August 12, 2004

Venezuela through the looking glass?

Posted by Daniel

What the bloody hell is this all on about??? My Spanish is a bit ropey, but I have at least established to my own satisfaction that vheadline.com is correctly reporting a Venezuelan national press story, and VENPRES was reporting a story which El Mundo of Madrid did in fact carry (but isn’t available without paying). In this story, El Mundo is apparently reporting (and, btw, I’ve usually found the Spanish press pretty reliable on the few occasions I’ve had to rely on them) … the following assertions:

Update: thank heaven somebody bothered to check this one out

  • The CIA undersecretary for southern hemisphere affairs, William Spencer, has convened a conference for CIA country heads in Santiago to discuss what they are going to do about Hugo Chavez
  • The CIA apparently regards it as a foregone conclusion that Chavez will win his recall referendum on Sunday (note: I think it’s actually pretty close)
  • The CIA believe that if Chavez wins, he will overthrow the governments of Bolivia and Colombia, then use the multiple corruption scadals in Peru as an excuse to invade and remove the current government
  • The CIA believe that Chavez’ ultimate plan is to use Venezuela and Peru as twin centres of a revolution to create a Latin American socialist superstate.
  • In order to forestall this “domino effect”, the CIA is seriously thinking about using “military and financial pressure” to remove Chavez

I’d be grateful if any CT readers could confirm to me that El Mundo has the wrong end of the stick, because the alternative of believing that the intelligence service of our only superpower has a view of the world rather less realistic than that of David Icke, while not exactly without precedent, is pretty frightening when it applies to one of the world’s biggest petroleum exporters. In any case, if a plot to assassinate Chavez shows up between now and Sunday, you read it here first, unless you subscribe to El Mundo, VENPRES, vheadline.com or any one of a number of mailing lists.

Posted on August 12, 2004 01:06 AM UTC
Comments

Probably your Spanish is better than William Spencer’s.

Posted by Frank Wilhoit · August 12, 2004 01:16 AM


The CIA believe that if Chavez wins, he will overthrow the governments of Bolivia and Colombia, then use the multiple corruption scadals in Peru as an excuse to invade and remove the current government
The CIA believe that Chavez’ ultimate plan is to use Venezuela and Peru as twin centres of a revolution to create a Latin American socialist superstate.

WTF? Do they get their information from Jose Chalabi, well-known exile from Bolivia?

Posted by Maynard Handley · August 12, 2004 01:16 AM

The only explanation I can think of is that there is, after all, quite a lot of crack cocaine about in that part of the world, and that at some point in the trail of sources, somebody has been smoking rather a lot of it.

Posted by dsquared · August 12, 2004 01:22 AM

Come on. We need to overthrow more governments. It’s what we do best. And this is certainly no time to stop, now that we have Gitmo up and running.

You wouldn’t want to let that facility go to waste, would you?

Posted by Ralph · August 12, 2004 02:14 AM

There are a collection of pieces to be found using Google’s Spanish-language news search.

So anyone who speaks Spanish might be able to help here. It’s obviously all over the Latin American press.

Posted by nick · August 12, 2004 02:29 AM

What I pick up from those headlines (all right all right somebody emailed me are you satisfied now) is that the Chilean police are denying that Spencer is in the country.

Posted by dsquared · August 12, 2004 02:31 AM

On a related matter:

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=358&row=0

“Justice offered up to $67 million of our taxpayer money to ChoicePoint in a no-bid deal for computer profiles with private information on every citizen of half a dozen nations. The choice of citizens to spy on caught my eye. While the September 11 highjackers came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and the Arab Emirates, ChoicePoint’s menu offered records on Venezuelans, Brazilians, Nicaraguans, Mexicans and Argentines”

Posted by Ehrsaadts Gle'e · August 12, 2004 02:36 AM

I can’t find mention of this anywhere on El Mundo’s website, and vheadlines’ claim to be unbiased is as good as Fox’s to be “fair and balanced.”

so (for once) it doesn’t look like the CIA is about to step on the proverbial rake and get smacked in the face again in LA.

