Unreliable Reuters, 03.26.03, 3:04 PM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela, March 26 (Reuters) - Venezuela has ruled out a moratorium or a forced restructuring of its foreign debt but plans a voluntary debt swap from the second quarter, Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega told Reuters Wednesday. "We rule out completely any idea of a moratorium or a forced restructure ... these are market operations," added Nobrega, who said that the government had been working on the swap program since he announced it last year. "We will continue to comply with our obligations," he said. Nobrega said that the government was preparing to present its debt swap proposal to international markets in the second quarter of this year. Venezuela's government, facing a fiscal crunch after an two-month opposition strike disrupted its vital oil production, is scrambling to jump-start the battered economy of the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter.

Granma

A joint statement signed by the Cuban and Russian Foreign Affairs Ministers on March 24, at the end of a three-day visit to Moscow by Felipe Pérez Roque, highlights the many similarities in the foreign policy of both countries.

On signing the document, the Cuban minister and his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, reaffirmed the intention of both countries to work towards a strengthening of joint action in the international arena for a more just and democratic world order.

Likewise they stated that both sides had reviewed the political and socioeconomic processes taking place in Latin America and the Caribbean and discussed the need to support political efforts to achieve peace and national conciliation in Colombia. They also deliberated on the positive evolution of the political process in Venezuela in relation to its strict observance of the country’s constitution and their opposition to attempts to destabilize the internal situation.

Equally, they expressed concern for the increasing tendency towards unilateral actions in international affairs and stressed the central role of the United Nations in maintaining world peace and security.

With respect to the current military action against Iraq, they spoke in favor of resolving the problem through the relevant Security Council resolutions – including Resolution 1441 – and emphasized the serious consequences of the war, both for the majority of nation states and Iraq.

They also reaffirmed the decision of both governments to combat international terrorism in all its various guises, drug trafficking and transnational organized crime, and expressed their support for the formation of a broad international anti-terrorist coalition under the aegis of the UN.

Likewise, they stressed the importance of general and total disarmament under strict and efficient international controls.

The two ministers also expressed support for a political-diplomatic solution to the so-called nuclear crisis in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, on the basis of guaranteeing the safety of states in the region and maintaining the nuclear-free status of the Korean peninsula.

In the ministers’ opinion, the conflict in the Middle East, the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the creation of their own state with secure and stable borders, as well as the right of the state of Israel to a secure existence, are fundamental conditions for future peace in the region.

Their statement goes on to condemn the practice of applying coercive unilateral economic measures, including those of an extraterritorial nature such as the U.S. Helms-Burton Act. In this context, they reiterated their condemnation of the unjust economic, commercial and financial U.S. blockade of Cuba.

In conclusion, the Cuban and Russian foreign affairs ministers expressed their satisfaction at the level of their political dialogue and its stable, open and trustworthy nature.

They stressed the importance of revitalizing economic and trade relations, including the utilization of the Intergovernmental Commission to increase economic and technical scientific cooperation.

During his stay in Moscow, Felipe Pérez Roque also met with the vice presidents of the Federation Council (Upper House) and of the Duma (Lower House), Valerio Goregliad and Liubov Sliska.

At the end of his visit, Pérez Roque left for Armenia, from where he will go on to Ukraine and Belarus.

Special for Granma International- BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD

THE charges against a number of Chilean henchmen for the 1974 murder of General Carlos Prats, former chief of the Armed Forces, and his wife Sofía Cuthbert in Buenos Aires have another Cuban connection in Panama, where the government has the "privilege" of holding four terrorists in custody; the same individuals who were amongst the most active collaborators of the criminal secret service during the fascist dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

As well as being the authors of a sinister conspiracy to assassinate the Cuban president - by planting explosives in the middle of a packed meeting, knowing this would provoke a massacre of huge proportions - Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Pedro Remón carried out various operations during the 1970s as accomplices of the Chilean dictatorship’s political police.

