By Luis Garcia, in Miami

Whistle-blower Juan Diaz Castillo, pilot of the Venezuelan Airforce One, revealed more details of how president Hugo Chavez supported Al Qaeda in the aftermath of 9/11. In statements to the press in Miami Saturday, the defector shed new light on the terrorist support network recently uncovered in the highest level of the Venezuelan government.

Major Juan Diaz Castillo, Chavez's personal pilot, was assigned the job of planning the delivery of the $1 million collaboration to the terrorist group. Now an active member of the country's resistance movement, he is today revealing details of the transfer and of other subversive acts carried out in the name of Chavez's socalled "Bolivarian Revolution".

" - They are criminals and killers," he lambasts the inner circle of Chavez cohorts. And he is not afraid of naming names: "The job was given to me by Hugo Chavez. I coordinated with current Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, then Interior Minister Luis Alfonso Davila, and the current Vice President (then Defense Minister) Jose Vicente Rangel. When we determined the difficulty of sending three Hercules C-130 transport planes to Afghanistan, Diosdado Cabello decided to send cash instead. " - In the last week of September, 2001, one million U.S. dollars was transferred to Dr Walter Marquez, Venezuela's representative for the region. Of that amount, one hundred thousand was used for food and clothing for the Taliban government, and the remaining nine hundred thousand dollars went to the Taliban in cash, with the understanding that it was to support the Al Qaeda terrorists in their relocation efforts."

Cuban involvement: "Chavez is Castro's puppet"

Asked why Chavez would support Al Qaeda, the high-level military defector offered two explanations. " - First of all, Chavez had for a long time wanted a direct line of communication with Al Qaeda. He had asked Libya for that, but with no success. Then came 9/11 and Chavez was impressed," remembers the pilot of the presidential airplane. " - Second, Chavez looks up to Fidel Castro. The Cuban dictator has collaborated with terrorist groups for years. Chavez emulates Fidel Casto. It sounds bizarre, but Chavez is a bizarre man. He was already starting to go off the rails in 2001, and he wanted direct contacts to all the major terror groups in the world."

According to Diaz Castillo, Chavez depends on Fidel Castro's advice in governing Venezuela. The pilot revealed that during the last four years, roughly 4,000 Venezuelans have been receiving military and intelligence training in Cuba.

The Cuban communist dictator assists Venezuela's embattled crypto-communist in holding onto power, at whatever cost, because Cuba depends on Venezuela's oil billions to stay afloat. Earlier this year, Fidel Castro said that "for the Cuban revolution to survive, it is necessary for the Bolivarian revolution to survive," in reference to Chavez's Marxist experiment.

Diaz Castillo also documented illegal weapons smuggling from Cuba to Venezuela, a charge which General Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez of Venezuela's army also leveled against the Chavez administration. The weapons arrive in huge quanties ''by boat and by air'', from Cuba, even using boats from the stateowned Ferrominera del Orinoco company. Via the Orinoco river, some of these weapons are then shipped directly to the Colombian terrorist organizations, FARC and ELN.

Chavez has a direct line of communications with Castro, and every time there are serious problems in Venezuela, the two get together in secret meetings in Margarita Island or the La Orchila presidential retreat, a sinister island fortress in the Caribbean which is off-limits to the public. They also meet in Cuba. " - Chavez constantly shuttles to Havana, undercover. Usually after midnight, and returning to Caracas at noon," revealed his former personal pilot. " - Chavez is Castro's puppet."

After an attempt was made on his life December 16 by Chavez's secret service, friends in the resistance movement smuggled major Diaz Castillo out of the country in the hull of a fishing boat. Now in safety abroad, he is not afraid to reveal what really goes on in the Chavez administration and how Chavez rewarded Al Qaeda with $1M in the weeks after 9/11.

$1M to Al Qaeda: Front page news

All over Venezuela, ordinary voters are outraged by the latest proof of terrorist connections between their country's ruler Hugo Chavez and Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden's global terrorist network.