Posted by mike d · August 12, 2004 02:50 AM

They didn’t even bother to get the title right. CIA doesn’t have undersecretaries, they have division chiefs.

Posted by Mycroft · August 12, 2004 03:06 AM

Well, the Moonie Times is reporting the El Mundo story via UPI, so one presumes that either it exists somewhere, or UPI is now reporting vheadlines verbatim.

And ‘undersecretary’ is ‘deputy director’ in some other pieces I’ve dredged up (denying that the said deputy director is in Chile). So my guess is that it’s just a translation thing — in the way that the Spanish prime minister is ‘el Presidente del Gobierno’.

Posted by nick · August 12, 2004 03:26 AM

Mike: this search turns it up; El Mundo’s search facility is not to my liking ..

Posted by dsquared · August 12, 2004 03:42 AM

I’ve posted a fairly accurate, if not literal, translation of the basic article that most of the Latam press used to report this.

Daniel, you were pretty dead-on with your conclusions…

Posted by Xavier · August 12, 2004 05:48 AM

This sort of lurid paranoia about any sort of subjectively reformist tendency in Latin America was pretty standard for the CIA (and State Dept.) during the cold war, so the most parsimonious explanation is that the agency’s LA desk is still headed by some aging dinosaur whose reflexes are stuck in 1970.

Doesn’t make it any less worrying, though I’d like to know how they plan to resource any such intervention, what with all the other stuff they’re supposed to be doing.

Posted by chris · August 12, 2004 07:24 AM

I find the idea that this is really true so far-fetched that I have to wonder if the original source is Chavez himself. Being the guy that the CIA is afraid of has to be worth some votes.

Posted by Walt Pohl · August 12, 2004 08:15 AM

Sorry to be OT like most, but this got to me:

about to step on the proverbial rake and get smacked in the face

I’ve seen the cartoons too, and they’re funny, but when you actually step on the rake the tines puncture your foot, you get a tetanus shot and you limp for a couple of weeks.

Posted by bad Jim · August 12, 2004 08:41 AM

I hear Chavez is ahead by at least 8%, and that sounds like an underestimate (basically people don’t want to change horses in midstream, even discounting the claims of Chavez’ popularity).

I doubt that this would be manufactured by Chavez; his supporters more or less take the hostility of the CIA as a given and wouldn’t be much swayed by such a story — though they might be scared. And since Chavez is nervous about military coups or attacks from Colombia, spreading a story like this would be inclined to make those more likely.

Posted by MFB · August 12, 2004 10:27 AM

I don’t think the CIA does actually believe this - I think they needed a cover story to justify another coup attempt, and this is the best they could come up with.

Really, this is very sub-par. I’m disappointed! They ought to throw in a few claims about WMD and Drones Capable of Attacking the Homeland like they did last time with Iraq, to make it more “credible”.

Well, OK, something a bit different. The American public may be by and large ill-informed, but they wouldn’t fall for exactly the same story twice in a row, would they?

Posted by Robin Green · August 12, 2004 11:47 AM

In the morning, and sober (and having read Mike Derham’s excellent comments which I’ve linked in the update above), this looks very like disinformation, which I’m rather ashamed of having spread.

Posted by dsquared · August 12, 2004 12:08 PM

Yes, when I read it yesterday (it was on most newspapers here), it seemed like a wild rumor. But the probable Chavez victory must worry the Bush administration a bit. Their whole policy towards Venezuela hinges on deposing Chavez. If he wins, they have no policy (and they look like fools).

Posted by Carlos · August 12, 2004 04:25 PM

The scenario you described does look like the kind of scene cooked up to stir up anti-Chavez sentiment. There is an excellent documentary on the failed coup d’etat to overthrow Chavez in 2000; you can link to it here:
http://www.chavezthefilm.com/html/home.htm

Posted by elizabeth · August 13, 2004 02:45 PM
Followups

→ South America Watch.
Excerpt: SOUTH AMERICA WATCH....Via Crooked Timber, Spain's El Mundo is claiming that the CIA has some pretty unconventional ideas about the upcoming referendum in Venezuela, which they expect to be won by incumbent strongman Hugo Chavez:Madrid's El Mundo is re...Read more at Political Animal

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.