Rising Latin Disaffection

More than two years ago I wrote about Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez as a rising threat to the region. That's no longer true. Chavez has arrived.

Imagine a worse case scenario: a democracy-hating, Latin American, oil-rich, communist-leaning dictator with imperial aspirations and a stone killers approach to Americas existence. You dont have to wonder what hed look like because that description precisely characterizes Chavez and his ideology.

He came to power with dreams of a Bolivarian Republic stretching from Atlantic to Pacific, an entity that would swallow democratic Colombia and some adjacent territory along the way. In order to carry out that vision, Colombia would of necessity be destabilized, permitting a Marxist takeover. Chavez supports the insurgent group FARC, virulent narco-terrorists, in that groups attempt to overthrow the elected Colombian government by assassination and intimidating the populace. He supplies FARC with weapons, attempts to give them international credibility as a viable revolutionary movement, and acts as a convenient conduit for drug trafficking.

More than 250 tons of cocaine are thought to have passed through Venezuela, reported the UK Telegraphs David Blair from Caracas. Much of which ended up in Britain. This tonnage was roughly a five-fold increase of 2004 levels [#]. With Chavez's connections into the United States there is little doubt that significant drug tonnage infiltrates America also. While Colombia has made significant inroads into eliminating FARC, including a bold hostage rescue and killing key leaders, the funding from drug money keeps it a constant threat. information obtained from laptop computers seized in Colombia's raids on FARC strongholds verified Chavezs role in supporting the movement. [#]

Elsewhere in the region, Chavez has successfully restored the Sandinista party to power in Nicaragua. Daniel Ortega is a fan and supporter [#]. Chavez offered essentially to subsidize Nicaraguas future oil needs if Ortega were elected, thereby helping to boost the former revolutionary to new power [#]. Ortega wasted no time in rebuilding old ties, being one of the few countries to recognize Russian control, after its invasion of Georgia, of South Ossetia and Abkhazian provinces[#].

Chavez has actively promoted leftist governments in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and elsewhere, expanded ties with Cuba before and after Fidel Castros death, and all but declared war on the United States. For the first time since the Cold War Russian Navy warships were invited to exercise in the Caribbean and Russian and Chinese fighter aircraft are on order, the latter part of an oil for warplanes deal that Chavez crafted with China [#].

Consider Hugo Chavez a buffoon at your peril. He is a committed revolutionary a great admirer of Mao Zedong who adroitly uses Venezuela's oil resources to cement diplomatic initiatives [#]. While his internal economic policies are as big a failure as those of other socialist-communist states, he has been able to wield the oil card with great international success. The deals with Nicaragua and China are cases in point, and Chavez has manipulated culpable American Congressmen by offering fuel oil to their districts as gifts to the poor [#].

Venezuela since 2005 has expanded relationships with communist countries, including North Korea [#]. As Chavezs Foreign Minister Al Rodriguez Araque noted, when asked about possible benefits from a relationship with Kim Jong Il, we can get the same benefit we can get from Vietnam, a country that waged a long war with the United States and others; the same benefit we have with North Korea, which was also at war; and the same benefit we get from India, China, Russia and the United States. He declined to answer questions about acquiring weaponry or nuclear technology, and in the same interview discounted Irans intention of manufacturing a nuclear weapon [#]. Those who try to prevent third countries from making nuclear research should begin by destroying their nuclear weapons.

According to sources Venezuela and North Korea are planning an alliance based on common anti-American interests.[#] The North Koreans run a trade mission just blocks away from the presidential palace. Given their track record of exporting missiles and nuclear technology [see related Sorting Out the Chaos point entitled "North Korea – With or without Kim Jong Il") ] it is unlikely that the Korean delegation is peddling kim chee and dried squid. With Chavez building military stockpiles across the board his eye must be set on acquiring Nodong and Taepodong class missiles similar to those previously sold to Syria and Iran, and offered to Saddam in his last months in power [#].

In meetings with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Chavez has called for an end to the American empire. He actively supports Iranian-sponsored HezbAllah operative training in security on Margarita Island off Venezuelas coast. There can be little doubt that the target for these terrorists will be the United States.

Russia has offered, as part of its expanding presence into the Western Hemisphere, to give peaceful nuclear technology to Venezuela. This is the same kind of assistance Russia offers Iran in its quest for a nuclear weapon. Considering that North Korean scientists have been working with Iranian counterparts for years on the project it is hardly a stretch to expect that a similar project is envisioned for Venezuela.

With rocket systems capable of hitting targets into the southern United States and a nuclear program Chavez will be in a position of brokering power regionally that is unprecedented. Even the Cuban Missile Crisis was not as threatening. Those weapons were Soviet and could be removed; these will be indigenous.

American foreign policy leaders must be able to connect dots and preempt if necessary crises that are building rather than watch passively. The rising disaffection in Latin America has more potential for ill than even terrorist movements and rogue states in the Middle East.

— Gordon Cucullu
October 12, 2008