Chavez will control Colombia's FARC from Venezuela...
By Javier Cáceres | Notiven
18.04.05 | Let's review the following four scenarios: on December, El Nuevo Herald reports that on the occasion of a big group of rebels that came down from the mountains "In the Colombian's war black market there is an acute need for ammunitions 7.62 x 39 mm, appropriate for AK-47 rifles; In a Florida court there is a file from August 2004 related to 204.000 rounds of 7.62 x 39 mm ammunition that were seized before being illegally exported; and the press mentioned that these difficult to get ammo were going to be negotiated on western Venezuela, near the Colombian border". In El País - ( Colombia Jan 27 2004 ) "Intelligence sources reveal that the FARC are running out of ammunition for their AK-47. Lastly, when the Heritage Foundation invited an ex Guerilla, Carlos Ploter, for a conference in Washington, he mentioned "FARC bought great quantities of AK-47 for which there is no ammunitions ( El Tiempo Colombia June 16th 2004 )
The lack of 7,62 x .39 ammunition characterizes the above scenarios to which another important one needs to be added. One of the trials against Vladimiro Montesinos in Peru is for having been in the middle of a deal between Russian mafia and the FARC, where 10,000 Russian AK-47 7.62 x .39 rifles were sold, but the caliber of the bullets shipped were incompatible with the rifles.
In the mean time, what happens in Venezuela? The Government, after establishing the need to renew their rifles, with lighter and more conventional ammunition, instead of buying the 7.62 x .51mm caliber rifle line, which studies revealed as the most convenient, there was a 'sovereign' decision and they were changed to a 7,62 x .39 mm size bullet; the one that is very hard to get. Since this last minute change has been unexplained, we can only speculate and ask in order to get some answers and draw some conclusions.
Is there such a thing like a master plan conceived in Montesino's times when he sold the .39 rifles but with .51 ammunition? But, how is that the FARC has not spared his life after this slip? Who was this error negotiated with? The FARC itself? Chavez? The Colombian Government? The CIA? Other guerrilla groups to weaken the FARC? This error, as mentioned, has provoked a weakening of Colombia's guerillas, and if Chavez knows this, why didn't he stick with the original decision, since guerillas decline also benefits Venezuela? Was Montesinos in tandem with Chavez? Could it be the reason of why after leaving Peru he went to Venezuela, where high ranking officials said he was not in the country? But why did Venezuela turn him in? Presumably, Montesinos was a contact between the FARC and the Russian mafia in their drug for arms exchanges -it has been documented the close relations between Russian government and mafia (1). Did Chavez betray Montesinos to become the new middleman before Russian eyes? Who knows if the escalating relations between Hugo Chavez and the Russian government have anything to do with all the above. But all this for what reason?
To me, if 100 Kg. of C-4 explosives can get lost from a guarded navy facility, there is no doubt that many of the new bullets will emigrate to the green Colombian mountains, and Venezuela's decision to change the caliber raised the hope in the guerrillas that their rifles magazines will always be full. I can imagine that Presidents Chavez and Uribe had this in their agenda, but does Chavez understand it this way? Maybe he does, and that could help answer some of the previous questions. I think that all is part of a master plan and many of the activities that dealt with the buying of the rifles , the asymmetric war, the militia, etc. are just a smoke screen to justify and administer great number of bullets and whoever controls the dose will guide the whereabouts of guerrilla movements.
(1) Read "Hipótesis De Conflicto - El Cono Sur Frente Al Eje Chávez-Farc". Mayo 2001 by Carlos Escudé and Mariana Souto Zabaleta of Universidad de Torcuato Di Tella - Argentina
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