Otto Reich, a political thug eternally implicated in secret CIA networks to
overthrow President Hugo Chavez, and outgoing Special Envoy to Latin America
for the Bush administration, recently told the BBC that the White House
would like to see the Venezuelan President out of power. As the man who was
responsible for State Department Latin American policy, Otto Reich was the
lead proponent of the April 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chavez. Reich
collaborated with the Miami Cuban-American mafia and the coup-leading media
magnate Gustavo Cisneros. Now, they wish history to repeat itself.
When the dictator Pedro Carmona announced his "resignation" after the failed
coup, he said that he would assume "full responsibility," assuring that he
had acted "without premeditation or conspiracy." However, when the Vice
President at that time, Diosdado Cabello, showed the press the ceremonial
presidential sash abandoned by the dictator with the stamp of a Madrid
factory, this was but one indication that the coup wasn't in response to the
April 11 demonstrations, but rather that it had been premeditated and
calculated.
But, the operation that put the puppet Pedro Carmona in Miraflores Palace as
"President" wasn't planned in Madrid, but in Washington. According to a
report published by the Voltaire Network in October 2002 ("Stay-behind:
Failure of the Operation in Venezuela"), the decision to overthrow Hugo
Chavez formed part of the "World Attack Matrix" doctrine proposed by former
CIA director George Tenet on September 15, 2001 and supported by President
George W. Bush.
The CIA was thinking of overthrowing or assassinating President Chavez. The
operation was rushed because of a call by Iran and Iraq to impose an oil
embargo on all of the nations that supported the actions of Ariel Sharon in
his occupation of Palestinian territories. Thus, the CIA planned the coup
death to kill two birds with one stone: It would liquidate Chavez and
paralyze OPEC, which was led by Venezuela at that time.
The planning of these operations was supervised in the White House National
Security Council by Elliot Abrams, distinguished member of the pro-Israeli
lobby (whose most visible members are the Pentagon hawks Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, and Feith) and former Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon
and Reagan.
At Abrams' side in planning the coup was Otto Reich, Sub secretary of State
for Latin American Affairs, who was US ambassador to Venezuela from 1986 to
1989, and therefore "knew the territory."
Otto Reich and Elliot Abrams were also implicated in drug trafficking
organized by the US State Department and the CIA to finance the Nicaragua
contras, whose operative head was Colonel Oliver North. When the
Congressional investigations into the Iran-Contra affair made it
inconvenient for Otto Reich to remain in Washington, the Reagan
administration named him ambassador to Venezuela.
In Caracas, Reich contacted the Cisneros clan, a powerful Venezuelan family
of Cuban origin, whose patriarch, Gustavo Cisneros, through the private TV
channel Venevision, led the media coup against Hugo Chavez in April 2002.
As reported in IBLNEWS, an article in the April 29, 2002 issue of Newsweek
("Hugo's Close Call") points out that Otto Reich, who then had chief
responsibility for Latin America in the State Department, admitted that he
had spoken with Cisneros "two or three times" during the April 11 coup, but
only to ask for information about what was happening.
According to Newsweek, Cisneros warned Reich in an April 13 phone call that
a group of enraged Chavez partisans had surrounded the Venevision building.
Newsweek affirmed that Gustavo Cisneros was at the "apex" of the plot, and
that Venezuelan businessman Pedro Carmona "was seen leaving Cisneros'
office" on April 12, before swearing in as provisional president at
Miraflores Palace after the coup against the constitutional government of
Hugo Chavez.
Uniting Cisneros and Reich were their ties to the Cuban-American mafia
operating in South Miami, their close relationship with Florida governor Jeb
Bush, and their privileged relationship with the brains behind the
Iran-Contra plan, former US president George Bush (father of W, the current
US president), whom many consider to be the true "shadow president" of the
United States.
Pedro Carmona's selection as puppet president of the brief dictatorial
regime was made in consultation with the family of Venezuelan ex-president
Rafael Caldera and Gustavo Cisneros. Pedro Carmona, a man of malleable
profile and little character, would have permitted Cisneros to govern
Venezuela from the shadows. According to a report written by Omar Fazio and
published in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada ("Otto Reich, expert in
undercover operations, according to the US Congress", April 30, 2003), when
he was US ambassador in Caracas, Reich used to organize meetings with Hubert
Matos and Carlos Alberto Montaner when both were seeking to establish a
counterrevolutionary alternative to Jorge Mas Canosa's National Cuban
American Foundation (FNCA) in Miami.
