Spain Sold Chem/Bio Weapons to Venezuela
By Aleksander Boyd*
London 11.04.05 | As all Venezuelans remember the tragic events that unfolded exactly three years ago a bit of news I translated last Thursday is spreading like wildfire in the blogosphere. It all started by a tip. A Vcrisis reader called my attention on an article published in El Universal. Then I proceed to search for the original source of the article and translated it, anticipating the ever ending BS coming from Chavez's apologists regarding the bias that, in their view, characterizes Venezuelan media; although surely they'll invent something to question the purpose of Europa Press in informing about Spain's sales of chem/bio weapons to Venezuela.
I made a couple of phone calls today; one to Europa Press and the other to Spain's Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce, which authored the report "Spanish exports of defence materials and related products and technologies". I spoke first with Emilio Lopez of the Latin America bureau of Europa Press and he informed me that the best way would be to check with the Ministry itself. The staff there weren't of much help, after being transfered few times I finally got the name of the person who could confirm the information -Gina Pol, assistant to Pedro Mejia, Spain's Secretary of State for Industry, Tourism and Commerce, but she was "on the other line" and failed to return my call.
Nonetheless the cat's out. Barcepundit was the first one in picking up on the story posted here in English and from there, well:
- The American Thinker;
- LittleGreenFootballs;
- The American Spectator;
- Barcepundit (again);
- FRONTPAGEMAG;
- Michelle Malkin;
- Captain Ed;
- Bad Hair Blog
- Publius Pundit
The MSM? Behind the curve as ever. Hopefully policy makers will start paying attention to this issue for the reasons put by Franco Aleman @ Barcepundit:
I'm not sure whether it can be argued that Chavez is more dangerous now than what he was a couple of years ago, though it can be argued that selling conventional weapons is one thing, and selling NBC (nuclear, biological & chemical) -related material is an entirely different matter.
*Title by little green footballs
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