標題:U.S. Accuses Venezuelan Officials in Drug Case 新聞來源: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122124082473728749.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news (需有正確連結) By JOSE DE CORDOBA in Guasdalito, Venezuela, and DAVID LUHNOW in Mexico City September 13, 2008; Page A1 ELORZA, Venezuela -- The U.S. government, ratcheting up a diplomatic crisis with one of its leading suppliers of crude oil, placed sanctions on several high-ranking Venezuelan officials Friday, accusing them of aiding the drug trafficking of Colombia's main guerrilla army. The Treasury Department said it would freeze financial assets and bar any business dealings with three key aides to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, including two intelligence officials and the former interior and justice minister. "Today's designation exposes two senior Venezuelan government officials and one former official who armed, abetted and funded the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia], even as it terrorized and kidnapped innocents," said Adam J. Szubin, director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. The U.S. move escalates a fast-growing diplomatic confrontation between Washington and a small bloc of anti-U.S. governments in the region that are led by Mr. Chávez's Venezuela and include Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Thursday, Mr. Chávez accused the U.S. of planning his overthrow and, amid a hail of vulgar insults, ordered U.S. ambassador Patrick Duddy to leave the country within 72 hours. That followed a similar move Wednesday by Bolivian President Evo Morales, who kicked out U.S. ambassador Philip Goldberg after accusing him of fomenting a separatist movement in eastern Bolivia. On Friday, Honduras said it would indefinitely postpone allowing the U.S. ambassador there to present his credentials out of solidarity with Venezuela and Bolivia. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack condemned the expulsions and added: "The charges leveled against our fine ambassadors by the leaders of Bolivia and Venezuela are false -- and the leaders of those countries know it." Mr. Chávez is using the deepening confrontation to renew threats to cut off oil shipments. Thursday, he said the price of crude would double to $200 a barrel if he decided to end exports to the U.S. Analysts said they doubted Mr. Chávez would carry out his threats, because his government needs the oil revenue more than the U.S. needs the oil. Relations between the U.S. and much of Latin America have festered during the Bush administration, mostly because of regional opposition to the Iraq war and the rise of populist governments antagonistic to traditional U.S. influence in the region. But relations took a sharp turn for the worse in recent days and weeks. Tensions began rising anew when Mr. Chávez and his left-wing allies all took Russia's side in its recent intervention in Georgia, and Venezuela further angered Washington by allowing two Russian long-range bombers to land in Venezuela. Mr. Chávez's rhetoric and actions have diverted attention from mounting evidence this year that his government is tightly allied to the FARC, which has been trying to overthrow the Colombian government for five decades and is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union. Earlier this year, files found in the computer of a dead guerrilla chief suggested the rebels were being financed and possibly armed by Mr. Chávez's government. Evidence from the laptops has added to other intelligence from the U.S. government that suggests the collaboration went beyond money and weapons and extended into the drugs trade. A U.S. intelligence document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, for instance, says that Gen. Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, the head of Venezuela's military intelligence, protected a three-ton cocaine shipment from the FARC that was found last September in the Venezuelan port of Puerto La Cruz. The Treasury action Friday targeted Gen. Carvajal along with Henry de Jesús Rangel Silva, the head of Venezuela's overall intelligence agency, and Ramón Emilio Rodríguez Chacín, interior and justice minister until last week. The Treasury Department said Friday that Gen. Carvajal also had helped to provide the FARC with Venezuelan identity documents to make it easy for guerrillas to cross the Colombian-Venezuelan border. It also said Mr. Rodrí guez Chacín was the "main weapons contact for the FARC" in Venezuela's government and tried to arrange a $250 million loan for