Sunday, February 03, 2008

Orinoco outflow...

...and this time I don't mean the oil. In December last year Barcelona resident John Carlin reported on "the remarkable collusion between Colombia's rebels and its neighbour's armed forces" the article was published in the Spanish daily El País, 'revealing', with witness testimonies what many have known/suspected for a long while: the "Chávez role in cocaine trail to Europe"; today it was published in The Observer.

"The varied testimonies I have heard reveal that the co-operation between Venezuela and the guerrillas in transporting cocaine by land, air and sea is both extensive and systematic. Venezuela is also supplying arms to the guerrillas, offering them the protection of their armed forces in the field, and providing them with legal immunity de facto as they go about their giant illegal business."

It has taken seven weeks for the story to reach the UK press, presumably publication was delayed to allow the successful release of hostages [CNN] - negotiations assisted by you know who. The article pretty much lays it all out without much room for doubt unless of course some or all of the sources aren't telling the truth! Somehow it just all rings true.

"All the sources I reached agreed that powerful elements within the Venezuelan state apparatus have forged a strong working relationship with Farc. They told me that Farc and Venezuelan state officials operated actively together on the ground, where military and drug-trafficking activities coincide. But the relationship becomes more passive, they said, less actively involved, the higher up the Venezuelan government you go. No source I spoke to accused Chávez himself of having a direct role in Colombia's giant drug-trafficking business. Yet the same people I interviewed struggled to believe that Chávez was not aware of the collusion between his armed forces and the leadership of Farc, as they also found it difficult to imagine that he has no knowledge of the degree to which Farc is involved in the cocaine trade."

Perhaps now that this is getting more column inches in Europe it will shed light on the those that overtly support him, and I don't mean message-board extremists, I mean mayors of major capital cities..."As part of the original deal with Mr Livingstone, which has been in the works for at least a year, the mayor of London’s office had pledged to "actively and efficiently promote Venezuela’s image in the UK".

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yoo hoo! Popping in so say hola.

Haven't read your entry (sorry, sorry) but to the left of the bit where I'm typing this I can see the word "Livingstone".

There was a Channel 4 Documentary (expose) a couple of weeks ago about him and his goings on in South America

I cannot stand the man - that stems back from when he was lording it at the GLC in the 70s.

Span Ows said...

Well blow me...down with a feather, hello Sarnia and welcome back! :-)

Re Livingstone...ditto, really was a bête noir of mine back then too and I was a mere whippersnapper!

Anonymous said...

So was I, Span - I was his chimney sweep!

Thanks for kind words - if Chels don't win P'ship (which they won't) then I would rather Arse did - and CERTAINLY not Ronaldo Utd!

Anonymous said...

The opening round of Six Nations fixtures certainly didn’t disappoint. We had a tense thriller (Ireland 16 – 11 Italy), a shocking upset (England 19 – 26 Wales) - which must have cost the bookies in Wales a few quid, seen as though the Welsh were massive underdogs and not to mention the Taffies like a bit of Rugby Betting UK. Then there were the brave Scots; who went down 27-6 to France. So many parts of Scotland’s game were working well and all three of the French tries came from schoolboy errors by the Scots... I hope their confidence is still in tact because they actually played really well.