Sunday, the nation awoke to find the scandal top news in all states. "Financing of terrorists", screamed the huge headline of La Voz, from Miranda state. In Aragua state, El Siglo announced on its front page that "Chavez gave one million dollars to Al Qaeda". And in Carabobo state, Notitarde came out with an "Edicion Extraordinaria", a special edition, which was headlined: "Chavez gave 900 thousand dollars to Bin Laden's terrorist network". The paper referred to the $900,000 in cash for Al Qaeda and later mentioned the additional $100,000 in food and tents for the Taliban, for a total of one million in assistance. El Nacional, in Caracas, reported that the records of the investigation will be shared with the U.S. State Department in its fight against international terrorism and rogue states sponsoring terrorism.

Faced with the proof of his Al Qaeda financing, Hugo Chavez has so far maintained a complete silence. The "no comment" order extends to his entire inner circle: None of his other collaborators named in the Al Qaeda files have yet commented either. This curious silence follows the pattern of the 9/11 aftermath, when he vanished from sight for days and was the last Latin leader to make a statement.

But to the nation's press, the Chavez / Al Qaeda connection is front page news, and the embattled leader is drawing fire for not wanting to face his actions. " - Zany dictator Hugo Chavez has really gone off the rails this time," said Caracas street vendor Felipe Lopez, 28, while studying the documentation published by dozens of the country's newspapers. "Dictatorial thugs like Hugo Chavez are dangerous to his own people and to the rest of the world."

Desperate for change, voters have renewed their call for free and democratic elections. Hugo Chavez, showing his dictatorial streak, has publicly announced that he will not call elections anytime soon, that he will not finance such elections, and in the event that elections were to be held anyway, he will not abide by their outcome.

Soledad Bravo, a popular Venezuelan folk singer and former Chavez supporter, distanced herself from the strongman, and urged the world to act: " - Freeing ourselves from Chavez is our duty to history."

Venezuela's dictator declares in advance that he will not respect the result of a direct and democratic election.

One of the favorite phrases of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is that "I am a servant of the people, and when the people does not want me anymore, I will leave office."

So why won't Chavez agree to free and democratic elections today in Venezuela?

On November 4 2002, members of the opposition delivered boxes to the National Electorate Council containing 1.5 million signatures. The signatures all requested a referendum, just like the Constitution sets out. On their way to the Council, they were attacked by mobs of violent Chavez supporters armed with bricks, metal bars and even guns. Many ended up in hospital, but the signatures got delivered.

Cornered, Chavez then fought back in his weekly TV-show Alo Presidente ("Hello President"). Here are some of his comments:

• " - Referendum to remove Chávez? That is not possible, don't waste time. I will not go in a referendum, I say that to the country and the world. It's like this: I won't go."
• " - Referendum to remove Chávez? Look, that won't happen, forget about it. It won't happen."
• " - Ah, no, no, forget about fairytales."
• " - Not even if we suppose that they hold that referendum and get 90% of the votes, I will not leave. Forget it. I will not leave." Is this a democrat speaking? Or a de-facto dictator?

(Source: Official transcript 'Aló Presidente' N°128, Petare, 24/NOV/2002 04:59 PM)

by Martin Arostegui December 27, 2002

Terrorism-sponsor Chavez At 9:29 p.m. on March 8, 2002, Hakim Mamad Ali Diab Fattah landed at Venezuela's Simón Bolívar International Airport on board Delta Flight 397. The Venezuelan-born Arab had been the subject of international surveillance because he had taken lessons at two New Jersey flight schools attended by Hani Hanjour, who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

The FBI had arrested Fattah in the United States after discovering that he also had talked about blowing up an airliner and had used forged identity documents. Information about him was requested from Venezuela's internal security service, Direccion de Inteligencia Seguridad y Prevencion (DISIP). But little was forthcoming other than psychiatric records showing that he was a diagnosed schizophrenic who had failed to attend therapy for more than a year.