The recent ruling by Chilean judge Alejandro Solís indicts retired former generals Manuel Contreras and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, former brigadier generals Pedro Espinoza and José Zara, who will be tried as co-authors of the double crime in Buenos Aires.

Several of these selfsame individuals collaborated and engaged in criminal activities with the professional terrorists who are currently imprisoned by the Panamanian authorities.

DINA COLLABORATES WITH CORU

Following the coup d’état against constitutionally-elected President Salvador Allende Goznes, the fascist Chilean junta ordered the National Intelligence Office (DINA) to support the criminal projects of Cuban-American terrorists, who were proposing to exchange their respective services in order to liquidate opponents of the dictatorship based abroad.

DINA’s objective was to physically eliminate opposition both inside and outside the country. This was how Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo – all of them founders of the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), along with pediatrician and killer Orlando Bosch – actively participated in a significant number of support tasks for Pinochet’s junta, as advisors or providers of mercenaries, explosive materials and logistical support.

A declassified FBI report, dated April 29 1986, confirms a meeting between exiled Cubans and Pinochet on March 17, 1975. Pinochet offered them financial assistance on the condition that they unified the various counterrevolutionary groups. He also promised to mediate in their favor before heads of state in Paraguay and Uruguay, both countries living under cruel dictatorships.

Another FBI document, dated December 17, 1974, specifies that Chile offered paramilitary training to the Cubans, to the extent that the Chilean government provided terrorist Orlando Bosch with passports to enable him to undertake operations.

Likewise, another declassified report shows that the future founder of the Cuban-American National Foundation, Jorge Mas Canosa, personally took part in negotiations with fascist Chilean military personnel on December 12, 1974.

The plot formed a part of Plan Condor, an initiative conceived to eliminate adversaries of the fascist regimes in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia.

LETELIER’S ASSASSINATION

The most notorious example of the sinister collaboration between DINA and CORU is, without doubt, the assassination of former Chilean minister Orlando Letelier and his colleague Ronnie Moffit on September 21, 1976 in Washington. A car bomb was placed inside the vehicle in which they were traveling.

Letelier was living in exile in the United States and being pursued by agents of the dictatorship. After consultations with the CORU leadership, including Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, those elected to carry out the act were Cuban-Americans José Dionisio "Bloodbath" Suárez, Virgilio Paz Romero, Alvin Ross Díaz and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll. (Following Posada’s arrest in Venezuela, DISIP investigators found a map of Washington showing Letelier’s daily itinerary and detailing the route from his workplace to his home, in the office of his detective agency).

Another FBI report, dated September 23, 1976 states word for word DINA’s support for the Novo brothers; confirmation for the U.S. agency that Letelier’s assassination was a joint operation between them and Pinochet’s secret police.

In Chile, former head of DINA’s foreign department, General Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, is now blaming former agent Michael Townley for the murder of the former Chief Commander of the Armed Forces, Carlos Prats, and his wife.

Juan Carlos Manns (Contreras’ lawyer) explained that they wanted the extradition of Michael Townley (now resident in the United States) in order to "clarify his statements" on the crime. In 1999, Townley announced before Argentine judge María Servini de Cubría in Washington, that he had carried out the attack in Buenos Aires on the orders of Contreras.

On the other hand, an investigation ordered by Servini is still underway against Michael Townley, who is charged with having personally placed an explosive device beneath General Prats’ car.

However, a 21-page CIA report directed to Congress and published on September 18, 2000 confirmed that Contreras and brigadier general Espinoza were those who directly ordered the attack and that Michael Townley, his "chief terrorist" was responsible for contracting the Cuban-Americans. Townley, a U.S. citizen based in Chile, arrived in the United States illegally with a Paraguayan passport and contacted Captain Fernández Larios in order to meet with Guillermo Novo Sampoll and his brother, who according to what was agreed, lent Townley their henchmen to carry out the attack on Letelier.

