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<h1><font size=4><b>Chávez Cancelled Trip to El Salvador Due to
Assassination
Threat</b></font></h1><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4493" eudora="autourl">
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4493<br><br>
</a>June 3rd 2009, by Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com <br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.”<br><br>
“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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
“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.<br><br>
“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.”<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
“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.”<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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