Top-level members of Venezuela's security services now are shedding some light on the mystery. General Marcos Ferreira, who recently resigned as director of the Venezuelan national guard's border control, Departamento de Extranjeria (DIEX), says that DISIP picked up Fattah directly from the plane and escorted him into a waiting car parked on the runway.

Fattah represents the tip of an iceberg, according to security officials, confirming that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been setting up a terrorist regime to undermine the constitution of the oil-rich South American country. A dedicated disciple of Fidel Castro, Chavez is plugging international terrorist networks into the country's security services, financial system and state corporations as part of his plans to clone Cuba's revolution and turn Venezuela into a terrorist base. Supporters of Al Queda are involved, as are FARC, and ELN. All three organizations are designated as terrorist groups in the report Patterns of Global Terrorism, United States Department of State, May 2002.

But that is not enough for Hugo Chavez. The president's scheme also involves government-sponsored armed militias, or Circulos Bolivarianos, modeled on Cuba's Revolutionary Defense Committees. These militias are taking over police stations around the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and invading the facilities of the state-run oil company, PDVSA. The president of the later is an ex-communist guerrilla leader, Ali Rodriguez Araque, a.k.a. "Comandante Fausto".

The blueprint follows Chile of Salvador Allende, with many of the same actors on the scene. There, a democratically-elected president also used the vote to turn himself into a dictator, imported thousands of Cuban paramilitaries to overthrow the constitution and establish a Marxist-Leninist regime which was not what the voters had originally expected when they put him in power. Cuba is the ever-present present menace.

Cuba's Direccion General de Inteligencia (DGI) special-operations teams already are positioned at the port of La Guaira, according to Venezuelan navy sources, who report that Cuban undercover agents are using the local merchant-marine school. Rear Admiral Oscar Betancourt reports that they are studying Venezuela's oil-tanker fleet as part of contingency plans to prepare for commandeering of some of the tankers by a Venezuelan intelligence officer. A Cuban special-assault unit is occupying the second and third floors of the now-closed former Sheraton Hotel in La Guaira.

During the last few weeks, Chavez has moved to control the military high command with his closest acolytes. Gen. Luis Garcia Carneiro, who has been leading the Caracas-based 3rd Infantry Division in operations to disarm the metropolitan police, is now the effective head of the army.

Arab terrorists and Colombian narcoguerrillas are being protected by DISIP, which has come under the control of Cuba's DGI, according to members of the Venezuelan security agency. European diplomatic officials in Caracas confirm that Cubans are operating DISIP's key counterterrorist and intelligence-analysis sections. According to a variety of sources, 300 to 400 Cuban military advisers coordinated by Havana's military attaché in Venezuela, navy Capt. Sergio Cardona, also are directing Chavez's elite Presidential Guard and his close circle of bodyguards. As many as 6,000 Cuban undercover agents masquerading as "sports instructors" and "teachers" also are reported to be training the Circulos Bolivarianos and even operating naval facilities.

"I quit my job when I got tired of doing dirty work for Chavez with the Cubans looking over my shoulder," Marcos Ferreira says, while showing proof that former Interior Minister Rodriguez Chacin and other presidential aides repeatedly pressured him to launder the identities of terrorists and narcotraffickers transiting through Venezuela. He also was ordered to deceive U.S. authorities on the activities of a Hezbollah financial network whose files were requested by the FBI following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Chavez gave instructions to destroy records on 10 suspected Hezbollah fund-raisers conducting suspicious financial transactions in the islands of Margarita, Aruba and Curaçao, and the cities of Maracaibo and Valencia, according to Ferreira. The Venezuelan president then dissolved key military counterterrorist units by firing 16 highly experienced, U.S.-trained intelligence officers at the time of the terrorist plane attacks in New York City and Washington. Circulos Bolivarianos leader Lina Ron celebrated the event by burning an American flag in the center of Caracas.

