http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=11349 World Socialist columnist Bill Vann writes that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
cancelled a planned trip last month to the United Nations General Assembly’s
opening debate, explaining that he did so because of a potential threat on his life.
His government’s intelligence agencies had reportedly warned of a plot backed by
the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to sabotage his plane in flight from
Caracas to New York City. He and others had also raised concerns about
Venezuelan anti-government terrorists conducting military training on US soil.
The US media has barely reported the Venezuelan President’s security concerns; and
when it has, it generally attempts to portray the charges as an indication that Chavez is
unstable or suffering from paranoia.
Chavez’ concerns, however, are hardly far-fetched. While he has won two
consecutive popular elections by the largest popular margins in Venezuelan
history, he remains in office today thanks only to the failure of an April 2002 coup
attempt carried out with the barely concealed backing of the Bush administration.
Those who carried out the coup were the recipients of US funding, including
government money funneled through the AFL-CIO union bureaucracy and its
international front, the American Center for International Labor Solidarity.
The military-businessmen’s regime that briefly seized power held Chavez
incommunicado on an island of the Venezuelan coast for two days while deciding
his fate. Washington welcomed the coup and then backtracked after mass
opposition in the streets of Caracas made the new ruling junta’s position
untenable.