont gelé ses avoirs, et a annoncé en 2010 son intention de ne pas laisser l’opposition gouverner si elle gagnait en 2012. « Les forces armées sont totalement fidèles à Chavez et à son mariées à son projet » communiste, avait-il alors déclaré.

Hugo Chavez se moque ainsi de Washington, et surtout de son voisin, la Colombie, avec en tête le président Juan Manuel Santos, qui a repris des relations cordiales avec lui malgré la complicité du chef de l’Etat vénézuélien avec les FARC. On attend avec impatience la réaction de Bogota à cette pierre jetée dans le jardin de leur soi-disant amitié.

Je vous joins mon ancien papier publié ici le 3 août 2009 :
REVELATIONS DU NEW YORK TIMES: LES FARC ONT FORME DES TROUPES VENEZUELIENNES A LA GUERRE DE GUERILLA ET DEMANDE DES MISSILES SOL-AIR A CHAVEZ L’AN DERNIER !
3 août 2009 | Auteur jacquesthomet
3 août 2009
Ces preuves sont contenues dans des documents explosifs retrouvés dans des ordinateurs saisis récemment sur des rebelles arrêtés par l’armée colombienne. Elles contredisent les démentis de Hugo Chavez sur son appui en argent et en armes aux FARC.
Une copie de ces courriels, actuellement analysés par des agences de renseignements occidentales, a été fournie à Simon Romero, journaliste au New York Times. Un courriel du commandant des FARC Ivan Marquez, daté de 2008, décrit un plan pour acheter au Venezuela des missiles sol-air, des fusils et des radios. Il fait état de ses contacts avec le général Henry de Jesus Rangel Silva, alors directeur des services secrets de la police vénézuélienne, et Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, un ex-ministre de l’Intérieur de Chavez connu pour ses liens actifs avec les FARC. (Rappelez-vous, c’est sur mon blog, la scène de janvier 2008. Lors de la libération de l’otage Clara Rojas par les FARC, Chacin, alors émissaire, avait encouragé les guérilleros à « continuer la lutte ». Une caméra a enregistré la scène).
Installé au Venezuela avec l’aval de Chavez, Ivan Marquez évoque la fourniture de ces armements près du Rio Negro, dans l’Etat vénézuélien de l’Amazonie, et la remise de documents aux trafiquants d’armes, par le général Rangel Silva, pour leur permettre de circuler dans le pays afin d’acheminer la livraison. Mais les documents saisis ne confirment pas si la livraison a effectivement eu lieu.
Rodriguez Chacin et Rangel Silva sont accusés par le département du Trésor américain de trafic de drogue. Leurs comptes ont été gelés aux USA. Ils encourent une peine de prison allant jusqu’à 30 ans s’ils pénètrent aux Etats-Unis.
Les documents cités par le quotidien révèlent aussi que les FARC ont donné des cours de guerre de guérilla à des officiers vénézuéliens, comme l’indique un commandant de la guérilla, Timoleon Jimenez, alias « Timochenko », qui lui aussi opère depuis le Venezuela. Un autre document saisi en mai dernier révèle enfin que Hugo Chavez a parlé personnellement avec Timoleon Jimenez pour lui exprimer sa solidarité avec le combat des FARC.
Voici le papier du NYT : Venezuela Still Aids Colombia Rebels, New Material Shows
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: August 2, 2009 CARACAS, Venezuela — Despite repeated denials by President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan officials have continued to assist commanders of Colombia’s largest rebel group, helping them arrange weapons deals in Venezuela and even obtain identity cards to move with ease on Venezuelan soil, according to computer material captured from the rebels in recent months and under review by Western intelligence agencies.
The materials point to detailed collaborations between the guerrillas and high-ranking military and intelligence officials in Mr. Chávez’s government as recently as several weeks ago, countering the president’s frequent statements that his administration does not assist the rebels. « We do not protect them, » he said in late July. The new evidence — drawn from computer material captured from the rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — comes at a low point for ties between Venezuela and Colombia. Mr. Chávez froze diplomatic relations in late July, chafing at assertions by Colombia’s government that Swedish rocket launchers sold to Venezuela ended up in the hands of the FARC. Venezuela’s reaction was also fueled by Colombia’s plans to increase American troop levels there.
