[News] USA covert action ... Danilo Anderson and Condoleezza Rice

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Toni Solo: USA covert action ... Danilo Anderson and Condoleezza Rice

Central America activist Toni Solo writes: On Tuesday November 16, George 
W. Bush put forward Condoleezza Rice as his proposed Secretary of State to 
take over the diplomacy of US warmongering from the outgoing fraud, Colin 
Powell.
    * Two days later, on November 18, leading Venezuelan state prosecutor 
Danilo Anderson was killed in a car bomb attack eerily reminiscent of the 
murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit in Washington in 1976 by Cuban 
terrorists working for Augusto Pinochet and protected by the CIA.

Venezuelan authorities believe Anderson was killed by two charges of C4 
plastic explosive fixed to his car and detonated remotely, apparently by 
cell phone. The timing of Rice's nomination and Anderson's murder are 
unlikely to be fortuitous.

With Rice's appointment, George Bush sustains the incestuous link between 
his regime and earlier, still extant, plutocrat state terror Godfathers 
like George Bush Sr., James Baker and George Schultz. Rice, a protege of 
Schultz, the former Bechtel president, could hardly be a more emblematic 
representative of the nexus between state terror and big business.

Chevron may have renamed the former "Condoleezza Rice" oil tanker "Altair 
Voyager," but that all-too-recent link to an outfit boasting it "...now 
ranks among the most important international petroleum producers in 
Venezuela and Colombia, is 
<http://www.chevrontexaco.com/operations/docs/latin_america_caribbean.pdf>one 
of the largest private integrated oil companies in Brazil and is the 
third-leading producer in Argentina" bodes ill for people in Latin America.

Why was Anderson murdered?

Danilo Anderson was an investigating magistrate in charge of several 
prominent and politically sensitive cases. His work proceeded in the 
context of recent elections confirming overwhelming popular support for 
President Hugo Chavez Frias. Among the cases within Anderson's brief were 
those against the leader of a mob that attacked the Cuban Embassy in 
Caracas during the failed coup d'etat of April 12 (2002) and against 
members of the Caracas Metropolitan (PM) police accused of unlawful attacks 
under opposition ex-Metropolitan Mayor Alfredo Pena.

Anderson was also processing cases against owners of Venezuelan print & 
broadcast media implicated in the April coup of 2002 as well as the 
signatories of the coup declaration overthrowing the elected government.

Perhaps the most internationally sensitive case he was working on was that 
against the Sumate organization ... a supposedly impartial NGO funded by 
the CIA's companion organization the National Endowment for Democracy 
(NED). In fact, Sumate actively campaigned with US government money to 
defeat President Chavez throughout the long process ending in last August's 
recall referendum. Such activity contravened Sumate's neutral non-profit 
status, breaking Venezuelan law in the process.

Writer and academic Heinz Dieterich has written cogently about Anderson's 
murder: "The menace of Danilo for Washington's terrorist project was 
two-fold ... he threatened one of its main instruments of power, 
Venezuela's corrupt class justice system and too he was becoming a symbol 
of the honest patriot and servant of the majority of the new Bolivarian 
nation.
    * Danilo Anderson's murder shows that the subversion has made a 
qualitative leap to a generalized offensive.

 From now on, people emblematic of the process whose death may have a high 
propaganda value for Washington will be in danger. Likewise, the subversion 
will begin attacks against energy and transport infrastructure and carry 
out more murders and incursions along the Colombian border...

<http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=7885>Looking back in history, we 
can say that the Bolivarian revolution has entered the phase of the Cuban 
revolution of 1960 when the US-Cuban counter-revolution launched attacks, 
sabotage and murders from nuclei in the Sierra Escambrey or, too, Nicaragua 
from 1983 onwards."

The silence from international media has been eloquent ... an ever ready 
litmus test of mainstream media hypocrisy is to check out the less 
reactionary media that preen themselves on their "balance."

But, if you review the web sites of UK media like the Guardian, the 
Independent or the BBC you will look in vain for any report on the murder 
of Danilo Anderson. Why is this?

Presumably for the same reasons UN supervision of the murder and rape of 
opponents to the US puppet regime in Haiti fails to make the news -- lazy 
complacency, herd instinct, advertiser-conscious self-censorship and jobs 
worth respect for the limits of dissent.

Rice on the April 2002 coup

In effect, mainstream media serve as the echo chambers of empire, colluding 
in imperial silences as well as projecting hyperbolic PR spin. Condoleezza 
Rice's commitment to the subversion of Venezuela's elected government has 
been clear ever since the coup of April 2002. The perversity of her 
analysis of Venezuelan affairs can be seen in this quote from NBC's "Meet 
the Press" on April 14, 2002. Interviewed by Tim Russert after Chavez was 
returned to power by massive popular demonstrations against the coup 
plotters, here's what Rice had to say:

<http://embajadausa.org.ve/wwwh1789.html>"I hope that Hugo Chavez takes the 
message that his people sent him that his own policies are not working for 
the Venezuelan people, that he's dealt with them in a high-handed fashion. 
And I hope what he said in his speech this morning, that he understands 
that this is a time for national reflection, that he recognizes it's time 
for him to reflect on how Venezuela got to where it is. He needs to respect 
constitutional processes..."

