US embassy cable - 04CARACAS1646

C O N F I D E N T I A L  CARACAS 001646 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/13/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, VE 
SUBJECT: COLOMBIAN "PARAMILITARIES" IN VENEZUELA 
 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Charles S. Shapiro for reasons 
1.4 (a) and (b). 
 
1. (C) The Chavez administration is beside itself that the 
Venezuelan public in general, the international community, 
and the media are reacting very skeptically to the 
allegations of  a Colombian "paramilitary" threat to his 
government.  On May 9, Chavez went on a national TV and radio 
hookup to reveal the alleged conspiracy against him, and on 
May 12 Chavez inaugurated the National Defense Council with 
an impassioned speech in which he charged that SouthCom Cdr 
GEN James Hill had foreknowledge of the &invasion.8 Then 
Ambassador Jorge Valero denounced the invasion at the OAS, 
and chavista politicians are screaming themselves hoarse 
demanding that the Vatican, Colombia, the OAS, the United 
States, the Carter Center and anyone else with any 
credibility denounce the conspiracy. 
 
2. (C) So far the facts are few. Over 100 men have been 
detained.  The Colombian Embassy confirms that of the first 
50  names supplied by the GOV all are Colombian citizens. 
They were recruited and moved to a farm southeast of Caracas. 
The Metropolitan Police and the El Hatillo municipal police 
say that in the early morning of May 9 they stopped two buses 
full of men in uniform and alerted the National Guard.  The 
GOV claims the men were captured by a joint National 
Guard-DISIP-CICPC-DIM taskforce on a farm belonging to 
Cuban-Venezuelan Roberto Alonso.  However detained, they were 
apparently housed on that farm. They were unarmed except for 
one individual with a pistol, and they were wearing 
Venezuelan Army camouflage uniforms. 
 
3. (C) It is not known if these men are in fact 
paramilitaries.  The Colombian Ambassador told me that none 
of the names match their database of known paramilitaries. 
The deputy director of DIM could provide emboff with no 
details beyond the fact they come from Colombia,s Norte de 
Santander Department.  Asked which paramilitary front they 
belonged to, the DIM Deputy was stumped.  Nonetheless, these 
people are not Boy Scouts on an outing.  Our working 
hypothesis is that they are Colombian campesinos (not 
paramilitaries) recruited by someone.  The question is who. 
 
4. (C) I see four possibilities: 
 
--  The chavista version is that there really is a 
well-organized USG-GOC conspiracy led by the Coordinadora 
Democratica and funded by major business and media leaders. 
VP Rangel told me on May  12 that they were planning to 
attack simultaneously the presidential  palace (during an 
official dinner the night of May 12), the presidential 
residence, and an unnamed National Guard facility in Caracas. 
 They were going to pick up their weapons on the way to the 
attack and had been training with sticks (!) at the farm 
where they were hidden.  There are 1000 more 
"paramilitaries" around Venezuela, concentrated in the 
three states coincidentally controlled by the strongest 
opposition governors.  This official version requires 
suspension of disbelief. 
 
-- A group of radicals opposed to the government (perhaps 
within an organization called the Bloque Democratico) hired 
unemployed Colombian campesinos in an extraordinarily clumsy 
attempt to create enough disorder that a general uprising 
against Chavez would ensure.  This is more plausible than the 
first scenario. 
 
-- A variation is that the GOV knew of this plot through its 
penetrations and wiretaps of the opposition and let it 
develop to see whom they could smoke out.  On two recent road 
trips, I was stopped at numerous National Guard and state 
police roadblocks.  While I was passed through, buses were 
emptied of passengers who had to show identification to the 
police.  It is hard to imagine that 100 Colombians of 
military age could pass through numerous roadblocks and 
travel hundreds of miles to a secret rendezvous, even in 
small groups. 
 
-- A more malignant possibility is that the GOV organized 
this whole enterprise, that the Colombians were hired without 
knowing who the real organizers were and at least some 
radical anti-chavistas got caught up in the charade.  Chavez 
claims that he knew about the April 2002 coup and went along 
in order to smoke out disloyal military officers and reveal 
the true nature of the opposition. 
 
Whether the GOV discovered the plot or facilitated it, there 
is also a possibility that the &invasion8 will serve as the 
pretext for declaring a state of emergency and taking actions 
agains the media. 
 
5. (C) Whatever the truth is, Chavez is upset that people are 
not buying the officialversion which they are frantically 
flogging to dscredit the opposition, overshadow the reparos, 
nd prove US and Colombian threat to Venezuelan sovreignty. 
 
6. (C) The hard-core Chavistas do not need any convincing. 
They believe whatever propagada line the GOV is selling at 
any particular tim.  They believe not because they have been 
brainashed by a totalitarian state, but because they wat 
to.  The chavistas have suspended their disbelief. 
 
7. (C) But the majority of Venezuelans and te international 
media and diplomatic community ae skeptical.  Chavez 
screamed that the Oppositio committed mega-fraud during the 
petition drive. It is not so.  Chavez claimed that the 
United States is planning to invade Venezuela.  It is not so 
 Now Chavez claims hired Colombian paramilitaris have 
invaded Venezuela and is shocked that peole don,t believe 
him. 
 
8. (C) What we need to o: 
 
-- Keep our focus on reparos.  The joint OAS/Carter Center 
statement on May 12 recaptured the eadlines in the 
Venezuelan press. 
 
-- Repeat or policy is enshrined in OAS Res. 833, while 
rejcting all extra-constitutional actions or use of frce 
for political ends. 
 
-- Reiterate our willingness, if requested, for US law 
enforcement to fllow up on any information that leads to the 
US. 
-- Reject the absurd charges of US involvement, but in a 
matter-of-fact manner that does not allow US-Venezuelan 
relations to overshadow the reparo. 
 
-- Use this incident as a way to urge Colombia and Venezuela 
to increase cooperation against international terrorism 
against both the FARC and the paramilitaries. 
 
SHAPIRO 
 
 
NNNN 
 
      2004CARACA01646 - CONFIDENTIAL