Did CIA back Chávez coup?

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sun, Apr. 13, 2008
Did CIA back Chávez coup?
BY GERARDO REYES
AND CASTO OCANDO

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has been the subject of all kinds of conspiracy theories. But this one was unforeseen: A retired U.S. Coast Guard officer alleges that the CIA supported Chávez's coup against President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992.

Ret. Captain Ed Geary wrote his daring version of history in a self-published book -- The Venezuelan Conspiracy: The True Story of the CIA and U.S. Coast Guard's Covert Mission to Overthrow the Government of Venezuela.

Geary, who was a goodwill advisor to the Venezuelan Coast Guard, told El Nuevo Herald that the CIA's intention was to install a puppet government in Caracas to ensure the flow of Venezuelan oil to the United States. Somehow, said Geary, the intelligence agency thought Chávez -- then an already self-avowed socialist -- would follow Washington's agenda.

In the book published late last year, Geary alleges that in November 1993 he held a meeting at Roosevelt Roads Military Base in Puerto Rico with Joseph J. Vellin, then commercial attaché with the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela.

Geary says Vellin identified himself as a CIA operative and told him the United States was backing Chávez's conspiracy to overthrow the Venezuelan government. Vellin asked Geary to provide personal information about high-ranking Venezuelan military officials, with whom Geary had developed good relationships.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/494033.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. This is really very strange. I posted a thread on it in LBN, as well.

It appears the only source for this story is the Miami Herald, which is very anti-Chavez, obviously, in a town dominated by anti-Chavez people (Cuban reactionary "exiles, of course).

[Festivito]

2. Just at the end of Bush I. Stockpiling unrest, oil or both?

Might have backfired. No wonder they are so mad at Chavez. They gave him a country, then he would not honor his partners in return.

[Judi Lynn]

3. There's more to be discovered on this story. The Miami Herald has been a right-wing-pandering

news source for years, since the days the Cuban "exile" extremist leader, Jorge Mas Canosa launched an terror campaign against the publisher, David Lawrence, agitating heavily to drive him out of town since he had dared to write articles which didn't please the right-wing extremists. It lead to a sustained drive to jam Miami Herald vending machines all over town with gum, and smear with feces, a truly ugly, and ODD thing to do, as well as a heavy attack on the staff of the Herald with tons of death threats, so many that David Lawrence and his wife both started having people check their cars for them every time before starting them, and David Lawrence finally gave up, resigned, and left town.

Nothing further has shown up on this in any other location, and you also have to consider the odd idea that the story comes out in the Herald EXACTLY 6 years after the _Bush administration is known to have been involved in the armed kidnapping of Hugo Chavez, the news blackout all over Caracas, so the people were unable to know what had happened, the disabling of the only news station which would have broadcast the fact that Chavez had NOT resigned, and the power grab, the dissolution of the Venezuelan Constitution, the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, and the police search for the Chavez cabinet officials, and party leaders for arrest and imprisonment.

It was a very heavy, ugly coup of a President who was actually serving the interests of the vast majority of Venzuelans who had been bypassed, and kicked to the curb by the oligarchy as it had controlled Venezuela's government and oil industry and ignored ALL social services like public education, medical treatment, for the multitude of extremely poor, desperate people.

I'll be putting anything I find on this in this thread. It would be very interesting getting to the bottom of this, wouldn't it?

[Festivito]

4. About as easy as getting to the bottom of the JFK assassination?

At least the Cuban/mafia sharpshooters are old men now. ...after JFK, RFK, MLK, ... are gone.

But, those once rich Cubans still want their family lands back, and will spread feces literally and figuratively to do it.

It's a class war over money all over the world. Aristocracy versus Meritocracy. Oil being as good as gold, as good as money.

Bottom line: It's the love of money. Just as the good book says.

Thanks for the interesting background on the paper down there.