I also read not too long ago Chavez was in the Market for several Hundred armored fighting vehicles.Wall Street Journal
September 24, 2004
Pg. 15
Venezuela's Oil-For-MiGs Program
By Mary Anastasia O'Grady
In the all too familiar tradition of appeasing the neighborhood bully, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has been granted "legitimacy" by the Organization of American States and Jimmy Carter. Well supported charges that the president rigged the voting to avoid a recall have not been refuted, but Venezuelans are being told to get over it.
The only question now is how long it will take before the hemisphere's democracies have reason to regret the free pass given to Mr. Chávez.
A survey of the region suggests it won't be long. Not only might a showdown be brewing at home but Mr. Chávez seems fully prepared to menace neighboring states. Some of his targets, Bolivia for example, appear to be cowed. Another, Colombia, is in his cross-hairs. A Sept. 14 United Press International story quoted a Venezuelan military intelligence officer saying that his country is "heading toward a war with Colombia."
Mr. Chávez has made no secret of his dream of spreading his Bolivarian revolution all over the South American continent. The OAS had no trouble throwing the Venezuelan population to this wolf so as to have peace in our time. But now that Mr. Chávez has tightened his grip on power, he is pursuing his bolder ambitions.
Mr. Chávez seems to be already wielding influence in Bolivia, whose President Carlos Mesa betrayed his sympathies toward the Venezuelan to Journal editors during a visit Monday. When I asked about Chávez's designs on the continent, Mr. Mesa expressed gratitude for the strongman's statement that he "dreams of swimming in a Bolivian sea." That, Mr. Mesa said, is an affirmation of Bolivia's right to a Pacific coast. He did not elaborate, however, on the fact that this would necessitate carving a path through Chile.
In surveying the altered Latin American political landscape since the 1990s, Mr. Mesa lumped Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Brazil's Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, and Argentina's Nestor Kirchner together, noting that they all share a common rejection of the "orthodoxy" of "neo-liberalism." And for good reason, he explained: free markets are not what they're cracked up to be.
Mr. Mesa intends to fix the problem in Bolivia by expanding the role of the state and by rewriting oil and gas contracts with the private sector to claw bigger royalties.
Given what we know about how economies grow, this sounds less like a well-informed development strategy and more like a political calculation, not only to satisfy the saber-rattling Chávez but also militant Chávez disciples inside Bolivia.
Mr. Mesa admits that the Venezuelan president is backing the Bolivian president's political rival, coca-strongman Evo Morales, but he says he doesn't mind.
This seems odd too. Mr. Morales, who won the Libyan peace prize from Moammar Gadhafi, was a key player in the civil unrest and bloody rioting that forced elected President Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada from office and brought former Vice President Mesa to power.
One might expect a democrat to object to the use of violence to unseat an elected president. But Mr. Mesa bows to Mr. Morales, calling him an important player in Bolivian politics. The lesson Mr. Mesa seems to have drawn is that defying Mr. Chávez and his fellow travelers is a career limiting move.
Yet not every Latin leader is running for cover. To deal with that problem Mr. Chávez is now engaged in an arms build-up and is threatening neighboring Colombia. In July 2003, this column reported that the former Colombian finance minister, Juan Manuel Santos, had said in a speech in Caracas that Venezuela was shopping for MiG fighter jets. The Chávez government vehemently denied it and called Mr. Santos a "cynical and irresponsible liar." Imagine my shock when I learned this week that it was the Chávez government doing the lying.
Russian news services are reporting that both U.S. and Colombian military sources have confirmed that Venezuela's defense ministry has purchased several advanced MiG-29 fighters and that that U.S. sources have detected them on training missions.
On Monday, the Russian Business Monitor reported that "Venezuela plans to spend approximately $5 billion on acquisition of Russian fighters including purchase of armament, airdrome and airborne equipment."
The Sept. 14 UPI story said that in "letters addressed last year to the director general of Russian Aeronautic Corp., Nicolai F. Nikitin, the Venezuelan air force requested the 'latest version' of the MiG-29 SMT equipped with high-tech weaponry, including radar-guided missiles and 2,000-pound bombs."
UPI further reported that it had a document signed by the Venezuelan air force commander, Maj. Gen. Regulo Anselini Espin, which stated, "The plane must have the capacity to carry no less than 4 tons of bombs." UPI reported that "Venezuelan generals have told European diplomatic officials that they need the MiGs to protect the Panama Canal. When asked against whom, the air chiefs wouldn't specify."
The story also claimed that U.S. intelligence reports say that "Venezuelan contracts are also being drawn up for Russian Mi-17 heavy-lift helicopters as well as radar systems from China." Separately, the Sept. 16 Jane's Intelligence Digest claimed that "negotiations are underway for Ukraine to supply more sensitive and strategically important military equipment to both Cuba and Venezuela."
The OAS may have stamped Mr. Chávez "legitimate" but a dark cloud of public doubt hangs over the Miraflores presidential palace and the Venezuelan people are clearly restive about the direction their president is heading.
This may explain why he cancelled his trip to New York for the U.N. General Assembly this week and instead visited a spot on the Colombian border where five Venezuelan soldiers had been killed by guerrillas. It's said he was poorly received by his own men. The OAS and the Carter Center may one day be sorry that they rushed to validate the results of the recall vote.
I wonder what he's up to. Didn't we sell F-16's to Venezuela in the '80s?