Reports on the investigation rescued from Chavez's burn pile specify that two of the suspects sought by the FBI -- Fathi Mohammed Awada [Venezuelan ID card No. V-6282373] and Hussein Kassine Yassine [No.V-6293922] -- withdrew $400,000 from the branch of the Corp Banca in Margarita before gong to Lebanon in December 2001. The report concludes that the individuals were "engaging in suspicious transactions which validate the suspicions of the U.S. government."

The money transfers never were recorded by Venezuela's national banking superintendent, a Chavez appointee. U.S. diplomatic sources in Caracas confirm that official inquiries through Venezuela's banking authorities have failed to reveal evidence on terrorist money laundering. "We've only consulted officials of the government," admits a U.S. economic officer.

Intelligence sources familiar with the cover-up say Chavez is withholding information on the Arabs, some of whom were important financial contributors to his presidential campaign. The report, withheld from the United States, also mentions Nasser Mohammed al-Din, described as a powerful entrepreneur and a close personal friend of Chavez, at whose home in Margarita the Venezuelan president stays on his frequent visits to the resort island, which is also a favored venue for his private meetings with Castro.

Margarita Island appears to be the center of an extensive terrorist financial network stretching throughout the Caribbean to Panama and the Cayman Islands, where three Afghanis traveling on false Pakistani passports were caught entering from Cuba with $200,000 in cash in August 2001. According to British colonial authorities, efforts to launder the money through Cayman banks also involved a group of Arab businessmen.

Chavez's ties to international terrorism date back to the days of his bloody 1992 military rebellion against the government of Carlos Andres Perez in which nearly 100 people were killed. After being received with honors by Castro in Havana, Chavez proceeded to Tripoli and Baghdad. "He came back with a lot of money to form his Movimiento Revolucionario Venezolano [MRV] and run for president," says Col. Pedro Soto, a Chavez supporter at the time.

Chavez paid presidential state visits to Libya, Iraq and Iran in February 2001, signing cooperation agreements with Muammar Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Tehran's ruling mullahs. Castro visited Libya, Iran and Syria some months later. An MRV politician and close Chavez aide closely tied to the Circulos Bolivarianos, Freddy Bernal, was in Iraq last March. He got caught trying to move arms into Saudi Arabia by U.N. peacekeeping forces policing the border.

Back in the days when he was a frustrated coup leader, Chavez also received help from Colombian narcoguerrilla organizations. He now is repaying them by closing Venezuelan airspace to U.S. antidrug flights. A military-intelligence report obtained by the former commander of the 2nd army theater of operations on the Colombian border, Gen. Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez, shows that the Colombian drug forces are being protected by Chavez in camps inside Venezuelan territory. The sick leader of Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN), Comandante Pablo, rests under DISIP protection at a villa in the upmarket Caracas neighborhood of El Marques.

Venezuela's army chief of staff, Gen. Jose Vietri, refers to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as "the de facto government of the Colombian border region.

The main contact with terrorist networks is identified as former interior minister Chacin, a commando-trained navy captain whose intimate relationship with Chavez dates back to when they conspired together in the 1992 putsch. Ferreira says that Chacin fired his predecessor at DIEX for complying with international requests to deport an ELN terrorist.

Chacin officially resigned as interior minister last April at the insistence of military officers who had led a coup attempt against Chavez. But he remains the de facto security chief, according to sources who describe how he operates under the double identity of Rafael Montenegro, managing secret bank accounts and conducting considerable activity along the border with Colombia.

"One of the first things Chacin ordered me to do when I became head of DIEX was to legalize the entry of five undocumented Colombians on the grounds that they had assisted ransom negotiations for kidnapped Venezuelans," Ferreira recalls. "He explained that they needed to spend some days in Venezuela before going to Cuba." The general soon found that such instructions were not exceptional.

