U.S. and Venezuela at Odds, and Seized Cargo Is Just the Half of It

[milmor_1]

With the relationship between Iran and Venzuela on the Up and the relationship between the USA and Venezuala apparently on the downward slope, ist it time to ask ourselves what is really going on?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/wo...gewanted=print


U.S. and Venezuela at Odds, and Seized Cargo Is Just the Half of It
By SIMON ROMERO

CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug. 26 — Government officials from the United States and this country are intensifying their verbal sparring after Venezuelan customs authorities this week seized diplomatic baggage from the United States that contained military hardware.

In what analysts say may be a prelude to worsening relations, Venezuela’s attorney general began an investigation on Friday into whether the American Embassy violated customs law when it brought 20 diplomatic bags into the country.

The cargo, delivered by a C-17 military transport plane, included ejector seats apparently intended for Venezuelan combat jets, explosive charges and about 180 pounds of chicken that did not pass through sanitary inspection, Interior Minister Jesse Chacón Escamillo said Friday night.

This latest row occurred amid growing distaste in President Hugo Chávez’s government over moves by the United States to step up spying operations in relation to Venezuela, with the creation this month of a post overseeing intelligence gathering and analysis for Venezuela and Cuba. Mr. Chávez regularly claims the United States plans to destabilize his administration and topple him.

Brian Penn, a spokesman for the American Embassy here, told local news media this week that the diplomatic bags seized Thursday contained replacement parts for ejector seats for the Venezuelan military. The United States banned sales of arms and military equipment to Venezuela in May, citing a lack of cooperation on antiterrorism efforts, though it said pre-existing contracts could be honored.

Officials from the American Embassy were not immediately available for comment on Saturday.

Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesman in Washington, told The Associated Press on Friday that the United States had requested an “immediate explanation of the entire incident,” claiming the search violated international treaties on diplomatic baggage. “The impounded cargo consisted of household effects of a U.S. diplomat and a shipment of commissary goods,” Mr. Vasquez said.

Tension between the countries have heightened, with the United States criticizing Mr. Chávez for his continual courting of closer ties with Iran and Cuba even as it remains the largest customer for Venezuelan oil.

Mr. Chávez has criticized American efforts to thwart Venezuela’s ambition to secure a seat this year on the United Nations Security Council.

This week, he said that Venezuela had won China’s support for its United Nations bid, following a plan to increase crude oil sales to China to 500,000 barrels a day in five years from a current level of about 150,000 barrels a day. Figures from the United States Department of Energy, meanwhile, showed that Venezuela’s oil exports to the United States fell 6 percent in the first four months of this year as Venezuela’s overall oil output declined.

“The U.S. government has employed every means necessary to block my country from joining the Security Council,” Mr. Chávez told reporters on Friday in Beijing, where he is on a six-day trip aimed at strengthening commercial ties with China. “The American imperialists are trying to stop us.”

Analysts here pointed out that Venezuela has used spats over diplomatic bags as a pretext to breaking off diplomatic ties, as it did with the Soviet Union during the military rule of Marcos Pérez Jiménez during the 1950’s.

“It’s time for maturity in Venezuelan diplomacy in its affirmation of its rights,” Julio César Piñeda, a retired Venezuelan diplomat, said in commentary published Saturday in the newspaper El Universal, “or for the elimination of its flaws and the absence of professionalism.”

[Woodmonkey]

I thought diplomatic pouches etc were off limits? Wonder what they would say if we started searching theirs in our country?

[milmor_1]

I dont understand this piece, if the parts were for venezualen jets whats going on?

[USA11B]

Originally Posted by Woodmonkey

I thought diplomatic pouches etc were off limits? Wonder what they would say if we started searching theirs in our country?

In general, each action by either country is met with a measured and expected reaction... We will have to see how this one plays out.

[Snowden]

Originally Posted by milmor_1

I dont understand this piece, if the parts were for venezualen jets whats going on?

Maybe by seizing them they would not have to pay for them? And, of course, it would (at least in their minds) "shame" us in some oblique way?

Or maybe they want to create an incident that will make a political break between Venequela and the US.

[milmor_1]

Thay are great suggestions Marianne, but why is America sending parts for their jets to them if diplomatic relations are so bad?

[milmor_1]

This just gets stranger as it goes along. read the last paragraph and tell me this guy (Chavez) is NOT listening to Cuba & Iran about American invasions.
I could end up being a conspiracy theorist if I keep this up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/wo...gewanted=print

U.S. Officials Say Venezuela Knew Military Equipment Was in Seized Cargo
By SIMON ROMERO
CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug. 27 — Venezuelan military and customs officials were notified of the military equipment contained in diplomatic baggage at the center of a dispute between Venezuela and the United States before its delivery here last week, officials at the American Embassy said Sunday.

Venezuelan authorities’ seizure of the baggage, which included replacement fuses intended for ejector seats ordered by Venezuela’s air force, set off accusations from Caracas and Washington that international law governing diplomatic baggage had been violated.

At the heart of the dispute are fears frequently expressed by Venezuelan officials that the United States is trying to foment opposition to the administration of President Hugo Chávez.

Interior Minister Jesse Chacón Escamillo said Friday that the diplomatic shipment had been stopped because it had been smuggled past customs officials, and that it contained military equipment including detonators and rocket motors.

Ministry officials did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

The shipment was brought here on a C-17 military transport plane, and not aboard a civilian aircraft, because it contained fuses and other material for ejector seats that had been ordered by Venezuela’s military mission at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, two American Embassy officials said. Each official asked not to be identified because of the heightened tension between the countries.

Although political relations between Venezuela and the United States are deteriorating and sales of military equipment to Venezuela by American companies have been banned since May, Venezuela still has a small mission at the base near Dayton and a larger mission, with about 20 military officials, in Miami. The United States has more than 20 military officials connected to its embassy here in Caracas.

The shipment of the ejector seat equipment was apparently allowed because the order had been placed before the ban on military-related sales. The American officials said a manifest listing the contents of the shipment was sent before its arrival last Wednesday to military and customs officials at Maiquetía airport near Caracas, and the baggage was cleared through customs and was en route to Caracas when it was intercepted by the Venezuelan military.

Venezuela’s attorney general and National Assembly signaled that they intended to investigate the incident, though it was not clear what disciplinary action they could take, since the seizure involved diplomatic baggage.

Reports over the weekend in local news media aligned with Mr. Chávez’s government called for close attention to the incident, asserting that the United States secretly brought military equipment into Chile in diplomatic baggage before the coup that toppled Salvador Allende in 1973.