Since assuming office as President of Venezuela in December 1998, Hugo Chavez has cultivated ties to numerous regimes such as Iran that advocate terrorism as an integral part of government policy.
According to several Colombian law enforcement documents and El Tiempo, a leading Colombian newspaper, Mr. Chavez allows the use of Venezuelan territory as a staging area for terrorist organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known as the FARC) to attack Colombia's armed forces. This attack is aimed at overthrowing the democratic government of Colombia. This threatens the peace and stability of the region.
The most recent counternarcotics report from September 17, 2007 released by the White House and the U.S. Department of State states that Venezuela is now a major transshipment point for drugs not only to the United States but to Africa and Europe. This is due to rampant corruption and a weak judicial system which has enabled terrorist organizations such as the FARC to move freely in Venezuela. This access allows the organization to move large quantities of narcotics in order to fund their brutal insurgency against the government of Colombia.
The State Department believes that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC) may have established a presence in Venezuela, according to an April 2010 report on Iran by STRATFOR, a global intelligence for-profit company founded in 1996. The mission of the Quds Forces is to train FARC terrorists to attack the Armed forces of Colombia from Venezuelan soil, gather intelligence and provide other security assistance to the government of Mr. Chavez. The Quds force also has a relationship with Hezbollah terrorists that may have had a hand in the 1992 and 1994 devastating attacks on the Jewish community in Argentina These devastating attacks allowed Iran through the Quds forces to establish a strong presence in Latin America which has only been enhanced by allowing their presence on Venezuelan territory by Mr. Chavez.
Moreover, Mr. Chavez also has turned a blind eye to document forgery on Margarita island off the Venezuelan coast which has been linked to suspected terrorists by giving them freedom of movement throughout Latin America without the suspicion of law enforcement and immigration officialsaccording to an August 2008 report by the International Institute For Counter Terrorism a respected think tank.These suspected terrorists could use Margarita Island as a transient staging area to launch attacks in the Western hemisphere without true Venezuelan involvement. The Venezuelan government under the leadership of Mr. Chavez has relaxed immigration controls on specific groups of travelers that may have ties to regimes that support terrorism, such as Syria and Iran. Residents of these countries have relative freedom of movement in Venezuela which makes their accountability problematic. Venezuela, Iran and Syria now have established air links established that serve as a gateway to the Americas: Thus, those who have links to terrorists now also have a foothold in our hemisphere, with the support of the Venezuelan government.
Over the last 10 years, the government of Venezuela has procured over five billion dollars in arms brought mostly from Russia. The arms purchases are vastly in excess of rational defense needs in order to protect Venezuelan territory. A troubling aspect of these purchases is a license that Venezuela received to manufacture small arms ammunition. There is little doubt that once this arms manufacturing facility is completed, the Revolutionary Arms Forces of Colombia (FARC) will receive some of this ammunition in order to kill Colombia security personnel and innocent Colombian civilians. The rampant corruption and politicization of the Venezuelan Armed Forces allows for the transfer of arms to suspected terrorists and terrorist organizations in order to achieve the political and military goals of the Venezuelan government under the direction of Mr. Chavez.
Venezuela has also acquired huge amounts of surface to air missiles which pose a deadly threat to aircraft, especially helicopters. Terrorist organizations such as the FARC desperately desire these advanced weapons systems in order to neutralize the combat effectiveness of the Colombian air force which has inflicted devastating casualties and weakened the morale of FARC terrorist fighters in combat. Recent evidence uncovered by the government of Colombia and Sweden shows that some Swedish arms procured by Venezuela ended in the hands of Colombian terrorists, according to a July 2009 BBC news report.
The Obama administration continues its very dangerous appeasement policy with America's enemies such as Venezuela, as well as with rouge nations that use terrorism as an instrument of state policy. It is not surprising that the Obama administration has no effective plan to counter Venezuela's growing corrosive influence in Latin America. The current administration simply will not strongly stand by our closest allies in the region such as Colombia and Peru. In addition, we have allowed Iran, Cuba, China and Russia to take the lead in asserting influence in Latin America-all to the detriment of America's national security and that of our allies.
But there is a small sign that America is awaking to these dangers. In the last several days, 10 members of the United Sates Senate sent a letter to the White House demanding that the United States put Venezuela on the State Department's list of countries that support international terrorism. If the senators are successful, this will send a strong message that America is serious about stopping the spread of terrorism.
-Anthony Rainone is a retired Army intelligence officer.
