May 2008

El Nuevo Herald reports Colombia’s communist guerrilla movement, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - FARC, and the Cuban government in coordination with Venezuela’s army have for the last three years actively participated in the formation of special forces and militia units for “the defense of the Bolivarian revolution” according to documents contained in the computer of deceased guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes.

Interpol issued this week its forensic report on the FARC computers and hardware seized by Colombia.

Accordingly, ‘Based on our careful and comprehensive forensic examination of each of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits and on consideration of all the evidence reviewed by our experts, INTERPOL concludes that there was no tampering with any data on the computer exhibits following their seizure on 1 March 2008 by Colombian authorities,’ said Interpol’s Secretary General Noble.

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Venezuela, Cuba’s patron, is supplying its armed forces with new weaponry. Will this be the advent of a modernization of Cuba’s own armed forces with the financial support and direct supply from Venezuela?

Via Bloomberg:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will order $2 billion of Russian weapons, including submarines, during a visit to Moscow this month, Kommersant reported, without saying where it got the information. Venezuela, which has bought $4 billion of Russian arms in the last three years, will order four Project 636 diesel subs, Mi-28 combat helicopters and airplanes made by Ilyushin Co., Kommersant said.

Chavez is also purchasing arms from China.

Via Malaysia Sun:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has contracted to buy Chinese military training planes, expanding recent arms purchases and cementing ties. Chavez has detailed the order for Chinese K-8 planes, calling them ‘excellent planes for the boys.’ Chavez has said he will continue working on the issue of military equipment through Chinese sources, even though the US has accused him of launching an arms race. Washington has accused Chavez of carrying out an arms spending spree that could destabilize the region.

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Via Bloomberg:

Venezuela supports the entry of Brazil and Cuba into the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries as their exploration programs are likely to make them exporters, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula said he wanted Brazil to join the group, less than a year after Chavez first joked about the possibility in the wake of an oil find that may be the biggest in the Americas since 1976. State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA agreed a year ago to explore blocks off Cuba.

Chavez, a long-time advocate of higher oil prices, said Venezuela shouldn’t produce too much oil now as it must safeguard resources for the future. He doesn’t plan to reduce oil sales to the U.S., he said. Venezuela sold the least oil in five years to the world’s largest consumer in March.

Abdalla El-Badri, OPEC’s secretary general, will visit Venezuela to discuss “a variety of topics,” Chavez said, without elaborating further.

El Badri will discuss Venezuela’s oil output in a visit to the country, Dow Jones Newswires reported April 21, citing Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez. The topic is a source of contention, as OPEC uses estimates from outside consultants to gauge its members’ production, while Venezuela wants to report its own number.

OPEC published its individual members’ output targets on the Internet in September and then removed them. Venezuela says it produces 3.3 million barrels a day of oil and condensate. Bloomberg estimates crude output at 2.34 million.

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Brazilian political scientist and diplomat Antonio Rangel Bandeira, a leftist and admirer of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, believes the “reforms” initiated by Cuban leader Raúl Castro is an attempt to establish in Cuba a Chinese model with the support of the military, and considers the regime dependent on the support of Venezuela to sustain itself.

He was interviewed by Argentina’s Diario de Mendoza, click here to read the rest of his comments in Spanish.

[H/T: El Nuevo Herald]

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Fidel Castro in his May 4 op-ed voiced concern on the reassembly of the US 4th Fleet, which was announced in early April.   Today, the head of USSOUTHCOMM assured that the fleet did not pose a regional threat.

Via AFP:

The commander of US Southern Command, Admiral James Stavridis, sought Thursday to reassure Latin American military chiefs that reinstating the US Fourth Fleet in the region posed them no threat.

“It is not an offensive force in any way,” he told reporters after a meeting of military chiefs from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in Brasilia.

“The IV Fleet’s entire purpose is cooperation, friendship, response to natural disaster, missions of peace and, yes, there will be counter narcotics work, as is traditional.”

The Navy’s announcement last month that it was reviving the fleet after a nearly 60-year slumber, to direct increasing American naval presence in the Caribbean and Latin America, has provoked concern among leaders in the region.

Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro said it signaled a return to gunboat diplomacy, while Bolivian President Evo Morales called it “the Fourth Fleet of intervention.”

The Fourth Fleet was a major US navy command during World War II when it was used to enforce blockades and protect against enemy submarines and raiders, but was eliminated in the 1950s.

From July 1 it will take operational responsibility over navy ships assigned to the region from the US Atlantic and Pacific Fleets, based out of Florida.

Stavridis said the fleet’s objectives included training exercises and humanitarian relief, adding: “It is strictly for planning and training.

“When the IV Fleet executes one of the missions that I mention, it will do so with ships that are given to it by the US Navy, for that mission. There is no aircraft carrier in the IV Fleet.”

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Via The Miami Herald:

The top U.S. diplomat in Cuba, Michael Parmly, will be leaving his post and will be replaced by a top official at the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, the Department confirmed Thursday.

Jonathan D. Farrar, now acting assistant secretary at the bureau, has broad experience in Latin America, with previous postings at the U.S. embassies in Mexico, Belize, Paraguay and Uruguay.

State Department spokeswoman Heidi Bronke confirmed Farrar will succeed Parmly this summer. There was no immediate word on Parmly’s next assignment after completing a normal three-year posting in Havana.

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Via ACN:
Cuban Foreign Investment and Economic Collaboration Minister Marta Lomas and Honduran Technical Cooperation Secretariat representative Karen Zelaya lead the meeting of the First Bi-national Joint Commission being held in Havana today and tomorrow.  The aim of the meeting is to coordinate bilateral relations between nations and fulfillment of the work program agreed between Havana and Tegucigalpa in 2007.

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Via Reuters:

Iran is making allies in Latin America to counter Washington’s traditional influence in the region and could use them to threaten U.S. security, a top U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday.

“We are worried that in the event of a conflict with Iran, that it would attempt to use its presence in the region to conduct such activities against us,” Thomas Shannon, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told Reuters.

Left-wing governments in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia have all become allies of Iran in recent years, and other countries in Latin America have diplomatic ties with the Islamic republic.

Shannon said Iran wants to ease its international isolation by showing it is able to win friends in Latin America, which has been historically in the United States’ “sphere of influence.”

Washington accuses Iran of supporting terrorist groups and secretly trying to produce nuclear bombs, and is concerned by its courting of allies in Latin America.

Shannon urged the region’s governments to respect U.N.-backed sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program and recalled accusations that Iran was involved in attacks on the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires during the 1990s.

“We urge our friends and partners in the region to be vigilant,” he said, adding that those attacks show Iran is able “to conduct terrorist operations within the Americas.”

Iran has denied any involvement in the Buenos Aires attacks, which killed well over 100 people.

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