Venezuela Has Become the Safe Haven of Choice for Drug Traffickers On the Run From Neighboring Colombia.

CARACAS - Venezuela is becoming a refuge for Colombian drug traffickers seeking to avoid capture in their neighboring homeland, according to several Venezuelan and foreign counter-drug officials.

The traffickers, who include at least three top leaders of Colombia's notorious North Valley Cartel, may be taking advantage of Venezuela's limited drug cooperation with Washington amid the heated political clash between President Hugo Chavez and the Bush administration, analysts say.

[continues 809 words]

Venezuela, US Talk Over Drugs Cooperation

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan and U.S. officials on Friday held talks on anti-narcotics cooperation in the first meeting since Washington classified President Hugo Chavez's government as a failure in the war on drugs.

After discussions with the U.S. ambassador, Venezuelan Interior Minister Jesse Chacon told reporters the governments had made progress toward a new anti-narcotics accord, including possible sharing of U.S. aerial surveillance data in the Caribbean.

"We are going to keep working and look at areas where we can cooperate," Chacon said. "The United States has a capacity in the Caribbean near Florida's coast, which we could use for more support there."

[continues 257 words]

URENA, Venezuela -- Colombian paramilitaries and Marxist guerrillas are running kidnapping, extortion and smuggling rackets as they infiltrate Urena and other communities near Venezuela's border, residents and officials say.

"There are more and more FARC in Apure and in Tachira [two western border states of Venezuela] present in the communities, and they are recruiting," said Virginia Trimarco, regional representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"That makes people inside the country, and the Venezuelans, worried about security and selective killings," she said, near the end of four years of working in Venezuela and more than 20 years in Latin America.

[continues 1128 words]

Venezuela has severed ties with the US counter-drugs agency after accusing it of spying, a move that the US on Monday described as the final break in weakening security co-operation between the two governments. President Hugo Chavez, who often claims Washington is conspiring to overthrow or assassinate him, said on Sunday he had suspended agreements with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The DEA operates in most countries of Latin America, except Cuba, and especially in drugs-producing countries in the Andean region and in transit countries in Central America and the Caribbean. In recent years Venezuela has become a corridor through which about a third of the cocaine from neighbouring Colombia is smuggled. DEA agents usually operate in conjunction with local authorities, and in the case of Venezuela with the National Guard, a militarised police force charged with upholding border and airport security.

[continues 191 words]

Drug Trafficking In Venezuela Has Become A Big Problem And May Be Corrupting The Highest Levels Of Its Armed Forces

BEJUMA, Venezuela - In this deceptively tranquil farming village, people still talk about the ''Bejuma massacre'' in a whisper, partly because one man who spoke out is in a grave, partly because the killers were allegedly policemen.

But the source of the fear can be summed up in a single word: drug trafficking, on the kind of massive level and involving corrupt government officials that has long been a profound problem in neighboring Colombia.

[continues 1039 words]

The embattled government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is moving to decriminalize drug possession. But contrary to some reports circulating on drug reform email lists, decriminalization in Venezuela is by no means a done deal. The opposition newspaper El Universal (Caracas) reported Tuesday that as part of its sweeping reform of the country's penal code, the Chavez government will include the decriminalization of the possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use. The proposed reform would also address penalties for drug trafficking and manufacture, creating a system of sentences based on weight rather than the current system, which subjects all trafficking and manufacturing crimes to the same harsh set of sentences.

[continues 763 words]

Among U.S. Officials, Disagreement Has Sharpened Over The Credibility Of Reports That Venezuela's Hugo Chavez Aided Colombian Rebels.

VENEZUELA - The Bush administration is growing increasingly divided over the credibility of intelligence reports on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's links to Colombian guerrillas, officials say.

"It's getting very testy, because the believers and skeptics want to quote only from the reports that agree with their own views," said a top U.S. government official involved in the dispute.

The debate has remained largely out of the public eye because skeptics and believers agree that making the allegations against Chavez public would only push him further into the anti-American left and divert attention from a drive by his domestic opponents for a recall referendum.

[continues 796 words]

CARACAS -- The U.S. should worry about its own illegal drug problem instead of criticizing that of other countries, Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said Friday.

Rangel accused the U.S. of being "the largest producer of marijuana in the world" and the largest consumer of illegal substances. He didn't back up his comments with specific figures or refer to research.

Rangel made the comments in response to recent U.S. press reports that accused the administration of President Hugo Chavez of taking part in the illegal drugs trade with Colombian guerrilla groups. Chavez flatly denied the charges.

[continues 127 words]

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan soldiers seized more than 5 tons of cocaine and 220 pounds of marijuana at two beach houses under armed guard on the Caribbean coast, El Nacional newspaper reported Sunday.

Nine people, all Venezuelans, were arrested in the coastal town of Carupano in Sucre state, 250 miles east of Caracas, state prosecutor Jose Guerrero said.

The value of the drugs was not immediately known.

The drugs were believed to have come from neighboring Colombia and were destined for the Caribbean island of Trinidad before being shipped to the United States and Europe, El Nacional reported.

[end]

CARACAS, Venezuela - Dissident military officers say the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has provided intelligence help and unhindered operations in Venezuelan territory to guerrilla groups fighting the government of neighboring Colombia.

Several of the officers, who recently declared themselves in disobedience and demanded Mr. Chavez's resignation, say the government also has opposed their efforts to combat guerrillas active on Venezuelan territory.

Also, the Colombian newsmagazine Cambio reported recently that the Venezuelan military had sold and at times even given planeloads of arms to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is classified as a terrorist group by the U.S. government.

