Reply #12: SF Examiner predicted Venezuela coup attempt 3 months before [View All]

S.F. Examiner had predicted Venezuela coup attempt 3 months before
coup attempt backed by USA's CIA. Col Hallinan lays it out right along the line in December 2001.

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http://www.examiner.com/opinion/default.jsp?story=OPhallinan1228w

Publication date: 12/28/2001

U.S. cooking up a coup in Venezeula?
By Conn Hallinan
Special To The Examiner

THERE is the smell of a coup in the air these days. It was like this in Iran just before the 1953 U.S.-backed coup overthrew the Mossedeah government and installed the Shah. It has the feel of 1963 in South Vietnam, before the military takeover switched on the light at the end of the long and terrible Southeast Asian tunnel. It is hauntingly similar to early September 1973, before the coup in Chile ushered in 20 years of blood and darkness.

Early last month, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department held a two-day meeting on U.S. policy toward Venezuela. Similar such meetings took place in 1953, 1963, and 1973, as well as before coups in Guatemala, Brazil and Argentina. It should send a deep chill down the backs of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the populist coalition that took power in 1998.
The catalyst for the Nov. 5-7 interagency get-together was a comment by Chavez in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. While Chavez sharply condemned the attack, he questioned the value of bombing Afghanistan, calling it "fighting terrorism with terrorism." In response, the Bush administration temporarily withdrew its ambassador and convened the meeting.

The outcome was a requirement that Venezuela "unequivocally" condemn terrorism, including repudiating anything and anyone the Bush administration defines as "terrorist." Since this includes both Cuba (with which Venezuela has extensive trade relations) and rebel groups in neighboring Colombia (to whom Chavez is sympathetic), the demand was the equivalent of throwing down the gauntlet.
The spark for the statement might have been Sept. 11, but the dark clouds gathering over Venezuela have much more to do with enduring matters -- like oil, land and power.

The Chavez government is presently trying to change the 60-year-old agreement with foreign oil companies that charges them as little as 1 percent in royalties and hands out huge tax breaks. There is a lot at stake here. Venezuela has 77 billion barrels of proven reserves and is the United States' third-biggest source of oil. It is also a major cash cow for the likes of Phillips Petroleum and ExxonMobil. If the new law goes through, U.S. and French oil companies will have to pony up a bigger slice of their take.

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