Ay, Hugo

AMERICAS NEWS - JANUARY 9, 2010

Venezuela Says Its Jets Intercepted U.S. Plane

CARACAS -- President Hugo Chávez said he ordered two F-16 jets to intercept a U.S. military plane that twice violated Venezuelan airspace on Friday in what he called the latest provocation in the South American nation's skies. Brandishing a photo of the plane, which he described as a P-3, Mr. Chávez said the overflight was the latest incursion in Venezuelan skies by the U.S. military from its bases on the Netherlands' Caribbean islands and from neighboring Colombia.

So, his foto is good, but the Colombian photos showing FARC camps in Ecuador and Venezuela are fraudulent?

* Venezuela Devalues Its Currency

There was no immediate response from the U.S. Defense Department or the White House.

What are they gonna say?

Separately, Mr. Chávez announced a currency devaluation for the first time since 2005. The president said Venezuela's currency, the bolivar, will now have two government-set rates depending on the use, either 2.60 to the dollar for transactions deemed priorities by the government or 4.30 to the dollar for other transactions. The currency's official exchange rate has been held by the government at 2.15 bolivars to the dollar.


On the plane interception, Mr. Chávez said the F-16s escorted the U.S. plane away after two incursions lasting 15 and 19 minutes each. The perceived threat of U.S. intervention has become a central element of Mr. Chávez's political discourse and a rallying cry for his supporters.

An external threat diverts attention from internal matters.

Foes say the president is hyping the idea of a foreign threat to distract Venezuelans from domestic problems such as a recession and inadequate public services. Mr. Chávez surprised the diplomatic world in December when he accused the Netherlands of abetting potential offensive action against his government by granting U.S. troops access to its islands close to Venezuela.


The Dutch government says the U.S. presence is only for counternarcotics and surveillance operations over Caribbean smuggling routes.

Shoot them down

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, a Dutch site, has story about Colonel Hugo Chávez and his charge of the US flying spy drones over Venezuela. Picture is of Curaçao's Hato Airport.


Dutch MP: Curaçao is US spy base
Published on : 22 December 2009 - 9:34am | By RNW News Desk

Dutch Socialist MP Harry van Bommel has claimed that US spy planes are using an airbase on the Netherlands Antilles island of Curaçao.

Mr Van Bommel has asked Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen whether he is aware that a Boeing RC-135 aircraft has been making regular reconnaissance flights from the Caribbean island's Hato airport over the past few weeks.

Now, if that is indeed the case, is the government supposed to acknowledge it? If not, i sthe Foreign Minister supposed to say, no, I was not aware of what my government is doing?

War on drugs
The flights were the cause of angry reactions by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who accused the Netherlands of colluding with the United States. The Hague government is contributing to rising tensions between Venezuela and Colombia, according to the Venezuelan authorities.

Chávez's tactics are to create hornet's nests and create the illusion that Venezuela is on the verge of being invaded. There is nothing better than an external enemy.

The opposition MP said it is up to the Netherlands to help de-escalate these tensions. He is asking for a ban on American military flights over Colombia from the Antilles. Ostensibly such flights are part of the US "war on drugs" but Mr Van Bommel claims they are also used in a "war on guerrillas". The MP wants to scrap the US-Netherlands Forwards Operations Location treaty enabling the Americans to use airfields in Curaçao and the Antilles for anti-drugs flights.

If, indeed, these flights are being used fro anti-guerrilla purposes, why would either the US or the Colombian government want to stop them?

Shoot them down
Meanwhile President Chávez has ordered his airforce to shoot down any US plane entering Venezuelan airspace. He said on state television that a US drone, an unmanned plane, had attempted to enter from Colombia on Sunday. Since an agreement with the Colombian government was signed in October, the US military have access to seven military bases in Colombia.

What a coup that would be, to have a shot down drone for display. One supposes that Hugo s not going to be giving his friend Obama another copy of Eduaredo Galeano's book any time soon.

