El gobierno estadounidense debe investigar hasta qué punto Venezuela está apoyando a las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia

El gobierno estadounidense debe investigar hasta qué punto Venezuela está apoyando a las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, luego que se hallaran evidencias de que el gobierno venezolano vendió lanzacohetes a ese grupo guerrillero, opinó el diario The Washington Post.

En un editorial publicado el viernes, el diario destaca que se hallaron lanzacohetes de fabricación sueca en manos de las FARC y que una investigación de Suecia determinó que las armas fueron vendidas al ejército venezolano por la fabricante Saab.

El editorial citó además un informe del Congreso estadounidense según el cual el gobierno venezolano ha creado un “ambiente permisivo” que le ha facilitado a las FARC el tráfico masivo de cocaína por la zona fronteriza.

Las FARC son un “movimiento rebelde conocido por su terrorismo y narcotráfico” y ha sido “designada como organización terrorista por Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea”, destaca el Post.

Los hallazgos recientes “parecen ser prueba de apoyo material a terrorismo” y el Departamento de Estado debe investigar “si el gobierno de Hugo Chávez o sus máximos funcionarios deben ser incluidos en la lista de estados patrocinadores de terrorismo”, dice el Post.

El Departamento de Estado ha estado imponiendo sanciones al gobierno de facto de Honduras, que “derrocó a uno de los clientes e imitadores del señor Chávez”, pero quizás debería “poner su atención en los que en este hemisferio han sido vistos tratando de derrocar a un gobierno democrático mediante el suministro de armas a terroristas”.

http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/71008/el-diario-washington-post-pide-investigar-presunto-apoyo-de-venezuela-a-las-farc/

Rockets for Terrorists

Will there be any consequence for Venezuela's material support for Colombian insurgents?

WHEN THE Colombian government last year unveiled extensive evidence that the government of Venezuela had collaborated with a Colombian rebel movement known for terrorism and drug trafficking, other Latin American governments and the United States mostly chose to look the other way. The evidence was contained on laptops captured in a controversial raid by the Colombian army on a guerrilla base in Ecuador. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez denounced the e-mails and documents as forgeries, and the potential consequences of concluding that Venezuela was supporting a terrorist organization against a democratic government -- which could include mandatory U.S. sanctions and referral to the U.N. Security Council -- were more than the Bush administration was prepared to contemplate.

Now Colombia has made public evidence that will be even more difficult to ignore. In a raid on a camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), a group officially designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, Colombian forces captured sophisticated, Swedish-produced antitank rockets. A Swedish investigation confirmed that they were originally sold to the Venezuelan army by the arms manufacturer Saab. What's more, FARC e-mails from the laptops captured in Ecuador appear to refer to the weapons; in one, a FARC operative in Caracas reports discussing delivery of the arms in a 2007 meeting with two top Venezuelan generals, including the director of military intelligence, Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios.

Colombia privately asked Mr. Chávez's government for an explanation of the rockets several months ago; Sweden is now asking as well. But the only response has been public bluster by the Venezuelan caudillo, who on Tuesday withdrew his ambassador from Colombia and threatened to close the border to trade. If he follows through, U.S. drug authorities may well be pleased: A report released last week by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said Venezuela had created a "permissive environment" for FARC that had allowed the group to massively increase its cocaine smuggling across that border. "By allowing illegal armed groups to elude capture and by providing material support, Venezuela has extended a lifeline to Colombian illegal armed groups, and their continued existence endangers Colombian security gains achieved with U.S. assistance," the GAO reported.

This all sounds an awful lot like material support for terrorism -- which raises the question of whether the State Department will look again at whether Mr. Chávez's government or its top officials belong on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Bush administration's Treasury Department last year imposed sanctions on Gen. Carvajal and several other officials for supporting the FARC's drug trafficking. But that hardly covers the supply of antitank rockets to a designated terrorist organization. At the moment, the State Department is busy applying sanctions to members of Honduras's de facto government, which is guilty of deposing one of Mr. Chávez's clients and would-be emulators. Perhaps soon it can turn its attention to those in the hemisphere who have been caught trying to overturn a democratic government by supplying terrorists with advanced weapons.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073003329.html