US plotted to kill me - Chavez
2009-06-03 13:22
Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez charged on Tuesday that he had eluded a US intelligence plot to kill him, in a move likely to pile new pressure on already uneasy ties with the United States.
Chavez, appearing on state media for the first time since disappearing in the middle of his own television marathon almost four days earlier, claimed he ducked an assassination plot in El Salvador where he was to have attended the swearing in of its new president.
"The information was very specific. It was all ready to take place, they were going to carry out an attack against me on arrival in San Salvador," Chavez charged, insisting the alleged plan aimed to launch "one or several missiles at the Cubana jet that was readied for the trip", in Caracas.
The elected leftist Chavez, the closest regional ally of communist Cuba, said he received information on the plot from Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. He did not immediately elaborate.
But he claimed "Venezuelan coup plotters went to San Salvador two weeks ago. I know them. They are the ones who have sworn they would kill me."
And while Chavez did not accuse US President Barack Obama personally, he said US intelligence activities operate outside the president's authority.
"I am not accusing Obama. I think the American president has good intentions," Chavez said. "But over and above Obama, there is the CIA, and all of its tentacles. I have no doubt US intelligence services are behind this."
A torrent of speculationChavez claimed "Luis Posada Carriles' people" also were behind the alleged plot, and urged Obama to extradite the fugitive to Venezuela.
The enigmatic Venezuelan leader disappeared during an epic edition of his Alo Presidente television programme late on Friday, prompting a torrent of speculation about his whereabouts and health.
He made an unexpected appearance on Tuesday in the northern state of Vargas on the Caribbean coast.
There cameras filmed him talking on the telephone - apparently to foreign minister Nicolas Maduro - in Honduras for a meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS).
It was the first time he had been seen in public since his television program was suspended without warning. It was scheduled to resume on Sunday, but again cancelled "due to technical difficulties".
Compounding the rumours, Chavez on Monday scrapped a visit to El Salvador for the inauguration of President Mauricio Funes, claiming his safety would not have been guaranteed.
Food poisoning, a ministerial conclave and an unscheduled visit to Cuba to visit ailing close friend Fidel Castro, 82, were among the rumours swirling in Caracas' media, which scrambled to explain his strange disappearance.
A vigorous criticEl Nacional, a local newspaper, citing "non-official sources" said slumping audience numbers were responsible for the programme being taken off the air.
On Tuesday Chavez was overheard, by state television, complaining to his foreign minister about Washington's "outrageous" demand on Cuba.
The United States has called on the one-party communist-run island to release political prisoners and improve human rights before it will be allowed back into the OAS.
Posada Carriles, a Cuban-born Venezuelan national, is an ex-CIA operative wanted by Venezuela for the 1976 downing of a Cuban airliner.
He was arrested in the United States in 2005 on immigration charges, but released in May 2007 after a federal judge in Texas dropped the indictment, saying the government tricked the ex-CIA contractor by using a citizenship interview to obtain evidence against him.
He was jailed in Venezuela in 1976 for allegedly masterminding the downing of the Cuban jet. He escaped in 1985.
He was sentenced to eight years prison in Panama for a 2000 bomb plot to assassinate then president Fidel Castro but pardoned four years later.
Declassified US documents show that he worked for the CIA from 1965 to June 1976. He also reportedly helped the US government ferry supplies to the Contra rebels who waged a bloody campaign to oust the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s.
Chavez, at the helm of Latin America's largest energy-producing nation, has long been a vigorous critic of the United States. The two countries currently do not have ambassadors in their respective embassies.
After Obama and Chavez met in Trinidad in April they had said they would review their diplomatic relations, which were severely strained under Obama's predecessor George W Bush.