the group. Venezuelan government officials didn't respond to the U.S. accusations Friday. Attempts to reach government agencies were unsuccessful. U.S. officials said they didn't believe this week's expulsion of the envoys was related to the imminent U.S. sanctions, which had been in the works for weeks. Rather, U.S. officials say the expulsions were related to domestic politics in both Venezuela and Bolivia. In Bolivia, President Morales is facing a growing protest movement from eastern provinces that oppose his plans to push through a new constitution, and Mr. Chávez faces local elections in November amid rising prices, rampant crime and other problems. "We view this as a form of diplomatic and political panic -- a way of trying to push off blame for their own internal situation on to an external actor," said a senior U.S. official. Bolivia appears on the brink of serious political bloodshed. At least eight people were killed in protests Thursday against the government's proposed constitution, which would restrict the money the eastern provinces receive from the production of gas and soy exports. The expulsion of the U.S. ambassador by Mr. Morales inflamed his opponents, who view his anti-Americanism as a self-defeating parody of Mr. Chávez's brand of populist politics. Mr. Chávez promised Thursday to arm insurgents in Bolivia if the government falls, underscoring the degree to which Mr. Chá vez intervenes in Bolivian life. Mr. Morales, for example, regularly hands out checks to mayors from a personal fund provided by Venezuela. As far as Venezuela goes, Mr. Chávez has his own problems. In November, the populist leader faces gubernatorial, legislative and municipal elections where, analysts say they believe, he might lose as many as 10 of the country's 23 states as well as the country's most important cities, including the capital, Caracas. Such a defeat would shatter the virtual lock Mr. Chá vez enjoys today in the country's politics, where he controls 21 of 23 states, all of the seats in the country's national assembly and all but a handful of the country's city halls. Analysts say Mr. Chávez has helped to ramp up the crisis with his favorite ideological enemy in a bid to distract Venezuelan voters and energize his base ahead of the vote. "True, it may excite his hard-core supporters ... but many Chávez backers will be quite uneasy and critical of this clearly disproportionate, self-defeating move," said Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank. While Mr. Chávez regularly accuses the U.S. of plotting to kill him, the latest accusations were even more colorful than usual. Among other things, Mr. Chávez said U.S. planes marked with Venezuelan colors were set to bomb the presidential palace of Miraflores, an echo of the failed 1961 Central Intelligence Agency-backed attempt to overthrow Mr. Chávez's ideological inspiration, longtime Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Friday's announcement of sanctions comes after increasing U.S. frustration with Venezuela over the war on drugs. Last week, U.S. anti-drug czar John Walters said Venezuela was increasingly being used as a key transit point for cocaine shipments from Colombia's rebels headed either to Europe or to the U.S. East Coast. "There's an utter lack of effort by the Venezuelans to deal with the problem," Mr. Walters said in a recent interview. He said that cocaine shipments from Venezuela had risen 500% in the past five years from an estimated 51 metric tons in 2002 to 256 metric tons in 2007. Most of the cocaine coming from Venezuela originates with Colombia's FARC guerrillas, who Colombian intelligence analysts believe have more than 1,000 members inside of Venezuela. Last year, Mr. Chávez took up the cause of the FARC and pushed hard to get diplomatic recognition for the guerrillas. Colombian authorities estimate the FARC earn from $300 million to $600 million a year from their control of the cocaine trade. In March, Colombian authorities recovered a treasure trove of data from the computers of Raul Reyes, a FARC leader killed in a cross-border raid in Ecuador. The documents found in Mr. Reyes's computers drew a disturbing picture showing a close alliance with Venezuela. In particular, Mr. Chacín and Gen. Carvajal appear to have played major roles in building the alliance. --John Lyons in Santa Cruz, Bolivia contributed to this article. -- 「就像其他各類集體主義一樣，種族主義也尋求不勞而獲。它尋求自動獲得知識﹔它尋求 自動評價人們的品質而忽略運用理性或道德判斷的責任﹔而更重要的是，它尋求自動的自 尊（或偽自尊）」 Ayn Rand<The Virtue of Selfishness> 致台灣之光的影迷跟球迷 --

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