Venezuela Plot

From 9/11 Encyclopedia:

Falsely described as a homegrown "coup" on April 13th 2002, many different european papers, indepedent media sources on the internet and some investigative members of democraticunderground.com had been able to give the correct background details of this plot, which had been planned by military elements within the US Government. On this weekend in April 2002, The honor guard of suddenly ousted Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, some 1,000 soldiers strong, had taken control of Miraflores, the presidential palace and Chavez was flown to the venezuelan island La Orchil, where he was imprisoned. But Venezuelan residents protested in 10000s, so interim President Pedro Carmona's Cabinet inauguration was postponed. 

Outside the presidential palace, police used tear gas to push back hundreds of Chavez supporters rallying outside the palace, chanting, "Chavez will be back!" and "Democracy, not dictatorship." Only one day later on April 14th, Venezuela's interim president, Carmona, resigned again, and the former deputy Diosdado Cabello of ousted President Hugo Chavez took over his place until he returned later that day. Already at that time, stories circulated on the internet about the deep connections between Unocal and Venezuela, No. 3 oil supplier to the United States. UNOCAL work with CITGO, a refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals, refined waxes, asphalt and other industrial products. It is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Republic of Venezuela. Source: http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/2001news/050101.htm

In March 1997, UNOCAL and PDV America, Inc., a unit of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) started their negotiations relating to the restructuring of The UNO-VEN Company. Source: http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/97news/031097.htm

As intelbriefing.com revealed, on April 5th PDV shut down the 135,000 barrel-per-day El Palito refinery and was severely disrupting both oil and gas production, refining and export operations in Venezuela. Source: http://www.intelbriefing.com/afi/afi020412.htm

Barry Crimmins (->), NarcoNews (->) and investigative journalist Greg Palast (->) already predicted the plot some weeks earlier in February 2002. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,685907,00.html 

In one article, Professor James Petras of the State University of New York, correspondent for the Spanish magazine, Rebelión, believed that the United States has been leading a campaign to destabilize Venezuela. Chavez's government had angered U.S. officials by building close ties with Cuban President Fidel Castro and criticizing the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan. The latest in a series of anti-Chavez actions before April 2002, was lead by two men, Air Force Col. Pedro Soto and National Guard Capt. Pedro Flores Rivero, who held a small rally to accuse the government of being 'non-democratic' and asked that Chavez resign. Source: http://www.narconews.com/alphandary2.html

Independent Paper Dawn reported already on April 13th on accusations by Cuba, that the so called Coup was in reality a staged plot by the United States. http://www.dawn.com/2002/04/14/int5.htm On the same weekend, first speculations on an involvement of the CIA circulated by voxfux (->) and intelbriefing.com (->), who analysed the deployment of US Special Forces and the CIA, which have long been involved in Venezualan internal affairs. 

The Venezuelan Plot followed in almost the same week of Iraq's decision to suspend oil exports for a month. It looks, like NSA's Spanish-language linguists and signals interception operators in Key West; Sabana Seca on Puerto Rico and the Regional Security Operating Centre (RSOC) in Medina, Texas assisted in providing communications intelligence to US military and national command authorities on the progress of the coup d'etat. 

As Wayne Madsen(->) reported for Intelbriefing , for its part, the CIA provided Special Operations Group personnel, headed by a lieutenant colonel on loan from the US Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg (->), North Carolina, to help organize the coup against Chavez. They had been in the country since the summer of 2001 and consisting of US Special Operations Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) personnel. The group made contact with senior, pro-US military officers, including armed forces chief Gen. Lucas Rincon, Deputy Security minister Gen. Luis Camacho Kairuz, and business and union leaders, especially those with the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and the Venezuelan Workers' Confederation (CTV). Source: http://www.intelbriefing.com/afi/afi020413a.htm

Independent Investigators continued to ignore the mainstream press final reports. Soaw.org reported, that Army Commander in Chief Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda, two of the major military backers of the transitional government, received training at the notorious US Army School of the Americas (SOA). (-> Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, WHISC) Vasquez attended the school from January 23rd to December 2nd, 1988, taking a course called "Command and General Staff Officer Training". 

General Ramirez took a course called "Auto Maintenance Officer Training" from May 8th to August 11th, 1972..." Soaw.org got support of democraticunderground.com, who mirrored their story, and got in touch with a live witness and member from Venezuela, Pescao, who continued to reporting live from Venezuela, exlusive for democraticunderground.com. Zmag reported on an eye-witness report, that some snipers during the plot, were members of an extreme opposition party, known as Bandera Roja. Once again, the mysterious plane was part of the independent investigation. Ireland.com reported on April 18th, that an unknown US military attache was with the planners of last week's aborted coup. On the same day, theage.com found out, that this US military attache was at the armed forces inspector general's office at Fort Tiuna," Caracas's military base, "during the preparation for and up until the coup" overnight April 11 to 12, their source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. http://www.theage.com.au/breaking/2002/04/19/FFXI5U3340D.html

The US Embassy responded within hours on the Fort Tiuna accusation and CNN released statements, 
that no US official had been involved in the "coup". 
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americas/04/18/venezuela.us/index.html 