During 2001, Chacin asked Ferreira to smooth the way for another 25 to 30 Colombians whom he personally received at the border crossing of San Antonio from where they were escorted by DISIP to Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas to board flights for Cuba. Chacin similarly arranged the transit of Canas Serrano, an ELN terrorist wanted by Interpol for the deaths of 84 people in the bombing of an oil pipeline.

The language Chacin used perturbed some of his officers. "After returning from a trip to Cuba, he started calling us comrades, referring to opponents of the government as 'the enemy' and talking about attacking their families." The breaking point came when a lieutenant colonel of the Presidential Guard asked Ferreira to issue a passport for a member of FARC, Ana Belinda Macias Arismendi, who carried a false Venezuelan identity document [No. V-12438823]. She urgently needed to get to Havana, Ferreira was told. "The fingerprints on the ID didn't even match hers," confides the general.

An analysis of DIEX records indicates that during the last two years 3,799 fraudulent Venezuelan identification documents have been distributed, of which 1,745 were issued through the DIEX border post of San Antonio. By cross-checking the redundant document numbers, Ferreira determined that 2,520 false IDs were given to Colombians and that the second-largest category of 279 went to Arabs invariably described as "Syrians."

Running further checks through Colombian police records, say law-enforcement insiders, two-dozen of the IDs were traced to known terrorists and narcotraffickers. Some examples: Julio Quintero Gomez [No. E-81895307], identified as a member of an ELN urban guerrilla column; Ramon Quintero, [No. E-81895573], identified as a member of the ELN national committee; and Alberto Diaz Sanchez [No. E-818955586], identified by authorities as a member of a narcotrafficking ring.

With Chavez loyalists and Cuban advisers now firmly in control of Venezuela's intelligence services, further efforts to track fraudulent ID cardholders are unlikely. Possibly thousands of falsely documented terrorists now could be part of what security officials describe as a "parallel force" being formed by Chavez to spread terrorism throughout the Western Hemisphere and support his power grab at home.

Intelligence sources say experienced urban-guerrilla fighters have been incorporated into the Circulos Bolivarianos, hundreds of whom have trained in Cuba and Libya as "social activists." Special shock units called Tupamaros and Carapaica secretly are headquartered at safehouses around Caracas where machine-gun emplacements protect street approaches to districts they control in outlying parts of the capital.

The Circulos militias also are being held responsible for recent bombings targeting the television stations, the trade-union confederation CTV and the business association Fedecamaras, which are charged by Chavez with organizing a general strike against the government. Threats have been e-mailed to government opponents such as a prominent woman journalist who has received graphic online descriptions of how she will be raped

The Circulos are backed by the 3rd Infantry Division, loyal to Chavez, and deployed around Caracas to disarm local police, preparing the ground for a showdown that could result in civil war.

Gen. Medina Gomez, who leads a group of 100+ dissident officers gathered for a monthlong protest rally at the Plaza Altamira square, is confident that the bulk of the military will not support the imposition of a dictatorship. "But the armed forces are suffering a deep internal crisis," he says. Gen. Nestor Gonzalez believes the army is seriously split: "Ten percent are pro-Chavez, 10 percent are anti-Chavez and 80 percent could go either way."

Chavez has had plenty of time to destabilize the armed forces, which may no longer be in any condition to stage a successful coup. Air force and mechanized units are low on fuel. Tank drivers have been assigned to drive public buses, and many career officers have been sent to administer civic projects with inflated budgets used to corrupt them. Sensitive communications and electronic-intelligence equipment is reported missing from military and police installations, and parts of the navy are being turned over to the Cubans. A U.S.-built amphibious landing ship, LST T63, has been tracked by U.S. satellite on round-trips between the port of La Guaira and the Cuban base of Cienfuegos.

The fuse has been lit by enemies of the United States out to prevent a heavy flow of oil from Venezuela when push comes to shove in the Middle East. Saddam has a terrorist supporter and friend in the Americas. His name is Hugo Chavez.

