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Viewing cable 04CARACAS2611, BUSH, CIA, AND THOMAS JEFFERSON "ENEMIES OF

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
04CARACAS2611 2004-08-13 21:27 2011-08-24 01:00 UNCLASSIFIED Embassy Caracas
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
UNCLAS  CARACAS 002611 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
FOR WHA/PDA,WHA/AND,INR/R/MR,PACE/PR/FPCW/WHA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO PGOV OPRC KIRC VE
SUBJECT:    BUSH, CIA, AND THOMAS JEFFERSON "ENEMIES OF 
VENEZUELA" 
 
 
----------------------------------- 
SUMMARY 
----------------------------------- 
1.      With the referendum just a couple of days away, 
on August 12, President Chavez held a marathon (four- 
hour-long) press conference for foreign and 
international press.  Chavez took every opportunity to 
criticize the U.S., its plots against him/Venezuela, 
and, more importantly, to tell his audience that the 
true battle was between the Bush administration and the 
Venezuelan people.  The pro-Chavez printed and 
electoral media picked up the accusations on the front 
page, the latter opening with various articles, among 
them one entitled "Bush Will Be Defeated: a sovereign 
country or a colony, that is the question."  The 
opposition press also included articles on the 
accusations but several preferred to highlight Chavez' 
promise to turn over the government if the referendum 
won.  End Summary 
 
 
----------------------------------- 
CHAVEZ QUESTIONS SECRETARY POWELL'S AUTHORITY TO SET 
CONDITIONS 
----------------------------------- 
2.  The first question by Jose Carlos Villanueva, "El 
Mundo de Espaa," asked for official collaboration of 
allegations contained in an article on CIA plots 
against Chavez. 
 
3.  President Chavez' response is extremely lengthy, 
excerpts follow:  ". . . We have received some recent 
declarations from Washington with attention and 
interest; at least it looks like they are reasoning 
with a certain level of intelligence, a recognition of 
a reality, even as they continue to throw out some 
ideas of trampling the sovereignty of Venezuela; or 
they really want to trample it [referring to an alleged 
State document which alludes to softening of U.S. 
policy toward Chavez]. It's one thing to want to 
trample and another thing for a sovereign country to 
allow itself to be trampled. At this moment, so that I 
might respond to your question, it would not surprise 
me at all and we are always alert on this front, but at 
this time I have no proof, that is outstanding proof, 
to prove this, so that my government could affirm it, 
so that we and I can affirm it, that the CIA is making 
plans.  In fact you published the fact that they were 
in Chile [referring to media stories of the CIA 
director in Chile "allegedly" making plans against 
Chavez]. I read the remarks of a Chilean official 
denying everything. I believe. I am sure that the 
Government of Chile would not allow itself to be used 
as a launching pad to attack Venezuela.  I am sure." 
 
4.  "Nonetheless, it would surprise me and I repeat we 
are always on the alert to the activities of the CIA in 
Venezuela. They have many ways.  The government of the 
United States independently from the CIA as a body, as 
an interventionist and imperialist arm has been 
intervening in Venezuela and we have denounced it, each 
time we have had proof of the gross intervention of Mr. 
Bush in Venezuela. The financing, for example of coup 
groups, the financing of what they call groups that are 
working for democracy, it is not that they are working 
for democracy but they are working toward 
destabilization, they have been working toward 
disavowing our constitution." 
 
5.  "The Bush administration, and we have proof, 
documents, has been financing and spending millions of 
dollars to finance the Venezuelan opposition, in fact 
for this referendum, for the collection of signatures, 
to try to set up parallel bodies to the institutions of 
the State.  He has supported the Venezuelan opposition 
in many ways.   That is to say, the Bush administration 
will be defeat this Sunday.  I believe that they are 
trying to wash their hands so that they do not have to 
shoulder that defeat.  I have always said that the 
Venezuelan people's real confrontation in Venezuela it 
is not with the opposition.  This opposition has a 
master who is called Mister George W. Bush.  It is from 
there that the opposition is controlled.  This Sunday 
in truth [the question] is not, will Chavez go or will 
Chavez stay?  What is really being played is whether 
Venezuela will continue as a Sovereign State with a 
national plan, a plan of comprehensive development or 
will Venezuela again turn into a colony receiving 
orders from Washington. This is what is being debated 
in Venezuela.  The government of the United States, as 
they say, and their own words have confirmed it; high 
officials of the Bush administration have recently 
acknowledged, that here in Latin America, that yes they 
 
 
have been financing the opposition.  Brazenly they have 
acknowledged it, they violated our laws and the gross 
meddling is permanent." 
 
6.  "Just yesterday, Mr. Powell was saying that they 
[the U.S.] would recognize the results of the 
referendum.  Who is this Mr. Powell so that he can lay 
conditions for the recognition of the results of the 
referendum?  Venezuela has its institutions, has its 
people, we do not need any conditions and, we not only 
don't need them, we absolutely reject and categorically 
reject them.  The conditions are set by our 
Constitution, in our laws and criteria, the rules, 
which have dictated the electoral arbiter, the 
Venezuelan institutionalism, the National Electoral 
Council."  The response continued. 
 
----------------------------------- 
EXPECTATIONS OF U.S. - NONE FOR THIS NUMBER ONE ENEMY 
OF THE WORLD 
----------------------------------- 
7.  President Chavez took every opportunity to 
criticize the U.S. (Bush/CIA/military) and highlight 
the "fact" that the Bush administration "is controlling 
and bankrolling the opposition."  At one point he also 
said,  "We do not expect much from Washington, and it 
doesn't really matter just to us, but rather the whole 
world, because that government (U.S.) has become the 
number one enemy of the world, number one." 
 
----------------------------------- 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON ALSO THE "DEVIL"? 
----------------------------------- 
8.  Looking at the historical perspective, Chavez found 
roots for the Latin American/Venezuelan clash with the 
U.S. and for U.S. imperialism.  He argues that Bolivar 
did not want to invite the U.S. to the 1829 congress in 
Panama because he "prophesized that `The U.S. seems 
destined by fate to plague the Americas with misery in 
the name of liberty.'"  Chavez argued, "He was 
justified because Monroe was calling for an America for 
the Americans and Thomas Jefferson was saying that the 
U.S. should progressively absorb all the emerging 
nations, absorbing them, swallowing them. . . so this 
liberator of the U.S. began to see us as colonies . . . 
he wanted to create an alliance and when this did not 
work, they created the Monroe doctrine." 
 
----------------------------------- 
COMMENT 
----------------------------------- 
9. President Chavez' accusations are not new, nearly 
every Sunday Alo Presidente program for the last six 
months criticized the Bush administration, the CIA, and 
the U.S. ambassador to Caracas.   This was Chavez' last 
opportunity to depict the referendum as a struggle 
between the Venezuelan people and the Bush 
administration, in order to cash in on the nationalism 
of the Venezuelan audience, much more than the 134 
accredited foreign press. 
Shapiro 
 
 
NNNN 
      2004CARACA02611 - UNCLASSIFIED