U.S. Calls Venezuelan Officials Rebel Supporters

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/world/americas/13venez.html?ref=americas

U.S. Calls Venezuelan Officials Rebel Supporters

By SIMON ROMERO

Published: September 12, 2008

CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States stepped up the diplomatic skirmish with its left-wing adversaries in Latin America on Friday, saying it would expel the Venezuelan ambassador and declaring that Venezuela's top two intelligence officials had supported the "narco-terrorist activities" of rebels in the region.

The moves heightened the political tensions that have been building between the United States, Venezuela and Bolivia in recent days. On Wednesday, Bolivia's embattled president, Evo Morales, expelled the American ambassador there, Philip S. Goldberg, accusing him of supporting rebellious groups in eastern Bolivia.

Then on Thursday, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said he was expelling the American ambassador to his country, Patrick Duddy, contending that an American-supported coup plot had been discovered.

The State Department responded by declaring Bolivia's ambassador to Washington persona non grata. Then on Friday morning, it said it would expel Venezuela's ambassador, while the Treasury Department accused the Venezuelan intelligence officials of aiding Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, "even as it terrorized and kidnapped innocents."

The department said that the head of Venezuela's military intelligence agency, Hugo Carvajal Barrios, protected drug shipments from seizure by Venezuelan anti-drug authorities and helped provide weapons to the FARC, which the United States considers a terrorist organization. The department also said that Henry Rangel Silva, the director of the DISIP intelligence agency, "materially assisted" the FARC's drug trafficking activities and pushed for greater cooperation between the Venezuelan government and the rebels.

In addition, the Treasury Department said a third official, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, who resigned as interior minister this week, was the Venezuelan government's main weapons contact for the FARC. It said the rebel group uses proceeds from narcotics sales to buy weapons from the Venezuelan government.

The United States and Venezuela have been sparring over a variety of issues, including claims that Venezuela is growing as a transshipment point for cocaine, Mr. Chávez's plans for military exercises with Russia's Navy in the Caribbean and the safety of Venezuela's airports for American airlines.

But there are significant internal issues that could be playing into these disputes as well. Bolivia is grappling with violent, spreading protests in its increasingly ungovernable east. Venezuela, and particularly the Chavez government, is facing uncomfortable revelations about a spy scandal unfolding in a Miami courtroom, as well as rising inflation and potential losses in regional elections later this year.

As for the Bush administration, it has been unable to effectively engage either of those governments, and anti-American sentiment has been mounting in the countries for years, a phenomenon aptly stoked by both Mr. Morales and Mr. Chavez. In Venezuela, that sentiment was fueled in 2002, when the Bush administration tacitly approved of a coup that briefly toppled Mr. Chavez.

On Thursday, Mr. Chávez gave Ambassador Duddy 72 hours to leave the country, asserting a new plot, and recalled his ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Álvarez.

"When there is a new government in the United States, we'll send an ambassador," Mr. Chávez said, using an expletive to refer to Americans.

The latest moves represent a low point in Venezuela's political relations with the United States, which imported more than $40 billion in oil from Venezuela last year. Trade between the countries has remained resilient, topping $50 billion in 2007, despite repeated threats by Mr. Chávez to halt oil exports to the United States, a warning he reiterated on Thursday.

For all the warnings, refusing to sell oil would probably hurt Venezuela more than the United States. America is the country's main customer for oil, and therefore a significant part of its revenues. By contrast, American refiners could buy oil elsewhere.

The Chávez government also said Thursday that it would reduce the number of flights by airlines from the United States to Venezuela, which now number about 70 a week, after the Bush administration complained that American inspectors were not allowed to review the security of Venezuelan airports.

The airline issue offers a window into tension over claims of drug trafficking, with news reports here saying that government officials are hesitant to allow inspectors into facilities thought to be used to smuggle cocaine to the United States and Europe.

Mr. Chávez said that a plot to overthrow and assassinate him had been uncovered and that the Bush administration was behind it. State television here played what it described as intercepts of phone discussions between active-duty and retired military officers that referred to a plot to take Miraflores, the presidential palace.

The State Department responded Friday that the "charges leveled against our fine ambassadors by the leaders of Bolivia and Venezuela are false — and the leaders of those countries know it."

Mr. Chávez has claimed at least 26 times in the last six years that there were plots to kill him, according to counts in the local media.

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Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.

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