Venezuela
US Central
Intelligence Agency: Documentary proof of CIA involvement in the April
2002 coup d'etat against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias
By
Eva Golinger
Nov 21, 2004
Back to Alternative Reader Index
Venezuelafoia.info's
Eva Golinger reports: On April 12, 2002, White House spokesperson
Ari Fleischer stated:
Let
me share with you the administration's thoughts about what's taking place
in Venezuela. It remains a somewhat fluid situation. But yesterday's
events in Venezuela resulted in a change in the government and the
assumption of a transitional authority until new elections can be held.
The
details still are unclear. We know that the action encouraged by the
Chavez government provoked this crisis. According to the best information
available, the Chavez government suppressed peaceful demonstrations.
Government supporters, on orders from the Chavez government, fired on
unarmed, peaceful protestors, resulting in 10 killed and 100 wounded. The
Venezuelan military and the police refused to fire on the peaceful
demonstrators and refused to support the government's role in such human
rights violations. The government also tried to prevent independent news
media from reporting on these events.
The
results of these events are now that President Chavez has resigned the
presidency. Before resigning, he dismissed the vice president and the
cabinet, and a transitional civilian government has been installed. This
government has promised early elections.
The
United States will continue to monitor events. That is what took place,
and the Venezuelan people expressed their right to peaceful protest. It
was a very large protest that turned out. And the protest was met with
violence.
On
that same day, U.S. Department of State spokesperson Philip T. Reeker,
claimed:
In
recent days, we expressed our hopes that all parties in Venezuela, but
especially the Chavez administration, would act with restraint and show
full respect for the peaceful expression of political opinion. We are
saddened at the loss of life. We wish to express our solidarity with the
Venezuelan people and look forward to working with all democratic forces
in Venezuela to ensure the full exercise of democratic rights. The
Venezuelan military commendably refused to fire on peaceful demonstrators,
and the media valiantly kept the Venezuelan public informed.
Yesterday's
events in Venezuela resulted in a transitional government until new
elections can be held. Though details are still unclear, undemocratic
actions committed or encouraged by the Chavez administration provoked
yesterday's crisis in Venezuela. According to the best information
available, at this time: Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans
gathered peacefully to seek redress of their grievances. The Chavez
Government attempted to suppress peaceful demonstrations. Chavez
supporters, on orders, fired on unarmed, peaceful protestors, resulting in
more than 100 wounded or killed. Venezuelan military and police refused
orders to fire on peaceful demonstrators and refused to support the
government's role in such human rights violations. The government
prevented five independent television stations from reporting on events.
The results of these provocations are: Chavez resigned the presidency.
Before resigning, he dismissed the Vice President and the Cabinet. A
transition civilian government has promised early elections.
We
have every expectation that this situation will be resolved peacefully and
democratically by the Venezuelan people in accord with the principles of
the Inter-American Democratic Charter. The essential elements of
democracy, which have been weakened in recent months, must be restored
fully. We will be consulting with our hemispheric partners, within the
framework of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, to assist Venezuela.
Why
do I recite these statements here?
These
statements from the highest levels of the US government show the prepared
version of the events that took place during the April 11-12 coup d’etat
against Venezuelan President Chavez Frias.
Moreover,
these revealing statements now prove, in light of documents recently
obtained from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA), that this prepared version of events was knowingly
false and made with the intention of deceiving the international community
in order to justify a violent overthrow of a democratic government.
The
White House and the US State Department both claimed that the Chavez
government had provoked violence and actions that resulted in the
President’s alleged resignation. They also asserted that the Chavez
government had fired on unarmed, peaceful protesters and that the
Venezuelan military and police had refused orders to “support the
government’s role in human rights violations”. The US government
referred to the protests and actions of that day as though they were
spontaneous, unplanned events. The US government has also continued to
deny to this day any involvement whatsoever in the April 2002 coup
d’etat.
However,
there is a vast amount of evidence that has surfaced since the coup
demonstrating that the events on April 11, 2002, were entirely
premeditated by a sector of the opposition intent on overthrowing the
Chavez government.
