Venezuela's ex-defense minister lashes out at compañero Chávez

Wed, 03/05/2008 - 3:04pm
JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images

Hugo Chávez's former defense minister, Raúl Baduel, had harsh words this week for his old boss, who sent Venezuelan troops to the Colombian border over the weekend in response to Colombia's military incursion in Ecuador:

This is a desperate attempt by President Chávez to use the military for political and personal ends, making them participants in an action whose consequences could be disastrous."

In other words, Baduel is accusing Chávez of fomenting an international crisis in order to distract from his domestic political problems. It's a significant move, coming from someone whose personal and professional relationship with the Venezuelan president spans 35 years, culminating with Baduel's resignation from the defense ministry in 2007. Baduel is a legendary revolutionary figure in Venezuela, best known for defending Hugo Chávez during the April 2002 coup attempt, and for his fierce loyalty to the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement that Chávez founded in the 1980s. But as Chávez tried to push through constitutional reforms late last year, Baduel began distancing himself from the president, citing his moral and ethical obligation to point out the harm Chávez would do to Venezuela if he succeeded in centralizing executive power and socializing the economy.

It's good that somebody is calling Chávez to account, because most in the region seem distracted by the accusations being hurled back and forth between Colombia and Ecuador. Colombia claims to have found evidence linking Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whose leader Raul Reyes was killed in this weekend's raid. Colombian President Álvaro Uribe says that Venezuela has been funding FARC and has pledged to take Chávez to international court for funding genocide. And although Peru's president, Alan García, suggested that Chavez should butt out of the diplomatic row between Ecuador and Colombia, he is also urging Uribe to apologize and avoid setting a bad precedent for sovereignty. As Passport reader joeljournal noted on Monday, though, some would say that propping up a terrorist group in your neighbor's country isn't such a great precedent to set either.

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Some facts you neo-liberals tend to ignore...

by Paul Escobar on Wed, 03/05/2008 - 3:35pm

Sorry to interrupt yet another one of FP's Hugo-bashing orgies.

But there are some facts your readers should be made aware of...regarding Colombia.

This is not the first time Colombia has violated another nations territory:
In 2004, it violated Venezuelan territory by kidnapping Rodrigo Granda:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia-Venezuela_relations#Rodrigo_Granda

Uribe and Chavez made up, hugging and kissing each other.
Then Uribe asked Chavez to free hostages.

Yet, in the last few months, here are the many ways Colombia's Uribe attempted to sabotage the release of FARC hostages:

1) http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40191
According to the director of Colombia's Caracol Radio station, Darío Arizmendi, from the moment that Chávez reached an agreement that the FARC guerrillas would provide him with proof that the hostages are still alive, the Colombian air force began a steady bombing campaign along the entire border with Venezuela. The bombing operations reportedly made it impossible for an envoy sent by Chávez to pick up the solid "proof of life" in Colombian territory and bring it to Caracas prior to the Venezuelan leader's meeting with Sarkozy.

2) http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-97379-2008-01-12.html
Freed hostage Colombian Congresswoman Consuelo Gonzales claimed that Colombia launched another bombing campaign just as she was to be released:
"'On December 21, we began to walk toward the location where they were going to free us and we walked almost 20 days. During that time, we were forced to run several times because the soldiers were very close,' she said. Gonzalez also lamented that on the day that Alvaro Uribe set as a deadline for the release, the Colombian armed forces launched the worst attack on the zone where they were located. 'On the 31st, we realized that there was going to be a very big mobilization and, in the moment that we were ready to be released, there was a huge bombardment and we had to relocate quickly to another place.'"

3) This recent Colombian violation against Ecuador comes days after 4 more FARC hostages were released:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/584b2938-e59b-11dc-9334-0000779fd2ac.html
Colombian lawmakers Gloria Polanco, Luis Eladio Perez, Orlando Beltrán, and Jorge Eduardo Géchem.

4) The FARC memeber killed was involved in negotiations to release French hostage Ingrid Betancourt.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL03829045
A rebel commander killed by Colombian forces was France's contact in negotiations aimed at winning the release of hostage Ingrid Betancourt, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Monday. "It is bad news that the man we were talking to, with whom we had contacts, has been killed," Kouchner told France Inter radio. "Do you see how ugly the world is?"

See a pattern?
Obviously FP doesn't.
But its readers might.