[continues 971 words]

CARACAS, Venezuela, March 17 - The killing of Archbishop Isaias Duarte Cancino of Cali, Colombia, on Saturday night, after he officiated over a group wedding in a poor neighborhood, stunned a country already deep in conflict.

The outspoken Roman Catholic archbishop, who had often been critical of the country's leftist rebels, was shot by two men as he headed to his car outside a church in Cali.

Some Colombian law enforcement officials hinted that the rebels were most likely responsible for Archbishop Duarte's death, while church officials said narcotics traffickers might have killed him.

[continues 484 words]

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan authorities said they seized more than a tonne of marijuana at gunpoint on Friday after they intercepted a smuggler's van in the eastern state of Zulia en route from Colombia.

Gen. Miguel Ramirez, head of the National Guard's Anti-drugs unit, said the drugs were "undeniably loaded in Colombia." The vehicle was halted by a routine patrol in a rural area, and two of its three passengers escaped while the third, a Venezuelan, was arrested.

According to National Guard figures, some 14.3 tonnes of illegal drugs were captured in Venezuela last year, of which nine tonnes were cocaine and five tonnes were marijuana.

Venezuela has become one of the major drug trafficking routes between the world's No. 1 cocaine producer, Colombia, and lucrative markets in the United States and Europe.

[end]

BUENOS AIRES -- Vladimiro Montesinos, the former Peruvian spy chief and longtime C.I.A. agent wanted on charges of gun running, money laundering and collaborating with drug traffickers, was captured on Saturday night in Venezuela with crucial help from the F.B.I. after an eight-month international manhunt.

Mr. Montesinos, who was the principal aide to the ousted Peruvian president, Alberto K. Fujimori, was captured by Venezuelan military intelligence officers in a hideout in Caracas and held at a local military headquarters there.

[continues 1259 words]

After a tense stakeout, Venezuelan secret police captured South America's most wanted man, Peru's ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, accused of amassing a fortune by dealing drugs and weapons.

The capture, announced Sunday by Venezuela's president, ends an eight-month chase for the man many Peruvians say effectively ran their country for years with a network of corruption. His scandals led to the downfall in November of Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori.

Peruvian Interior Minister Antonio Ketin Vidal, speaking from Caracas' international airport, said a military plane was on its way to pick up Montesinos and take him back to Peru. The former spy chief should arrive in Lima at 7 or 8 a.m. today local time, Vidal said.

[continues 212 words]

Andean nations are seeking a common approach to free trade and illegal drugs - issues some leaders in the turbulent region complain are too often dominated by U.S. policy.

Leaders of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela will meet this weekend to discuss ways to combat narcotics trafficking in the world's largest cocaine-producing region.

One goal is to prevent eradication of drug crops in one country from driving growers into neighboring states, said Victor Rico, who heads the Community of Andean Nations, a subregional organization.

[continues 325 words]

CARACAS -- Andean nations are seeking a common approach to free trade and illegal drugs -- issues some leaders in the turbulent region complain are too often dominated by U.S. policy.

The presidents of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela will meet this weekend to discuss ways to combat narcotics trafficking in the world's largest cocaine-producing region.

One goal is to prevent eradication of drug crops in one country from driving growers into neighboring states, said Victor Rico, who heads the Community of Andean Nations, a subregional organization.

Some Andean leaders say successful coca eradication efforts in Bolivia and Peru have increased production in Colombia.

Andean unity remains an elusive goal amid economic turmoil in Bolivia and Ecuador, guerrilla warfare in Colombia and political upheaval in Peru and Venezuela.

[end]

ENCONTRADOS, Venezuela, May 7 (Reuters) - Venezuela opened a new military post near its border with Colombia today to combat a growing threat from drug traffickers and Colombian rebels.

Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel inaugurated the post at Encontrados on the Catatumbo River.

The beefed-up military presence responds to complaints by local farmers and ranchers about the spillover from Colombia of drug trafficking and infiltration by leftist guerrillas.

Military officials from both Venezuela and Colombia agreed last week to increase cooperation, but stopped short of authorizing cross-border security operations.

[end]

CARTAGENA, Colombia -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez turned from strident opponent to supporter of the U.S.-backed ''Plan Colombia'' on Wednesday, saying he had clarified his doubts on the hefty military component of Bogota's offensive on cocaine trafficking.

In a surprise about-face, the former paratrooper appeared to reject his recent claims that the more than $1 billion in mainly U.S. military aid would spark a ''medium intensity conflict'' in the region as Colombia's 37-year-old war spills into neighboring nations.

[continues 411 words]

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Colombia and six of its neighbors will hold talks with President Bush (news - web sites) Friday to discuss a counter-proposal to Bogota's U.S.- backed drug offensive, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Luis Davila said Monday.

Davila said Bush would meet the leaders of the Andean Community -- Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia -- and the presidents of Brazil and Panama to discuss the regional impact of the $7.5 billion Plan Colombia.

He said the meeting would take place in Quebec, where 34 Western Hemisphere countries are holding a Summit of the Americas at the weekend.

[continues 240 words]

CARACAS, Venezuela When Colombian rebels occupied Otto Ramirez's land, demanded protection money and killed his foreman, the Venezuelan rancher fled into hiding. Now, he's taking action.

Ramirez and dozens of his fellow ranchers have organized and armed a militia. Already, he says, the militiamen are patrolling parts of remote Tachira state, near the Colombian border.

For the ranchers, it's a matter of defending their lives and land, a role they say the state is not taking.

For the government, it raises worries that the spillover of Colombia's conflict could lead to the rise of right-wing paramilitaries--like ones in Colombia that are blamed for atrocities.

[continues 339 words]