By Johan Freitas, in Caracas, with Luis Garcia, in Miami December 31, 2002

High-level military defectors reveal new terrorist links between Al Qaeda and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. The man who controls the largest oil reserves in the Western hemisphere gave $1 million to the world's most wanted terrorist right after the 9/11 attacks.

Hugo Chavez would not admit it publicly, but in private, he was very impressed with Osama Bin Laden's work. The Venezuelan strongman publicly rails against the United States and "neo-liberal capitalism" which, according to him, represents "hell on earth". He has never visited the White House, but has instead been to China, Libya, Iraq, and Havana, Cuba.

The doublespeak of Hugo Chavez served him particularly well in the aftermath of 9/11. In the 48 hours following the terrorist attack he vanished from sight. But when he finally did speak, he first assured the foreign press that he was against terrorism. However, locally, in his first TV broadcast, he then stated that "The United States brought the attacks upon itself, for their arrogant imperialist foreign policy." And in private, he went further still; proclaiming admiration for the terrorist attacks. " - With 9/11, Bin Laden showed the whole world that he was a force to be reckoned with. This impressed Hugo to no end," remembers General Pedro Pereira, the highest-ranking general in the Venezuelan airforce, who was still a Chavez loyalist in 2001.

The day after the attack, September 12, Chavez supporters publicly burned the Stars and Stripes in the main square of Caracas in an outburst of gleeful satisfaction over the attacks. The organizer of the Plaza Bolivar protest, Lina Ron (a.k.a. "Rosa", born 9/23/59 in Anaco, Anzoátegui state), received public praise from Chavez. Unknown to the press, Lina Ninette Ron Pereira had been on the payroll of Caracas governor Hernan Gruber Odreman, ever since Chavez appointed him head of the Distrito Federal in 1999. She is still employed by Chavez, today working for Caracas borough mayor Freddy Bernal of Chavez's MVR party. There, she is in charge of a "cultural center" which mobilizes masses for pro-Chavez demonstrations and is active in breaking up opposition events.

$1M for Al Qaeda to fight against the United States But Chavez did not stop at merely praising the attacks and having his support groups burn the American flag. He wanted to do more. He wanted to help Al Qaeda and the Taliban in their coming war against the United States.

Juan Diaz Castillo from Venezuela's Air Force, was given that job. The private pilot of Hugo Chavez, Major Diaz Castillo has since defected and has started to talk. As the trusted insider who flew the president's Airbus, he was an eye-witness to secret meetings between Chavez and some of the top dictators in the world. He was also in charge of organizing one million dollars worth of assistance from Chavez to Al Qaeda.

" - Chavez trusted me completely. So right after 9/11, when he decided to help Al Qaeda, he turned me."

The work, as ordered by Chavez, was to help Al Qaeda but to make it look like he was helping the Taliban, using humanitarian grounds as the excuse.

" - Initially, the plan was not to give them money. Instead, I was asked to organize a shipment of food and clothing and send it to the government of Afghanistan." At that time, the government of Afghanistan was the Taliban. But everyone knew that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were just two sides of the same coin. The Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan had emerged as the breeding ground for terrorists and extremist groups and the largest source of opium productions and illegal flow of narcotics in the world, posing a serious threat to the peace and stability of the whole region. " - Chavez saw in Afghanistan a mirror of what he was trying to implement in Venezuela, and wanted a more direct opening with the Al Qaeda organization," says the Major. "He had already tried to contact them once before, in Libya, but when he personally visited Tripoli, Col. Muammar Qaddafi told Chavez that there was no direct channel of communications between him and Al Qaeda."

The aid to the Al Qaeda's camps was supposed to open the channel of communications directly. It was a way of telling Osama Bin Laden that he had a friend in Hugo Chavez.

Air Force Major Diaz Castillo started planning the logistics of sending three Hercules C-130 cargo planes from Venezuela to Afghanistan. The effort would require a large investment in time and personnel, with refueling stops on the way. He came to the conclusion that to transport the cargo to the Taliban and Al Qaeda would be more expensive than the cargo itself.