Hugo's paranoia

This item is from Pravda: Chavez Laughs in Hillary Clinton's Face and Awards War Prize to Obama

Story starts: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez harshly criticized the US-led politics at the close of ALBA – the summit of leftist Latin American nations – in Havana. Chavez stated that the USA encircled Venezuela with army bases in Puerto Rico, Aruba, Curazao and Columbia, where the US army gained access to seven army bases. The USA will never be able to defeat Venezuela even if Americans build a thousand of bases, the Venezuelan leader said, Itar-Tass reports.

Columbia?

Chavez says Obama should give the Nobel back, plotting attack
Dutch deny Chavez aggression claim

Aljazeera.net - ‎6 hours ago‎

Bart Rijs, a foreign ministry spokesman, said on Friday that none of the territories in the Kingdom of the Netherlands - including Aruba and the Netherland ...

Venezuela: Chávez Accuses Netherlands of Plotting Aggression With the US New York Times

Dutch deny Venezuela's claim of US attack plans The Associated Press

Dutch to quiz Venezuela over "aggression" comment Reuters UK

Fidel's great lesson to Hugo: always keep an external enemy. This is a good one, too: Holland is conspiring with the US to invade Venezuela, and using Aruba as a launching pad. The tourists at the resorts must be hiding surface-to-air missiles in their rooms, too.

¿POR QUÉ NO... BROMEAN?

"Se ha dejado barba, como Fidel", saludó el presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, al rey Juan Carlos, en el Palacio de la Zarzuela, en Madrid. Lejos parece haber quedado el episodio de noviembre de 2007 cuando el monarca exigió al mandatario venezolano guardar silencio | Ver nota

Chávez Loyalists Push to Close Golf Courses

In 2006, a former mayor of Caracas tried but failed to seize control of the 18-hole course at the Caracas Country Club to build thousands of homes for the poor.









President Hugo Chávez’s political movement has found a new target: golf.




President Hugo Chávez says some golf courses could be better used for the poor

You want irony?

How is this for irony?

When President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica set out to find a negotiated solution to the Honduran political crisis, he hailed it as an opportunity for Central Americans to show they could resolve their own problems, and he established some simple ground rules.

Arias won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987. He seemed a good candidate to mediate the Honduran mess.

The ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, and the man who leads the de facto government that replaced him, Roberto Micheletti, were each to show up at his house with just four of their closest Honduran advisers.

Simple enough.

On Thursday morning, Mr. Micheletti showed up with six, adding an American public relations specialist who has done work for former President Bill Clinton and the American’s interpreter, and an official close to the talks said the team rarely made a move without consulting him.

Well, now, a public relations specialist at the negotiations?

Then on Friday, with the negotiations seemingly going nowhere, Mr. Arias reached out for American support of his own, telling Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that pressure from the United States was crucial to ending the stalemate.

Por favor, Tía Hillary.

In the two weeks since the coup against Mr. Zelaya, the Obama administration has taken great pains to distance itself from the crisis as part of an effort to make the United States just one of many players in a region that it has long dominated. And Latin American leaders have publicly expressed support for what they describe as Washington’s new spirit of collaboration.

Uncle Sam is now Cousin Sam, in effect, no?

Privately, and not so privately, however, it has become clear that leaders on all sides of this crisis see the United States as the key to getting what they want.

No, still Tío Sam, but avuncular now.

In recent days, Mr. Zelaya and his allies, who include some of the most vocal critics of United States policy in the region, have repeatedly called on Washington to increase its pressure on Mr. Micheletti by recalling its ambassador — the United States is one of the few countries in the region that continues to keep its envoy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital — and by imposing tougher sanctions.

How richly ironic.

Even Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, made a rare call to Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon Jr. on Friday to directly make an appeal he had issued earlier on television.

“Do something,” Mr. Chávez had said to reporters. “Obama, do something.”

Coz I can't do nuthin' sez Hugo. Que rico.

