January 21, 2005

Chavez: A Test Case

One of the first test cases for President's Bush's vision of his second term can be found in our own hemisphere well south of Cuba: Venezuela. The regime of Hugo Chávez, whose defeat of a ballot initiative to end his term in office involved voter intimidation and massive fraud, is attempting to bully neighboring Columbia.

As explained in today WSJ by Mary Anastasia O'Grady ($), Chávez is harboring members of the terrorist organization FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces), which has "murdered, maimed and kidnapped thousands of Columbians and terrorized society over its 40-year history," as Ms. O'Grady puts it.

Among those was Rodrigo Granda, the "foreign minister" of FARC, who was captured in Venezuela in December by bounty hunters and turned over to Columbian officials. Again, Ms. O'Grady:

It turns out that Granda had been living in Venezuela since 2002, in a comfortable mountain residence just south of Caracas, coming and going as he pleased. Just before the August recall referendum that challenged the Chávez presidency, Granda was granted Venezuelan citizenship.

Not only that, but high ranking officials in Chávez's government have close ties to FARC:

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Alí Rodríguez is on the editorial board of the hard-left Argentine-based magazine "America Libre;" so are the FARC's Comandante Manuel Marulanda, and the leader of Colombia's other main terror group known as the ELN.

Ms. O'Grady agrees with assertions by Columbia that Venezuela is a safe haven for FARC terrorists. That, in turn, should place the White House on notice that excusing Chávez's regime from the President's "with us or against us" approach to dealing with states who brook with terrorists will be seen as a green light by both Chavez and his mentor, Fidel Castro.

Here's how Ms. O'Grady sees that relationship developing:

Special attention might be profitably directed at FARC's role in South American arms smuggling and why that might tie in nicely with ambitions of Chávez and Castro to expand their influence throughout the region. Russian press reports say that Chávez has recently ordered 100,000 Kalashnikov automatic weapons from Moscow. His national guard and police are already well armed so it is reasonable to worry that these guns are meant for clandestine distribution on the continent. Former Colombian Interior and Justice Minister Fernando Londoño wrote in Bogotá's El Tiempo on Monday that, "Chávez and Castro know that there is no dictatorship without arms." That could be why the Granda seizure has caused such uproar in the Chávez government: The FARC's arms and narcotics trading network is key to spreading the Chávez revolution throughout South America.

Warnings that opponents of the administration's pro-liberty foreign policy would use the State Department's sanction of last August's vote to keep Chávez in power are coming true. (Seeing Jimmy Carter at yesterday's inauguration brought back memories of his disastrous, and successful, blessing of that same election's outcomes.) Ms. O'Grady writes:

The State Department has badly bungled its handling of Chávez. In August it endorsed his victory in a recall referendum even though voters faced government intimidation and no serious investigation was ever allowed of plausible charges that voting machines were rigged. State's ill-considered action, granting Chávez a legitimacy that he doesn't deserve, will be used in his defense for years to come. Only this week, Rhode Island Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee used it during Senate hearings on Condoleezza Rice's nomination to head up State. Complaining about Ms. Rice's criticisms of Chávez, he said "It seems disrespectful to the Venezuelan people. They have spoken." Mr. Chafee is not one of Washington's brighter bulbs, but the initial problem was State's blessing of Chávez's tainted "victory."

Important as is the establishment of more stable, liberal regimes in the Middle East, we can't afford to overlook the new tyranny that is taking hold in our hemisphere. A Chávez regime bent on expanding its influence through terrorism and military force, working in cahoots with Castro and striking arms deals with Russia -- and all the while making overtures to China -- can't be dismissed as a "democratically elected government." Chávez stole the election, murdered and harassed opponents, and is now working to destabilize the region. Let's not allow the spirit of Jimmy Carter dictate our foreign policy in this vital region.

— Winfield Myers

| Jan. 21, 2005 | 11:05 AM