Venezuela Accuses Washington of Conspiracy

Nicolas Maduro will create a state committee investigating Hugo Chavez’s cancer in response to “surprising changes” that have led to beliefs that the Venezuelan president had been poisoned. The accused: Washington. Obviously, if the first action of Maduro — who was nominated as the future presidential candidate by Hugo Chavez on December 8 — was constantly referring to Bolivian President Evo Morales, then his second move is exacerbating confrontation. “Nicolas Maduro made his first decision to campaign for the presidency several hours before the official announcement of the death of Chavez on March 5, 2013,” critiqued Milos Alcalay, former Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations. By announcing the dismissal of two American diplomats, Maduro showed that he would have a confrontational campaign that opposed Washington.

David del Monaco and Debling Costal, military attachés at the United States Embassy in Caracas, met regularly with Venezuelan military representatives. “They told them that their Constitution had been violated and that it was necessary to prepare a coup,” explained Maduro. In response, Washington expelled two Venezuelan diplomats one week later. “They have never conspired against the United States. Those details had been embellished,” Maduro claimed.

Accusations against Washington have multiplied since the death of Hugo Chavez. The United States is even accused of being behind the assassination attempts against opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski. Radonski lost his bid to become a presidential candidate at the National Electoral Council on March 11. Corroborating information, “including Venezuelan secret services,” led to a fear of an ambush against the opposition candidate, claimed the head of his campaign team, Henri Falcon.

Strained Relations

Nicolas Maduro has accused two former members of the Bush administration, Otto Reich and Roger Noriega, of being the source of threats “to put the blame on the Bolivarian government in order to create chaos throughout the country.” As interim president of Venezuela, he spoke to Obama and denounced this “plan to assassinate the Venezuelan candidate.”

Relations between the two countries have been strained for a long time. Though Hugo Chavez showed a willingness to get closer to Barack Obama after his election at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad in 2009 by offering him a book by Eduardo Galeano called “The Open Veins of Latin America,” which denounces Washington’s operations in the subcontinent, he always used a very aggressive rhetoric against what he called the Empire. Yet the United States remains Venezuela’s best business partner, buying 40 percent of oil exports and selling a multitude of products that have been sorely lacking in the country. “The United States is our largest trading partner,” said Carlos Tejera, head of the Venezuelan-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “We reached a record $56 billion in trade in 2012.”

The Venezuelan ambassador to the OAS (Organization of American States), Roy Chaderton, tried for several months to normalize relations between the two countries. But the new foreign minister of Venezuela, Elias Jaua, has announced the suspension of these discussions.