U.S. investigators even discovered that Townley and Novo Sampoll had met with Senator James Buckley in New York on September 14, 1976, a week before the murder of Letelier and Moffit. The politician had personally financed several of Novo Sampoll’s trips to Chile. Once the sinister "mission" had been completed, Townley personally contacted Guillermo Novo to confirm that the crime had been carried out.

FROM BARBADOS TO ITALY

Throughout this period, CORU carried out 53 known actions: assassinations, disappearances, kidnappings, etc.

In that fateful year of 1976, Posada Carriles was identified as the principal author of the Cubana Aviation airliner explosion that left 73 people dead. On October 6, a bomb destroyed the plane in mid-flight off the coast of Barbados, on its flight from Caracas to Trinidad. Orlando Bosch, who was at the time interviewed by DINA director Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, is once again the accused today, this time under the orders of Chilean judge Alejandro Solís.

Prior to this, on October 16, 1975, a mercenary from the CORU-linked Cuban Nationalist Movement shot Chilean Christian Democrat leader Bernardo Leighton and his wife – both exiled in Italy – at point blank range.

Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, for his part, was linked to other DINA and Plan Cóndor-related crimes that were executed in Argentina. Head of a CORU commando group since June 1976, he conspired in the attack on Cuban ambassador to Argentina, Emilio Aragonés; and along with Luis Posada Carriles planned the disappearance, torture and execution of two officials from the same diplomatic headquarters: Crescencio Galañena Hernández and Jesús Cejas Arias, whose bodies were found thrown into the foundations of a building under construction.

During this very same period, Pedro Remón, the fourth detainee in Panama, acted as hired assassin for Omega-7 in a long string of acts of terrorism. The FBI itself attributes the murders of Eulalio José Negrin and diplomat Félix García Rodríguez to Remón.

Omega-7 operated out of Union City, New Jersey; a city dominated by the Novo Sampoll brothers’ Cuban Nationalist Movement (MNC).

The extensive criminal careers of Posada, Novo Sampoll, Jiménez and Remón clearly demonstrate that the Panamanian authorities have under their control four extremely dangerous repeat offenders whose liberation could have unforeseeable consequences.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela Electronis news Posted: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venevision TV channel's  staging of the annual Miss Venezuela beauty contest has been put on hold.  The recession is partly to blame but organizers complain that the government exchange rate policy is forcing them to draw up a more austere budget. 

Contest impresario, Osmel Sousa says the company should have started on castings in the provinces to select State representatives and planning TV spots but adds that everything has been postponed.  "We won't know where we stand until we are allocated dollars." 

Sousa points out that the show cost 100 million bolivares four years ago and that a lot of resources are sunk into producing the contest.  Companies traditionally sponsoring the contest say they are also waiting in the queue for dollars.

"I am optimistic and am certain the panorama will improve ... the current political and socio-economic situation limits medium and long term planning ... the possibility that we won't have a Miss Venezuela contest this year is looming in the background ... it would be sad."

The final decision is in the hands of the Cisneros Organization that owns Venevision ... Sousa says he'll abide by any company decision.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuelan Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV) general secretary, Manuel Cova say the International Labor Organization (ILO) Administration Council  is treating the Venezuelan government's human rights, union freedom and collective bargaining violations as top priority. 

Cova has been visiting the ILO HQ in Geneva to whip up support for CTV president, Carlos Ortega, and Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) executives & managers trade union association (Unapetrol). 

• The Venezuelan government and the National Guard (GN) , Cova alleges, tortured and harassed employees and workers at the Coca Cola plant and Polar Beer Co. 

"The government of Hugo Chavez Frias has violated the Constitution and laws with legal processes against Federation of Chambers of Industry & Commerce (Fedecamaras) president, Carlos Fernandez, PDVSA executives & managers ... he wants to penalize them for the simple act of dissenting." 

The ILO has called on the government to respect Ortega's physical integrity and Cova has criticized the government delay in granting Ortega safe passage to Costa Rica. 

Cova has been receiving a helping hand from former CTV godfather and Accion Democratica (AD) colleague, Jesus Urbieta currently serving a term on the ILO Administrative Council. .