« Colombia’s government is trying to build a case in the media against our country that serves its own political agenda, » said Bernardo Álvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington, describing the latest intelligence information as « noncorroborated. » Mr. Chávez has disputed claims of his government’s collaboration with the rebels since Colombian forces raided a FARC encampment in Ecuador last year. During the raid, Colombian commandos obtained the computers of a FARC commander with encrypted e-mail messages that described a history of close ties between Mr. Chávez’s government and the rebel group, which has long crossed over into Venezuelan territory for refuge.
The newest communications, circulated among the seven members of the FARC’s secretariat, suggest that little has changed with Venezuela’s assistance since the raid. The New York Times obtained a copy of the computer material from an intelligence agency that is analyzing it. One message from Iván Márquez, a rebel commander thought to operate largely from Venezuelan territory, describes the FARC’s plan to buy surface-to-air missiles, sniper rifles and radios in Venezuela last year.
It is not clear whether the arms Mr. Márquez refers to ended up in FARC hands. But he wrote that the effort was facilitated by Gen. Henry Rangel Silva, the director of Venezuela’s police intelligence agency until his removal last month, and by Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, a former Venezuelan interior minister who served as Mr. Chávez’s official emissary to the FARC in negotiations to free hostages last year. In the message, Mr. Márquez discusses a plan by Mr. Rodríguez Chacín to carry out the deal near the Río Negro in Amazonas State in Venezuela. Mr. Márquez goes further, explaining that General Rangel Silva gave the arms dealers documents they could use to move around freely while in Venezuela.
Intelligence of this kind has been a source of tension between Colombia and Venezuela, with the government here claiming the information is false and used to further political ends. Colombian officials, by contrast, argue that the intelligence proves that the FARC survives in part on its ability to operate from Venezuela’s frontier regions. The latest evidence, suggesting that the FARC operates easily in Venezuela, may put the Obama administration in a tough spot. President Obama has recently tried to repair Washington’s relations with Venezuela, adopting a nonconfrontational approach to Mr. Chávez that stands in contrast to the Bush administration’s often aggressive response to his taunts and insults.
But the United States and the European Union still classify the FARC as a terrorist organization. The Treasury Department accused General Rangel Silva and Mr. Rodríguez Chacín last year of assisting the FARC’s drug trafficking activities, opening the officials to freezes on their assets, fines and prison terms of up to 30 years in the United States. Venezuela has said the men are not guilty of those charges. « We do not comment on intelligence matters, » said Noel Clay, a State Department spokesman, in relation to the latest captured communications. A spokesman from the Colombian Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the matter.
Computer records obtained in the Colombian raid in Ecuador last year appeared to corroborate the assertion that Venezuela helped the FARC acquire the Swedish-made rocket launchers at the heart of the latest diplomatic dispute between the two countries. The launchers were purchased by the Venezuelan Army in the late 1980s but captured in Colombia in combat operations against the FARC last year. The FARC’s use of Swedish arms has an added dimension: the rebels kidnapped a Swedish engineer in Colombia in 2007, holding him hostage for nearly two years — during which he was reported to have suffered brain damage and paralysis from a stroke — before releasing him in March.
« The issue of these weapons is extremely serious for us, » said Tommy Stromberg, the political officer at the Swedish Embassy in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, which also oversees Sweden’s affairs in Venezuela. Mr. Stromberg said Venezuela had bought Swedish arms as recently as 2006. « We have asked Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry for clarification on how this happened, but have not had a response. » The computer records from the raid in Ecuador last year also seem to match some of the information in the new communications under review by Western intelligence officials.
For example, a message obtained in the Ecuador raid and written in September 2007 contained an earlier reference to the arms deal discussed recently by the FARC. In the earlier message, Mr. Márquez, the rebel commander, referred to dealers he described as Australian, and went into detail about the arms they were selling, including Dragunov rifles, SA-7 missiles and HF-90M radios, the same items he discusses in the more recent communications. Another file from the Ecuador raid mentioning an offer from the FARC to instruct Venezuelan officers in guerrilla warfare matches recently obtained material from a rebel commander, Timoleón Jiménez, that says the course took place. Other communications refer to FARC efforts to secure Venezuelan identity cards in a plan overseen by General Rangel Silva, the former Venezuelan intelligence chief. In other material captured as recently as May, Mr. Márquez, the rebel commander, said Mr. Chávez had spoken personally with Mr. Jiménez, expressing solidarity for the FARC’s struggle. Then Mr. Márquez went into more mundane matters, referring to unspecified problems the FARC had recently encountered in La Fría, an area in Venezuela near the border with Colombia.