On Baduel...

by Paul Escobar on Wed, 03/05/2008 - 4:20pm

Please also inform your readers why Baduel originally broke ranks with Chavez.

It was not due to any political or economic disagreement.
It was due to Chavez's possible policy of decentralizing the armed forces into local militias.

....................

One wing of military leadership proposed a de-professionalization of the Venezuelan armed forces. Precisely because the United States has an overwhelming hardware advantage. They essentially proposed arming all of Venezuela. Training entire neighbourhoods in basic sabotage and warfare, in preparation for any possible invasion.

Another wing of military leadership, led by Baduel, rejected that proposal. They believed that it would lead to the unofficial disbanding of the Venezuelan armed forces.

Chavez initially took Baduel's side.
He forced the advocate of the decentralization proposal, General Alberto Muller-Rojas, into retirement.

But what Baduel saw over the months was Muller-Rojas's policies being implemented slowly. Along with that, Muller-Rojas had taken a high-ranking position in Chavez's political party PSUV.

So Baduel essentially jumped ship and joined the political party PODEMOS, where he would have more influence than Muller-Rojas.

..........................

General Alberto Muller-Rojas predicted the falling-out between Baduel and Chavez.

Here is the prophetic interview he gave in Últimas Noticias. He outlines the two visions of the future Venezuelan armed forces. He explains Chavez's juggling of the two visions. And he explains Baduel's role.

http://venezuelareal.zoomblog.com/archivo/2007/06/30/alberto-Mller-Rojas-La-Fuerza-Armada-e.html

Q: Your position kicked off a debate which was also led by Francisco Ameliach and ex-minister Orlando Maniglia. Did you receive demonstrates of support from the military sector?

A: I did not receive any signal in any direction .... the strange thing about the attitude of Ameliach and Maniglia is that they coincide with the approach of the Institutional Military Front and the opposition. The attack that the Institutional Front made was not directed at me, but rather expressly at the president and the movement he heads.

Q: But Chavez intervened in favour of this position....

A: This is one of the contradictions that I observed in the speech that the president gave on June 24, a very profound contradiction. There, he spoke of the professionalisation of the active force, whilst simultaneously he spoke of all-peoples defence and war of resistance, and the two are absolutely incompatible concepts.

Q: Why?

A: Because all-peoples defence does not distinguish between citizen and soldier, and does not maintain a fixed, professionalised Armed Forces, all citizens have the responsibility of defending the state; there is an important group of professionally-qualified cadres from the point of view of dominating the military technical academies, who are in charge of permanent training of the society for defence. The existence of this model of a few active professionalised forces and a reserve force is the model that the United States uses... in the case of Venezuela, the adoption of the US thesis in the military sphere would be useless because we do not have the possibility of having a highly technical, dissuasive armed force which could defend against anyone, because we neither do we produce any type of bellicose energy nor do we have the industrial capacity to sustain an armed force of this type.

Q: So then, what is occurring in the quarters?

A: There is a debate that i believe should be public, a professionalised forces is extraordinarily costly.

The FAN, more than half of which is made up of conscripts, has generated labour costs in terms of payment of extremely high work benefits, which means that 75% of military costs in the country are spent on costs in human resources and only 25% for the operation of equipment and maintenance of state infrastructure, this historically has allowed our country to be in a situation of virtually not being able to defend itself in the face of threats that it has had to confront throughout the 20th century, because the structures operational abilities are very low, and in the current conditions will not improve. My personal position is one of totally opposing the professionalising the armed forces.

Q: In what direction should we go then?

A: It should go in the direction of an all-peoples defence, towards the war of resistance that the people wage in the face of an external invader.

Q: What is your opinion of the management of General Baduel?

A: The only thing I can say is that in his position of Minister of Defence, is that the previous ministers allowed the members of the General Staff, because of our experience and the confidence that the president had in us, to participate in the deliberations of the Superior Junta of the FAN, with voice and no vote, only are speakers and advisors. The first decision that Raúl Baduel took was to exclude us because the law was to be applied strictly to the letter. In my opinion this impoverished the discussions that were carried out there.

Q: Do you believe that this conservative line will be maintained in the military sector?

A: That’s how it seems, because the decision of the professionalisation of the FAN that the president took is a clear indication that, at least for the moment, he prefers the conservative line over the revolutionary one in relation to the defence of the country. He would have his reasons for this.