Meanwhile, Mr. Micheletti has embarked on a public relations offensive, with his supporters hiring high-profile lawyers with strong Washington connections to lobby against such sanctions. One powerful Latin American business council hired Lanny J. Davis, who has served as President Clinton’s personal lawyer and who campaigned for Mrs. Clinton for president. And last week, Mr. Micheletti brought the adviser from another firm with Clinton ties to the talks in Costa Rica. The adviser, Bennett Ratcliff of San Diego, refused to give details about his role at the talks.

Surely Davis and the Secretary of State are not talking about details; it wouldn't be proper.

“Every proposal that Micheletti’s group presented was written or approved by the American,” said another official close to the talks, referring to Mr. Ratcliff.

Maybe Hugo should hire Ratcliff's partner. Bluster on both sides, and negotiations behind the scenes, yet little progress.

The officials said Mr. Arias told Mrs. Clinton that the United States had to make clear to Mr. Micheletti that elections held by an illegitimate government would themselves not be considered legitimate. However, one official said that the United States wanted to be careful “not to take a huge public role.” He said the United States indicated that it would quietly make clear to Mr. Micheletti that the $16.5 million it has already suspended in military aid could be expanded to include $180 million in other economic development assistance that is still under review.

Mr. Micheletti’s supporters are pushing back in part by paying hundreds of dollars an hour to well-connected Washington lawyers who have initiated a charm offensive from Washington. On Friday, Mr. Davis was testifying on Capitol Hill in support of Mr. Micheletti’s de facto government.

And on Saturday, Mr. Davis called reporters close to midnight to notify them that Mr. Micheletti had fired Enrique Ortez, whom he had appointed as his foreign minister, for having outraged American officials by referring in a television interview to President Obama as “that little black guy who doesn’t even know where Tegucigalpa is located.”

But Obama does know where power is located.

Chávez Seeks Tighter Grip on Military

Juan Barreto/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images - President Hugo Chávez, left, in 2004 with Gen. Raúl Isaías Baduel, who is now a critic of Mr. Chávez and a prisoner.










They say prison life can be lonely, but not for Raúl Isaías Baduel, Venezuela’s former army chief and once one of President Hugo Chávez’s confidants, who was detained last month.

Among his cellmates in the Ramo Verde military prison here are a former admiral, Carlos Millán, and Wilfredo Barroso, a onetime general arrested along with Mr. Millán on charges of conspiring to oust Mr. Chávez. Since February, Mr. Chávez has moved against a wide range of domestic critics, and his efforts in recent weeks to strengthen his grip on the armed forces have led to high-profile arrests and a wave of reassignments.

The New York Times - Mr. Baduel is held with other former officers in Los Teques.





In March, Mr. Chávez replaced the chiefs of the army, the air force and the Bolivarian Militia, a Cuban-inspired reserve force created to repel what Mr. Chávez repeatedly raises as the threat of an invasion by the United States.

Invasion? Unimaginable; the rancor in the world would be deafening and the act self-defeating. Still, it is possible to understand that Chavez can sell it.

"¿Por qué no te callas?"

This item goes back to 10 November 2007. King Juan Carlos of Spain tells Hugo Chávez to shut up. Chávez had been haranguing about former Spanish President José María Aznar, calling him a fascist. Having had enough, the King blurted to Chávez "why don't you shut up?" What caused an additional stir is that the King used the familiar te, rather than the more formal se.

They would make up later, in July of 2008.

No messin' around

RELACIONES DIPLOMÁTICAS La secretaria de Estado estadounidense, Hillary Clinton, y el presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, analizaron la reinstalación de sus respectivos embajadores, durante una charla informal en Trinidad y Tobago

Don't mess with me, Hugo; I'm serious. Imagined dialogue. Madame Secretary says she's serious, says the translator. I know she's serious, thinks Hugo.

Can anyone imagine Condy Rice putting a hand on Señor Chavez? Not me.

Obama: Thaw U.S.-Cuba Relations

President Obama and President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela at the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on Friday.
President Obama's International Relations and Charm offensive continues. Right-wingers surely are apoplectic, and urging their cohorts to buy guns before the Socialist bans 'em.