On April 20st, 2002, theage.com from Australia, who found out the name of the US Army Lieutenant, 
who had been involved in the plot and an aide to the US military attache: Colonel James Rodgers. http://www.theage.com.au/breaking/2002/04/21/FFXI5U3340D.html 

On the same day, Venezuela's air force chief General Luis Acevedo, died in an uninvestigated helicopter crash. On April 21st, 2002 the Guardian UK reported on diplomatic sources, who confirmed that John Negroponte (Ambassador to the United Nations, who was Reagan's ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985) had been 'informed that there might be some movement in Venezuela on Chavez' at the beginning of the year. Another photo in an article by venezuelan Notiexpress.com of Colonel James Rodgers was showing him with an unknown man, but reported on a meeting with the attaché of Security John Ross (CIA) http://www.notiexpress.com/notiexpress/20020305rgr.htm On french AOL websites, some news circulated, that according to the source close to the investigation, which required anonymity, James Rodgers, assistant of the military attaché of the American embassy in Venezuela for the terrorist businesses, "was with the putschists on the 5th floor of the general command of ground of local Thursday evening about midnight until Saturday towards 17h00 (21h00 GMT), and remained in permanent contact with them". Finally on April 22th, the name of the US Atache was revealed- by newage.com: A source close to the official investigation named Ronald Mac-Cammon. Suddenly a Pentagon spokesman acknowledged MacCammon, the US army attaché in Caracas, and his deputy James Rodgers, had offices at Fort Tiuna, the military headquarters, but denied they had anything to do with the failed overthrow. http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2002/0422/breaking84.htm 

Infos on MacGammon exist on http://www.dean.usma.edu/socs/Alumni/Alumni%20Roster%20M-P.htm and is listed on http://www.dean.usma.edu/socs/Alumni/Alumni%20Roster%20M-P.htm http://usembassy.state.gov/caracas/wwwh048.html 

The White House continued to ignore the background details on the Plot and sent Colin Powell to deny any involvements. Powell is an old friend of John Negroponte. He made him his deputy national security advisor in the Reagan administration after the diplomat's Honduran stint, presumably having found nothing disqualifying in his background at the time. 
Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0325-03.htm

On April 23rd, Reuters reported, that Venezuelan Legislator Rondon insisted that the U.S. was involved in the Coup. "Rondon also accused U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro of involvement in the coup, saying he had met with businessman Pedro Carmona, the interim president who briefly replaced Chavez, at the Miraflores presidential palace April 12." "We saw him leaving Miraflores Palace, all smiles and embraces, with the dictator Pedro Carmona Estanga," Rondon told reporters. On April 24th, 2002 the Times UK reported, that Isaac Pérez Recao, a reputed arms-dealer and heir to a Venezuelan oil fortune played a highly visible role in the April 12-13 coup, armed with some bodyguards. As the coup unraveled, Recao is said to have jumped into a private helicopter and escaped to the Caribbean island of Aruba. He and his brother and business partner, Vicente Pérez Recao, were seen later in Miami, where they own properties. They did not return telephone calls to their $500,000 beachfront flat in Key Biscayne, a wealthy island suburb of Miami. 
Source: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-277341,00.html

On April 26th, Vheadline.com reported from "a source close to Washington, that "Shapiro, already compiled, that Washington was behind the most violent aspects of the coup" On April 29th, the Guardian UK picked up the story of Wayne Madsen At the end of April 2002, Conoco, which was set to merge with Phillips Petroleum Co. (P) later this year, holds a 50 percent stake in the venezuelan Corocoro field and is the operator. AGIP, a unit of Italian oil company ENI (ENI), holds a 40 percent stake..." On May 13th, Greg Palast reported on his website, that Chavez confirmed some early 2002 warnings from the OPEC. Chavez pledged that Venezuela would never join, nor tolerate, a renewed oil embargo.

But Chavez had already incurred America's wrath by slashing Venezuelan oil output and rebuilding OPEC, causing oil prices to nearly double to over $20 a barrel. The American government's panic over the looming calls for an oil embargo, made public by Iraq and Libya on April 8 and 9, explained the US State Department's ill-concealed and clumsy support for the coup attempt. In December 2002, Venezuela signed an agreement to start developing a $2.7 billion natural gas project, which was initiated by state -run Petroleus de Venezuela, Royal Dutch/Shell and the Mithsubishi Corporation, while the US State Department urged the government and the opposition to negotiate an agreement for new elections. Venezuela, Dec. 6, 2002 -- A four-day-old general strike called to push President Hugo Chavez from office disrupted Venezuela's vital oil industry today, and the streets of Caracas filled with rival partisan crowds, leading Chavez to warn of an imminent coup attempt and urge supporters to stand by his government. The president's warning came after the captains of seven tankers that belong to the national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, dropped anchor and joined the strike -- a defiant threat to the government's main source of revenue. The tankers represent more than half of the company's fleet and about 25 percent of its total shipping capacity. NOTE: In February 2003, the strike of the oil workers still continued. Sources near to International Answer claim, that the strikes are partly orchestrated by US Military Contractor Saic.