At one of those private meetings, Reich assured that Washington "would
contribute to the cause through increased financial aid to anti-Castro
organizations based in Venezuela."
According to Cuban investigator Reinaldo Taladrid, the same conspirators
financed by Reich at the end of the 1980's in Venezuela participated in the
2002 coup death against President Hugo Chavez. The connection between the
FNCA and the April 11 coup leaders in Caracas was pointed out by notes and
testimonies appearing in the US press. In Washington, Abrams and Reich
received many Venezuelan leaders in the weeks preceding the coup, among them
Elias Santana (of Queremos Elegir) and CTV union boss Carlos Ortega, both
involved with the FNCA. In an article appearing in Miami's El Nuevo Herald
newspaper, FNCA executive director Joe Garcia was quoted as recognizing that
he had met with and "aided" leaders opposed to Chavez. The newspaper also
published the testimony of Cuban-Venezuelan ex-banker Orlando Castro: "The
hands of the FNCA were all over the scheme to remove Chavez from power, as
they were in the Florida elections leading to the (George W.) Bush triumph."
According to the Herald, Cuban exile activists "from the Junta Patriotica
Cubana to the Unidad Cubana, the Vigilia Mambisa, the F-4 Commandos, and the
most important TV and radio broadcasters in the city" gave to the
anti-Chavez leaders "resources, experience, strategies, logistical support,
lobbying, and contacts throughout the United States," to promote opposition
maneuvers aimed at destabilizing the President of Venezuela.
During the petroleum strike of December 2002 to January 2003 aimed at
toppling Chavez, some of the "resources" provided by radical Cuban exile
groups were channeled through bank accounts at the Transatlantic Bank and
Ocean Bank in Miami.
Ocean Bank is known for its connections to the April 2002 coup. According to
journalist Lilliam Oviedo, "the Venezuelan conspirators... received
resources through Ocean Bank. One of its principal shareholders is Mario del
Valle, husband of Clara del Valle, vice president of the FNCA" ("The far
right's tricks," El Nacional, May 5, 2002).
The operation to manipulate the mass media was designed by Abrams and Reich,
and the structure was provided by Cisneros, who has majority ownership of
AOL Latin America, DirecTV Latin America (300 channels of radio and
television in 28 countries), and Univision (US Hispanic TV chain). During
the coup d'etat, these stations broadcasted false information saying that
Hugo Chavez had ordered police to fire on opposition demonstrators. In
reality, the victims were assassinated by the Caracas city police, trained
in the US by an FBI unit. From the State Department, Reich gave his
immediate support to Carmona and the military coup leaders.
To prepare the ground and public opinion, and at the same time open the
possibility of direct US military intervention, $200,000 were deposited in
Miami bank accounts in the names of Admiral Carlos Molina and Colonel Pedro
Soto. These were the two men who demanded the resignation of Hugo Chavez,
accusing him of aiding the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC)
guerrillas, a defamatory accusation that allowed the US to support the coup
operations under the guise of the "War against Terrorism."
But, Otto Reich committed an error that he later had to retract. The US
government, through a disinformation campaign, spread the false rumor that
four Cuban airplanes were stationed in Caracas during the April coup.
Reich was also behind the media campaign financed by the FNCA against the
energy pact between Venezuela and Cuba. High leaders in the Venezuelan state
petroleum company PDVSA were invited to Miami by the FNCA, and were
transported in a Folem airplane owned by Mas Santos. To finance opposition
protests against Chavez, Elliot Abrams and Otto Reich resorted to black CIA
accounts, principally the National Endowment for Democracy.
Created in 1983 by Ronald Reagan, the NED was administered by Henry
Kissinger and AFL-CIO union president Lane Kirkland. Now presided by Carl
Gersham and administered by General Wesley Clark (former NATO supreme
commander during the Kosovo War) and Frank Carlucci (former adjunct director
of the CIA and now president of the Carlyle Group). The "selection" of
Venezuelan military leaders to participate in the coup was done by Otto
Reich, who administered the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation in Fort Benning, Georgia, known in the past as the School of the
Americas. This school offers professional training for Latin American
military leaders, and during the 1970's, it taught Latin American dictators
and officials who, under the façade of "counterinsurgent warfare," received
training in terror tactics and torture techniques.
Latin American News from Radio Havana Cuba
June 25, 2004