Perhaps only in the United States could an analysis so totally contrary to 
the facts be taken seriously. But the profound mendacity of individuals 
like Rice is nothing new. Their conscious doublespeak -- averring concern 
for democracy while doing all in their power to destroy it -- serves as a 
cover for deniable operations by Rice's shadowy covert operations 
colleagues -- operations like the murder of Danilo Anderson.

Destabilization -- breaking out the standard tool kit

The United States terror machine has always used covert armed violence to 
complement bribery, political subversion, economic thuggery, trade and aid 
blackmail, media falsification and electoral dirty tricks.

Proof of the well-armed subversion in Venezuela ... probably abetted by 
United States covert agencies like the CIA ... came on Tuesday, November 23 
when a young lawyer wanted for questioning in relation to Anderson's murder 
died in a shootout with Venezuelan police. In his house the police found 
explosives, rocket launchers and missiles. The discovery is yet more 
evidence indicating a well-financed terrorist network organized from 
outside Venezuela, based mainly in Colombia and the United States.

Venezuelan authorities have good reason to be suspicious of US motives 
despite last week's statement by US Ambassador Brownfield condemning 
Anderson's murder. No action has been taken by US authorities against 
Venezuelan opposition terrorist training camps in Florida or against 
opposition figures like well known Venezuelan actor Orlando Urdaneta who 
recently in Miami publicly called for assassinations of leading members of 
the Venezuelan government. Former Venezuelan army officers wanted by the 
Venezuelan courts in relation to the bombing of foreign embassies in 
Caracas have found sanctuary in the US.

Similarly, earlier this year exiled and disgraced former President Carlos 
Andres Perez was widely reported calling for the violent overthrow of 
Venezuela's elected government. Colombia protects the leader of the April 
2002 coup, Pedro Carmona Estanga. Venezuela has requested his extradition, 
so far without result. It's worth remembering that Colin Powell held at 
least one meeting with the exiled Carmona in Bogota in December of 2002.

In June this year, Miami's Channel 41 TV station broadcast a program 
featuring anti-Castro and anti-Chavez terrorists in what was in effect a 
fundraiser. Counterpunch reported: "Adding weight to recent accusations of 
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, former Venezuelan army captain Eduardo 
Garcia was also present in full uniform to discuss the help Comandos F4 
were giving in his efforts to bring down Chavez by force. Chavez has 
frequently charged that Miami Cuban-American terrorist organizations are 
involved with Venezuelans seeking to assassinate him....The host of the 
Round Table program, Randy Alonso, simply asked viewers to form their own 
conclusions after seeing such an astonishing program, commenting that the 
message that Frometa gave was clear: his paramilitary organization was 
ready and trained -- it just needed the money. And, said Alonso, the money 
is there -- $36 million recently earmarked by the US government to support 
such groups."  http://www.counterpunch.org/wire06112004.html

Continent-wide offensive

The Bush regime has begun to pay more urgent attention to Latin America. 
Just this month, Donald Rumsfeld visited Nicaragua on his way to Ecuador 
for a summit meeting of Defense Ministers from the Americas.

In Quito, Rumsfeld pressed, among many other things, for the region's 
military to take on civilian policing roles.

In Chile, President Bush himself attended the Asia Pacific Economic 
Conference, making time also to visit Alvaro Uribe, propped up by 
narco-paramilitaries as President of Colombia. Uribe's dismal repressive 
army dominated security regime has led to increasing numbers of 
disappearances of members of the civil opposition and murders of trades 
unionists.
    * President Bush promised even more support from the US taxpayer for 
Colombia's state terrorist government.

As its economic position weakens in relation to Europe and Asia, the US 
plutocrat class-warrior government will increasingly need to rely on 
control of Latin America to sustain their budget and trade profligacy. 
Everything they do in Latin America is inter-related: trade and investment 
deals, military bases, ruthless pressure for more failed neo-liberal 
policies through the IMF and World Bank, corporate pillage of energy and 
mineral resources, legal or illegal introduction of genetically manipulated 
grains, insistence on multinational-friendly intellectual property rules, 
training paramilitaries in Colombia, promoting subversion in Venezuela, 
continuing economic and armed terrorism against the people of Cuba. The 
list of activity goes well beyond legitimate defense of US interests and 
reaches far into the realms of terrorism and militarist aggression.

It is reasonable to suggest that when George Bush named Condoleezza Rice as 
his next Secretary of State, he signaled the all clear for an escalation in 
covert action against opponents of US policy in Latin America.

Danilo Anderson was the first victim of that escalation in Venezuela.

Rice's appointment and Bush's personal enthusiastic endorsement of Alvaro 
Uribe sends a clear message that Venezuela in particular and Latin America 
in general can expect higher levels of US government inspired terrorism 
from now on.

Toni Solo is an activist based in Central America.
Contact: <mailto:tonisolo at nicaliving.com>tonisolo at nicaliving.com
www.tonisolo.net

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