The Political Conundrum!

The news that both Bolivia and Venezuela, whose presidents are staunch allies and friends, have chosen to expel the respective U.S. ambassadors is the most visible evidence of the frayed relations the United States now has with much of Latin America.

As my colleague Andrew Cochran wrote the United States then immediately took the step of designating the three most visible Venezuelan officials whose ties to the FARC were clearly established.

What is amazing is that, until this blow-up, U.S. officials in different departments of the government, have been minimizing the well-documented alliance, as well as other issues discussed below, that have made Latin America a far different place than it was five years ago.

Unfortunately, with the exception of Colombia policy, there has been virtually no policy toward Latin America, and the festering issues there have been left to fester.

As a friend said after recently sitting through a 50-minute briefing by a senior government official on security issues facing Latin America without once mentioning Venezuela, Iran or Russia, the presentation was a true "tour de force."

This was because the official managed to never mention any of the burning issues, instead painting a relatively upbeat picture of the regions as a free trade, democratic region in the full flower of health.

Much of the evidence against the three designated Venezuelans: Hugo Armando Carvajal (head of military intelligence); Henry de Jesus Rangel (director of intelligence); and Ramon Emilio Rodriguez Chacin (former minister of defense and interior) comes from the computer of Raul Reyes, the FARC's deputy commander killed in Ecuador by Colombian forces on March 1.

The Reyes documents (which I have analyzed in this NEFA Foundation paper clearly outline the role of the three in protecting the FARC, meeting regularly with FARC leadership and discussing weapons shipments with the rebels.

The FARC moves its some 250 kilos of cocaine, largely Europe-bound, through Venezuela, and internal FARC documents show that the shipments are often escorted by Venezuelan military or intelligence officials to the ports from which they are embarked, in order to insure the drugs' safe transit. My full blog is here.