Monday, June 7, 2010

A Growing Subversive Paradigm in Areas of Latin America

By Jerry Brewer

The amorphous network of leftist leadership in Latin America continues to telegraph thought provoking agendas throughout the hemisphere.  Although much of the sinister movement is reminiscent of rodent-like scavengers that feed on the weak and exploit the poor, this vast nexus paradoxically sucks around US$30 billion from the U.S. in drug trade.  Massive narco-dollars that are funding revolutionary movements.

Connecting the dots has taken some painstaking analysis, although so much of the compartmented networks are exposed at the hubs.  As far back as March of 2002 the former commander of the U.S. Southern Command (General Gary Speer) told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “We are very concerned about President [Hugo] Chavez as the FARC guerrillas operate at will across the border into Venezuela.”  There were also definitive statements that arms shipments originating in Venezuela get to the FARC and ELN. 

A major confession came from Chavez’s former presidential airplane pilot, Major Juan Diaz Castillo, after he defected in December 2002 following an assassination attempt in Caracas.  He alleged that Chavez provided US$1 million to al-Qaeda soon after the September 11 attacks in New York City.  This money reportedly was funneled through the Taliban and was purported to be under the cover of “humanitarian aid via the Venezuelan ambassador to India and the U.N. High Commission for Refugees.” 

National Guard General Marcos Ferreira, who had resigned as director of Venezuela’s border-control service, accused Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin of pressuring him to cover up the identities of terrorists (many from the Middle East) passing through Venezuela, and to deceive U.S. terrorism investigators. Chacin and others have claimed that the “Chavez government has illegally given more than 270 Venezuelan passports to Arab extremists.”

The U.S. recently asked Chile to investigate terrorist activity in that country's northern desert.  Police there seized 48 fake Pakistani passports.  Last November, in Miami, 140 Bolivians were detained for having false visas and immigration stamps.  It was learned that passports and U.S. visas are being sold in Bolivian cities for “between US$7,000-$10,000. 

Under President Evo Morales, Bolivia has proposed a number of agreements with Iran, while expelling Israeli diplomats — citing Israel’s handling of the Palestinian territories.  Morales urged Latin American countries to “shake off military cooperation with the United States.”  He later announced plans for the small country to create a state intelligence directorate to centralize the control of intelligence information.

Morales, after visiting Iran in 2008, told the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, the Drug Enforcement Administration and USAID to leave his country.  Curious actions given the drug trafficking and lawlessness in the region.

Of course this was somewhat coincidental with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa’s decision not to renew the U.S. airbase lease at Manta, a major drug interdiction launching hub for the DEA and the U.S. Southern Command.

Chavez was quick to threaten Colombia when it was learned that they were planning to allow an expanded U.S. military presence.  Too, an angry Hugo Chavez stated “Colombia decided to handover its sovereignty to the United States…. Colombia no longer governs its territory,” in a televised meeting of his Council of Ministers. “Colombia today is no longer a sovereign country … it is a kind of colony.”

Although the revolutionary FARC and ELN guerrillas were almost eliminated in the 1980s, the cocaine demand and economy brought them back to life.  And it was not long before kidnappings and acts of extortion began to fill their war chests.  Recent reports link the FARC with drug trafficking organizations and gangs in Central America, plus a reported presence in Bolivia.

Furthermore, it is not surprising that violence in Mexico, especially along the U.S. border, shows links to paramilitary style combat and weapons.  In fact, compartmented revolutionary ideological solidarity may have reached the U.S. border with much more than a drug supply and demand motif.

Weak and ineffective states result with corruption, terrorism, intense crime and violence, human rights atrocities, displaced populations, gun running, and undefended borders.     

Although Cuban and Venezuelan economies and their people are suffering, Cuba is well entrenched in Venezuela’s intelligence service as advisers and trainers, as they were in Nicaragua with the Soviets in 1979.  Venezuela continues to purchase Russian weapons, as well as maintain nefarious links to Middle Eastern “countries of interest.”

Systematic revolutionary movement in Latin America is playing a pivotal role in hemispheric destabilization.  As billions of U.S. dollars continue to flow south, a revolutionary ideology is fueled and lives to fight another day.

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Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami, Florida.  His website is located at www.cjiausa.org.