Furthermore,
my own investigations have provided a plethora of evidence proving the US
involvement in the coup on various levels.
Most
revealing on the Venezuelan front was a news program on Saturday morning,
April 12, 2002, “24 Horas” with host Napoleon Bravo. On that program,
Bravo interviewed Vice Admiral Carlos Molina Tamayo ... a professed coup
leader ... and Victor Manuel Garcia, director of the polling company CIFRA,
who claimed to have represented the “civil society” during the coup.
Both
Molina Tamayo and Garcia gave a jaw-dropping, detailed account of the
events leading up to the coup and those key Venezuelans involved,
including crediting the private televisions stations for their complicity
and aide.
Their
testimony, along with Chacao municipal mayor Leopoldo Lopez of the Primero
Justicia political party and Napoleon Bravo’s own admissions of
complicity in the coup, provided plenty of proof that the overthrow of
Chavez was a premeditated event.
Later,
an extraordinary and award-winning documentary by filmmaker Angel
Palacios, “Puente Llaguno: Claves de un Masacre,” revealed how the
Venezuelan private media had manipulated and distorted the events that
unfolded on April 11, 2002 in the opposition march, which resulted in
widespread violence and death. The documentary also provided sufficient
proof that snipers unrelated to the Chavez government had provoked the
violence in the opposition march that justified the forced removal of
Chavez from office. Furthermore, the documentary succeeded in proving that
a well-planned military-civilian coup d’etat had taken place that day
and that those involved were connected to the highest levels of the US
government.
But
the evidence of actual US involvement in the coup itself remained scarce
up until recently.
On
www.venezuelafoia.info I have posted hundreds of documents that evidence
the intricate financing scheme the US government has been carrying out in
Venezuela since 2001, that includes financing well over twenty million
dollars to opposition sectors.
The
funding of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) ... a
quasi-governmental entity in the US financed entirely by the US Congress
and established by congressional legislation in 1983 ... has provided more
than US$3 million since late 2001 to opposition groups, many of which were
key participants in the April 2002 coup.
And
in June 2002, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), set up
an Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in the US Embassy in Caracas,
allegedly for the purposing of helping Venezuela to resolve its political
crisis. The OTI in Caracas has counted on more than US$15 million in
funding from Congress since June 2002 and has recently requested five
million more for 2005, despite the fact that it was only supposed to be a
two-year endeavor.
All
evidence obtained to date shows that the OTI has primarily funded
opposition groups and projects in Venezuela ... particularly those that
were focused on the August 15, 2004 recall referendum against President
Chavez.
I
have written other articles explaining the intervention model applied
through NED and USAID in Venezuela. This method of intervention is very
sophisticated and complex, as it penetrates civil society and social
organizations in a very subtle way and is often either undetectable or
flimsily justified by the concept of “promoting democracy,” which is
what the NED claims to do around the world, despite evidence to the
contrary. The mere fact in Venezuela that the NED has financed exclusively
anti-Chávez groups and those very same organizations that were involved
in the April 2002 coup shows that “democracy” is far from the NED’s
intention.
But
the CIA intervention in Venezuela is of the crudest, simplest kind. Top
secret documents recently obtained and posted on www.venezuelafoia.info
show that in the weeks prior to the April 2002 coup against President
Chavez, the CIA had full knowledge of the events to occur and, in fact,
even had the detailed plans in their possession.
An
April 6, 2002, top secret intelligence brief headlining “Venezuela:
Conditions Ripening for Coup Attempt,” states: “Dissident military
factions, including some disgruntled senior officers and a group of
radical junior officers, are stepping up efforts to organize a coup
against President Chávez, possible as early as this month, [CENSORED].
The level of detail in the reported plans - [CENSORED] targets Chavez
and ten other senior officers for arrest…” The document further states
“to provoke military action, the plotters may try to exploit unrest
stemming from opposition demonstrations slated for later this month…”
So
the CIA knew that a coup attempt would take place soon after April 6,
2002, and moreover, they knew the plan would include Chavez’ arrest and
an exploitation of violence in the opposition march. In other words, they
knew the plans before the coup occurred and surely they knew the actors
involved, many of whose names are probably in the censored parts of the
top-secret documents.
