Posted on Sunday, 05.06.12
CUBA/VENEZUELA/U.S.
Castro's desperate warning
BY ROGER F.NORIEGA
rfn@visionamericas.com
When an imperious bully like Fidel Castro starts to fear, his instinct
is to try to sow fear among his enemies. Today, with his student and
benefactor, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, dying of cancer, what the
Cuban dictator fears most is that his bankrupt regime in Havana is about
to lose billions in critical aid and oil.
So, in an April 27 essay entitled, What Obama Knows, Castro conjures a
"river of blood" in Venezuela if the Chavista movement is forced from
power by the "oligarchy" or "overthrown" by the United States.
It would come as a surprise to President Obama that he is advocating the
overthrow of the Chávez government. The passive policy of the U.S.
government is to maintain commercial relations with that country and to
wish the Venezuelan people well. What has Castro so alarmed is the
intensified effort of U.S. law enforcement — primarily the Drug
Enforcement Administration and Department of the Treasury — to hold
officials of the Chávez regime accountable for their complicity with
drug trafficking and terrorism.
It is extraordinary, to say the least, that targeting drug kingpins in
Venezuela is perceived as aggression against the government in Caracas.
But that is an indictment of the senior leadership of the Chavista
regime, hardly the fault of U.S. policy.
Castro's desperate warning comes in the wake of news that a former
Chavista supreme court justice, Eladio Aponte Aponte, has sought refuge
in the United States and is cooperating with the DEA. Indeed, the
Chavista leadership is in a panic because they know that Aponte Aponte
is just the first of many defectors who will help U.S. prosecutors
expose an international criminal conspiracy implicating Chávez and his
most trusted operatives.
For example, potential U.S. indictments will likely torpedo a succession
led by military loyalists Diosdado Cabello, Gen. Henry Rangel Silva and
Gen. Cliver Alcala, whom Chávez had named to crucial posts in the
National Assembly, ruling party and military, in spite of their
notorious ties to drug trafficking.
For obvious reasons, a man as corrupt and paranoid as Fidel Castro is
something of an expert on the U.S. judicial system. So, he knows that an
indictment of Hugo Chávez is out of the question, because of his status
as a head of state. Moreover, any federal prosecutor considering the
indictment of a senior official of the Venezuelan government must obtain
the prior approval of the Justice Department in Washington, DC. Castro,
who 60 years ago was known for a wicked curveball, is throwing at
Obama's head: Call off your prosecutors, or deal with a bloody mess in
the streets of Caracas.
No doubt, the wily dictator is hoping for an abundance of caution from
President Obama in an election year. However, the idea that the White
House would ask beleaguered Attorney General Eric Holder to intervene to
save drug traffickers in Caracas is Castro-crazy.
My guess is that such U.S. indictments will come. So will the defectors.
So will the preemptive squelching of witnesses. And so will the
gangland-style assassinations, as the criminals who are running
Venezuela today try to cover their tracks and evade justice.
Castro's second warning is directed at the "oligarchs" of the opposition
who intend to challenge Chavismo at the polls in October, when Chávez's
successor is supposed to be chosen. Chávez's Cuban godfather is sending
a not-so-subtle warning that democratic opponents will be branded as
collaborators, as the U.S. justice system begins to chip away at the
corrupt foundations of the regime. If that is the case, then Chavista
civilians — like Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, Vice President Elias
Jaua, Governor Adan Chávez, former Minister of Defense José Vicente
Rangel — are similarly complicit in the crimes of the narco-generals who
finance and defend their political movement. As the crimes of the
military leadership are exposed, the civilian Chavistas will have no
more credibility than the piano player in a bordello.
Perhaps Chávez's henchmen are counting on the thousands of Cuban
triggermen and Venezuelan militia members, who are armed to the teeth
with Russian weapons. So, if there is bloodshed in Venezuela, let there
be no mistake who is doing the shooting.
However, if such wanton violence is to be contained, it will require an
unusual bit of resourcefulness by the civilian opposition and an
unprecedented measure of courage by the majority of Venezuelan soldiers
who would prefer to honor their constitution than murder innocents at
the behest of criminals.
Only someone of Fidel Castro's ilk would consider bloody repression in
the service of drug traffickers a noble undertaking. His demented hope
is that such a terrible threat will prevent Latin American leaders, whom
he knows so well, and President Obama, whom he knows so little, from
doing the right thing as a narco-state is unmasked in Caracas.
Roger F. Noriega was ambassador to the Organization of American States
from 2001-03 and assistant secretary of state from 2003-05.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/06/2783953/castros-desperate-warning.html
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