President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President Raúl Castro of Cuba on Thursday at a meeting of leftist governments in Venezuela on Thursday.














President Obama, seeking to thaw long-frozen relations with Cuba, told a gathering of Western Hemisphere leaders on Friday that “the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba,” and that he was willing to have his administration engage the Castro government on a wide array of issues.

Part of his 100-day offensive.

Mr. Obama’s remarks, during the opening ceremony at the Summit of the Americas, are the clearest signal in decades that the United States is willing to change direction in its dealings with Cuba. They capped a dizzying series of developments this week, including surprisingly warm words between Raúl Castro, Cuba’s leader, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Hillary is part and parcel of the international strategy.

Other leaders here said that in watching Mr. Obama extend his hand to Cuba, they felt they were witnessing a historic shift. And in another twist, Cuba’s strongest ally at the summit, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, no fan of the United States, was photographed at the meeting giving Mr. Obama a hearty handclasp and a broad smile.

It really is a historic moment. What a wonder to see.

On Cuba, the president’s words were as notable for what he said as for what he did not say. He did not scold or berate the Cuban government for holding political prisoners, as his predecessor, George W. Bush, often did.

Half a century of a failed policy is, thankfully, beginning to come to an end.

But he also did not say that he was willing to support Cuba’s membership in the Organization of American States, or lifting the 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba, as some hemisphere leaders here want him to do.

Slowly, steadily, moving ahead. As so many other matters, this can not, and should not, be rushed.

Earlier this week Brazilian officials signaled in Rio de Janeiro that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, potentially flanked by the Colombian president, Álvaro Uribe, would raise the issue of accepting Cuba into the Organization of American States at the summit meeting. Cuba’s “absence is an anomaly and he is waiting for this situation to be corrected,” Marco Aurélio Garcia, Mr. da Silva’s foreign policy adviser, told reporters.

Shewd; Uribe can not be faulted with being soft on Communism by even the right wing in the US. It is very encouraging to see how pragmatic President Uribe can be.

ElUniversal.com, a Venezuelan media outlet, has this in its website:

Chávez le dice a Obama "quiero ser tu amigo"

05:41 PM. Internacional La Quinta cumbre de las Américas comenzó esta tarde en Puerto España, capital de Trinidad y Tobago, con la presencia de 34 mandatarios del continente.

• Internacional Obama busca diálogo productivo con Cuba
• Internacional Presidenta argentina pide a Obama que levante embargo contra Cuba
• Internacional Ortega "avergonzado" por ausencias de Cuba y Puerto Rico en Cumbre

Puerto Rico's absence is a neglected topic.

Bogotá's El Tiempo shows this piture on its website.

6:30 p.m.

Histórico apretón de manos entre Chávez y Obama en instalación de Cumbre de las Américas

Historic handshake between Chávez and Obama at the beginning of the Americas Summit.


El Pais from Uruguay has only a minor article. Madrid's El Pais has more, includhing this picture:

Obama ofrece a Cuba una nueva relación

Fotogalería

• Cuba centra todas las miradas
• Chávez impulsa la reinserción política de La Habana
• Una década de desencuentros
• Cuba, dispuesta al diálogo, pero no al 'intercambio' de gestos

Le Figaro, Paris, has an article on this summit, as well as this ridiculous item:

Les deux ex-rivales pourraient se retrouver pour un meeting près de Nantes le 27 mai.

Not that it matters what it is about; notice the word meeting. So much for Frank pride, non?

It does have an interesting picture:

Raul Castro, le leader cubain, entouré de Hugo Chavez, président venezuelien, de Manuel Zelaya, président du Honduras, et de Fernando Lugo, président du Paraguay.

Fotogalería Obama en la Cumbre de las Américas

Juan Carlos and Hugo make up

Presidente Chavez visited Rey Juan Carlos in Mallorca.


"¿Por qué no vamos a la playa?"

En tono cordial, Hugo Chávez ha comparado el calor de la isla con el Caribe y le ha espetado al rey: "¿Por qué no vamos a la playa?".