One
could assume that if the CIA had the detailed plans in their possession in
the weeks prior to the coup it was because they were associating and
conspiring with the coup plotters.
So,
when Ari Fleischer and Philip Reeker made those statements on April 12,
2002, on behalf of the US government, they did so with full knowledge that
a coup had taken place, Chavez had been arrested and the violence in the
opposition march, which they attributed to Chavez, had actually been a
premeditated part of the coup plot. The top secret documents that prove
this information show they were sent to the US State Department and the
National Security Agency ... which means frankly, the White House knew
what was happening all along.
Furthermore,
the CIA documents make no mention of any attempts to have Chavez forcibly
resign from office. The CIA warnings indicated as early as March 5, 2002
(which is the date of the earliest document provided) that a coup was on
the rise and even hinted that prospects for a successful coup were
limited.
The
CIA, rightfully, felt the opposition was too disperse and divided to
successfully overthrow Chavez.
But
the concept that Chavez had “resigned” as the White House and State
Department “confirmed” on April 12, 2002, was merely a set-up, a false
claim made with the intention of deceiving the US public and the
international community.
Remember
that the US stood practically alone in the world in its endorsement of the
coup-implemented Carmona government ... which it later, weakly, condemned
but only after the coup came tumbling down and the US realized it needed
to save face quickly.
A
top secret CIA document from April 14, 2002, shows concern that Latin
American governments will view US foreign policy as “hypocritical”
because of its sole endorsement of the Carmona coup government.
The
CIA also seems surprised that the region of Latin America so quickly
rejected the coup in Venezuela and that the Carmona government
“stunningly collapsed,” which demonstrates a possible out-of-date view
of the hemisphere and a failure in intelligence gathering and analysis.
In
fact, the CIA never imagined the coup would buckle because of support for
Chavez - their analysis all along showed possible failure due to lack of
opposition unity and hasty actions.
This
is a very important point, because it demonstrates that although the CIA
was involved in the coup plotting and the collaborations with dissident
military factions and opposition leaders, it was fairly detached from the
reality of Venezuelan society.
The
CIA’s intelligence failures in Venezuela were apparently repeated during
the oil industry strike later in 2002 and the guarimba destabilization
attempt, an old-school CIA tactic applied in Chile and Nicaragua. Both of
these harsh actions injured the Venezuelan economy and affected the
government’s international image, but failed in their goal to oust
President Chavez.
The
NED’s and USAID’s tens of millions of dollars in financing to build
and maintain the opposition movement and finance the recall referendum
campaign against President Chávez also failed to achieve their mission.
In
fact, all of these bungled attempts by the US government and its
marionette opposition movement have served to strengthen Chavez’ support
within Venezuela and paint him as a strong and solid international leader.
Now
that some of the top-secret documents have surfaced that show the CIA’s
complicity and involvement in the April 2002 coup, it leaves one to wonder
what is next on the agenda. In September 2001, shortly after the attacks
on the World Trade Center in New York, President Bush unconditionally
authorized former CIA Director George Tenet’s “Worldwide Attack
Matrix,” which targets leaders and prominent figures in 80 countries
around the world for assassination.
The
authorization of the Worldwide Attack Matrix provided the CIA with a
virtual carte blanche to conduct political assassinations abroad,
justified under the “war against terrorism.” The “Attack Matrix”
... a top secret CIA document ... authorizes an array of covert CIA
anti-terror actions that range from “routine propaganda to lethal covert
action in preparation for military attacks.”
The
plans give the CIA the broadest and most lethal authority in history. Some
analysts have indicated that Venezuela is possibly included in the plans.
The
recent assassination of Venezuelan prosecutor Danilo Anderson ...
conducted in a style reminiscent of CIA operations ... could be setting
the stage for future political murders.
History
shows that when the CIA fails to remove a target via non-lethal means,
more desperate measures are taken.
Despite
the fact that the Venezuelan government and its supporters appear to have
foiled the CIA numerous times already over the past few years, vigilance,
intelligence and increased security measures should become a priority.
From
AxisofLogic.com
Bulatlat
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