[News] Chávez Cancelled Trip to El Salvador Due to Assassination Threat

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Chávez Cancelled Trip to El Salvador Due to Assassination Threat

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4493

June 3rd 2009, by Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com
Mérida, June 3rd 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com)– 
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez did not attend 
the swearing in ceremony of new left wing 
president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes on 
Monday, because of suspected assassination plans.

Chavez was to travel to the ceremony with 
Bolivian president Evo Morales, from Venezuela. 
Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega first 
announced the assassination plan during his 
speech at the ceremony when he said both 
presidents couldn’t make it for “security 
reasons”. At that stage he said it was better not to enter into details.

Later, the Venezuelan minister for foreign 
affairs, Nicolas Maduro spoke at the ceremony. He 
said that the Venezuelan government hadn’t 
provided information about their suspicions 
earlier in order to safeguard the 
investigations.  However, he said it was known 
that “ultra right wing assassination groups 
in 
Venezuela
linked to ultra conservative coup 
sectors, together with the international ultra 
right
” were involved in “the possibility of an assassination.”

Talking to press later, Maduro said that 
Alejandro Esclusa could be involved in the plans. 
Esclusa is a right wing Venezuelan who, according 
to Maduro, has worked with the CIA on numerous 
occasions, and was in El Salvador advising the 
opposition party Arena in its campaign against Funes.

Maduro said they would look at rescheduling 
Chavez’s visit to El Salvador, and that the 
Venezuelan delegation attending the ceremony 
brought its support, solidarity and commitment to the El Salvadorian people.

After being absent from the public light since 
Saturday,  Chavez spoke to the media on Tuesday 
afternoon while he was inspecting the 
construction of 1,100 government houses in Vargas 
state. He explained that he had received a 
message warning about the assignation plans from 
Ortega and “it was information with a lot of 
weight that motivated the suspension of our travels.”

“In this case the information was very precise, 
[it indicated] that they were going to launch one 
or several rockets at the Cubana airline plane 
that was already ready to leave from Maiquetia 
[airport in Venezuela],” he said, and explained 
that the Venezuelan presidential plane was being 
repaired at the time and that Cuba had lent him 
one of its planes for his travels. Chavez and 
Morales were going to travel to El Salvador together in the plane.

Chavez blamed “Luis Posada Carriles’ people” for 
the assignation plan. Carriles is an ex-CIA agent 
and Cuban-born Venezuelan who was involved in the 
1976 attack on a Cubana plane, which saw 73 
people die. He was charged with the bombing but 
escaped from prison in 1985, before he going on 
trial and Venezuela has sought his extradition from the U.S. since 2005.

“We have to remember that there, in El Salvador 
[Carriles] lived and did what ever he felt like
 
and they were preparing this attack against us
 
when we were to be arriving or leaving 
[Salvadoran capital] San Salvador,” said Chavez.

“I accuse Luis Posada Carriles and I demand that 
[US] President Barack Obama brings about justice 
and complies with the law
 send us this 
terrorist
 to put him where he should be, in prison.”

Chavez said other Venezuelan ex-military 
personnel were also involved in the assassination 
plans, “Daniel Ortega knows the details
 some 
Venezuelan coup plotters entered San Salvador two 
weeks ago. And I know them
 they have sworn to me 
that they were going to kill me, because they say 
its my fault that they lost their jobs and didn’t 
reach the highest military ranks.”

“The government of the United States is behind 
all of this. And I’m not accusing Obama. No. As 
Fidel [Castro] has said, I think Obama has good 
intentions, but beyond Obama there is a whole 
empire: The CIA and all its tentacles, is alive 
and kicking
 President Obama its time to 
dismantle all this machinery of terror.”

Regarding his three days of unaccounted absence, 
from Saturday through to Monday, and the “wave of 
rumours” in the mainstream press, as he put it, 
Chavez commented that in 10 years of governing he 
hadn’t had a single vacation, “I’m glad [the 
opposition] miss me so much!” he joked.




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