Word: venezuela
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Laptop computers packed with evidence allegedly tying Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez to Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels pose a dilemma for the Bush Administration: The fact that the FARC is listed by Washington as a terrorist organization means the laptop data provide cause for the U.S. to add Chavez's government to its list of international sponsors of terrorism, as many conservatives on Capitol Hill are now demanding. But there are also numerous reasons the Administration could resist the temptation to turn up the heat on its most vocal challenger in Latin America...
...These are serious allegations about Venezuela supplying arms and support to a terrorist organization," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. Chavez, an unabashed FARC sympathizer, has dismissed the information from "the supposed computers of Raul Reyes" as fake. "This shameful show today," he said Thursday of the Interpol report, "is a new act of aggression...
...Interpol report vindicates the Bush Administration's claims about Chavez, it also raises the tricky question of how to respond. After all, Venezuela supplies almost 15% of U.S. crude oil imports, and it controls the hemisphere's largest reserves. Although such a move would probably be disastrous for his own economy, Chavez has long threatened to suspend oil exports to the U.S. if it took steps he considers aggression against Venezuela - which could include any terrorism-sponsor designation. Chavez may not follow through, but in light of the current energy crunch, few in Washington would be willing to call...
...branded a violation of international law by the Organization of American States, and prompted a regional diplomatic crisis that left Colombia and the U.S. isolated. As a result, much of the region feels the U.S. lacks the moral authority in this case to label Venezuela a terrorism sponsor. Even the Republican staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a report issued last month headed up by the office of Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, advised the Bush Administration not to give Chavez the kind of anti-U.S. tool he uses so well to his favor. "If Venezuela is found...
Correa, an ally of Venezuela's left-wing, anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez, has made no secret of wanting to give the Manta base the boot since he became President last year. He views the facility - which the U.S. Air Force calls a Forward Operating Location (FOL) and not a full-fledged military base - as an affront to Ecuadorian sovereignty. Many if not most Ecuadorians agree, if only because of what they consider the questionable circumstances under which it was established in 1999. That year the U.S. failed to reach a deal with Panama on continued...