Involved in the plan was Diosdado Cabello, at the time Chavez's Chief of Staff, the foreign minister and the defense minister. They had a number of meetings, among others with the director of Civil Defense. After hearing from Diaz Castillo of the difficulties with the C-130's, Diosdado Cabello then decided to instead send $1M in cash to Venezuela's ambassador for the region, Dr Walter Marquez. He would then be entrusted with bringing it to Afghanistan. The doctor - a sinister, wheelchair-bound figure - operates out of an office located at N-114, Panchshila Park, New Delhi, in India. He received the cash in the last week of September, 2001.

When asked at the time about his involvement, Marquez confirmed that he was in charge. " - Venezuela does not have diplomatic representation in Pakistan or Afghanistan but it is within my purview."

On October 3, 2001, a representative of the Venezuelan government then contacted Kris Janowski of the UNHCR in Pakistan. The purpose: To create a cover story of humanitarian help for the Taliban, so that there would be plausible deniability in case anyone asked about the Al Qaeda money. According to the plan, Walter Marquez would buy and transport food from New Delhi (India) or Teheran (Iran) where Venezuela has embassies.

False identities for terrorist operatives After Walter Marquez completed his mission, the million-dollar financing bore fruit. A line of communication to Caracas opened up.

" - The handling was then taken over by Carlos Otaiza [brother of Army Captain Elieza Otaiza Castillo, former head of Chavez's DISIP secret service.] So after that, I no longer dealt with them," says Major Diaz Castillo. But from his vantage point in the presidential palace, he still saw a lot of what was going on: " - In the last few months of 2001, and all throughout 2002, more and more Arabs started arriving. They were always given special treatment by Chavez, Otaiza and Ramon Rodriguez Chacin". Rodriguez Chacin was a Chavez-government cabinet member, and headed the Interior and Justice Ministry until the press proved that he operated with multiple identities. He is currently a party boss in the Chavez political machine.

The "special treatment" afforded to visiting Arabs even extended to fugitives. As documented by General Marcos Ferreira former head of the Onidex passport and ID-card administration and now a member of the country's pro-democracy resistance movement, Chavez-minister Rodriguez Chacin ordered him to provide false ID's to named members of foreign terrorist organizations listed by the FBI.

Now, these facts are coming out, and the military resisters are in danger. Major Juan Diaz Castillo and fellow pro-democracy resister General Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez were the victims of a trap set by Chavez DISIP (Secret Service) agents on December 16, 2002, on the freeway between Valencia and Caracas, near the town of Guacara. Immediately following the attempt on his life, Juan Diaz Castillo went underground. Friends in the resistence movement smuggled him out of the country the night before Christmas, in the hull of a fishing boat leaving Venezuela for Curazao, in the Dutch Antilles. There, he stayed until he could arrange safe passage to the United States. Today, safely out of reach of the Chavez death squads, he can now talk freely.

" - I must warn America about Chavez. He is a danger, not just to his own people but to the whole region," says Diaz Castillo.

Hugo Chavez is growing increasingly desperate in his hold on power, in Venezuela where a month-long general strike has cut off oil exports and his source of income. He refuses to hold free and democratic elections, and has publicly vowed to stay in power until "at least 2021". To Chavez, it matters not what his people think: " - Referendum to remove me? That is not possible, don't waste time. I will not go in a referendum, I say that to the country and the world. It's like this: I won't go," Hugo Chavez said in November. " - Ah, no, no, forget about fairytales." " - Not even if we suppose that they hold that referendum and get 90% of the votes, I will not leave. Forget it. I will not leave." This, all, from the man who personally visited Saddam Hussein in Iraq, hugged him, and called him "my brother," and then gave one million dollars to Al Qaeda right after 9/11.

Note: Juan Diaz Castillo, who is quoted in this article, just arrived in the United States. He can be contacted at aguila@MilitaresDemocraticos.com