He's not the only one, either

Hey Folks,

Do you think Chavez' charge (below) that the Bush regime is out to kill him is "over the top," unbelievable, ridiculous ? Do you think he's slandering "dedicated" diplomat John Negroponte? Well, think again.

It is historical fact that the Kennedy government tried to assasinate Fidel Castro (exploding cigars and Mafia hitmen, to name a few approaches). The Nixon government ordered a CIA-directed military coup that ended in the death of a democratically elected Chilean President, Salvador Allende. The Reagan government tried to assassinate Muammar Khadafi (missile attack on his palace). The present Bush government has already eliminated a head of state they wanted rid of, Saddam Hussein.

So, if you thought Chavez was a little nutty, think again.

As for Negroponte, here is a 2004 description of his activities reported by A World to Win news service and printed in Revolution: http://rwor.org/a/1240/awtwiraq.htm

Bremer himself will go home. Instead of an "administrator," as Bremer is called, his replacement will be called the U.S. Ambassador. What he will really be is the new boss of Iraq.

That ambassador will be John Negroponte. Negroponte is such a well-known war criminal that United Nations staff members staged a highly unusual symbolic strike when he was appointed U.S. ambassador to the UN on the eve of the Iraq invasion. Negroponte started out working for the U.S. in Vietnam. In the 1980s, when Nicaraguans got the idea they could have a government Washington didn't like, the U.S. launched a proxy war against them through the mercenary organization known as the Contras. He helped direct that war as U.S. ambassador to neighboring Honduras in 1981-85. During those years, U.S. military "aid" to Honduras went up by almost 20 times, and its army became an American army. Negroponte also oversaw Honduras's Battalion 3-16, trained and equipped by the CIA to carry out torture, murder and kidnapping. (For details, see maryknoll.org , a site by the Catholic religious order which holds this man responsible, at a minimum, for covering up the deaths of many nuns and religious women from El Salvador suspected of siding with opponents of U.S. interests.) His last job, before the UN, was on-the-scene organizer of the occupation troops in Afghanistan.

As I said in the previous posting, "the 'good guy' spin is what we always get from our government and the media regarding an overthrown oppressive minority, one that had played ball with us by abusing their own countrymen." That was the case whith the Cuban revolution, and the same dynamic is in play with Venezuela. We tried to kill Castro, suspecting a similar attempt against Chavez is rational.

And John Negroponte, by any objective standard, is not the patriotic boy scout some would have us believe.

- Uke Man



Chavez calls envoy 'professional killer'
By ELIZABETH M. NUNEZ, Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said he believes enemies including the CIA are out to kill him, and called U.S. diplomat John Negroponte a "professional killer."

Chavez said Venezuelan officials have intelligence that associates of jailed Cuban anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles also are involved in plotting to assassinate him.

He said the death plot idea has "gained weight" due to various factors, including the recent appointment of Negroponte, the former director of national intelligence, as deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"Who did they swear in ... there at the White House as deputy secretary of state? A professional killer: John Negroponte," Chavez said.

Chavez did not elaborate, but his government has previously accused Negroponte of playing a key role in the Contra war against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua when he served as ambassador to Honduras — a haven for clandestine Contra bases — from 1981 to 1985.

U.S. Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but they have denied Chavez's repeated accusations that they are plotting to oust him.

Chavez was asked about reports of assassination plots during a televised interview.

"They have assigned special units of the CIA, true assassins, who go around not only here in Venezuela, in Central America, in South America," Chavez said, without elaborating.

He added that while Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative, remains jailed in the U.S. on immigration charges, "Posada Carriles' people are very active in Central America and searching for contacts in Venezuela ... They are going around searching for explosives in large quantities, thinking about a sort of car bombing or searching for ground-to-air missiles, thinking about the presidential plane."

Chavez did not give details. His government has demanded that the U.S. extradite Posada Carriles, a naturalized Venezuelan, to stand trial for allegedly masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people.
Posada Carriles denies involvement in that incident.