Hugo Chavez and ETA
By Aleksander Boyd
Caracas 03.10.06 | Interestingly the international press picked up the comment made yesterday by opposition candidate Manuel Rosales regarding a member of Basque terrorist group ETA who works for the Chavez regime. Rosales' statement came after a question posed by the journalist of Radio Nacional de España. ETA terrorist Jose Arturo Cubillas Fontan arrived in Venezuela in May 1989 according to Spain's Interior Ministry. Associated Press reported from Madrid on 28 September:
Spain is to investigate reports that a fugitive member of the Basque separatist group ETA is working for the Venezuelan government, the justice minister said Thursday. Newspapers ABC and El Mundo identified the man as Arturo Cubillas and said he has been working at the Venezuelan Agriculture Ministry since October 2005. His wife, Goizeder Odriozola, was hired last month as a senior staffer in President Hugo Chavez's office, the papers said. Cubillas is wanted by Spanish police for having belonged to an ETA commando unit blamed for three murders in 1984-85, the papers said. Spanish Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar said authorities were working to determine if any charges still hung over Cubillas." The government will make all investigations relative to active charges that might exist," he told journalists. Cubillas was arrested in France in 1987, deported to Algeria and from there to Venezuela in 1989, along with 10 other ETA members, ABC said. Cubillas was detained by Venezuela's police in 2002 but released when they found that his name was not on a list of ETA members sought by Spain's National Court, the one that deals with ETA cases, the papers said.
Cubillas, who as a member of ETA's "Comando Oker" took part in the assassination of Frenchmen Joseph Couchot and Spaniards Angel Facal Soto and Máximo García Kleinte (policeman), complained in 2003 that he was being harassed in Venezuela by Spanish police forces.
Cubillas married Venezuelan of Basque descent Goizeder Odriozola. For that reason he has Venezuelan citizenship. Its worth bearing in mind that terrorist Rodrigo Granda of Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) claimed that his deportation to Colombia -after his capture in Caracas- was illegal for he was a Venezuelan citizen.
Venezuelan officials argue that no ETA member works for the Chavez regime. However Cubillas' wife -Goizeder Odriozola- has had different position within the current administration, the latest being director of Hugo Chavez' presidential office. Before this Odriozola was in charge of information and public relations in the Agriculture Ministry where her husband is working since October 2005. Will anyone believe that Mrs. Cubillas is unaware of the background of her husband and in light of it how come she got an ETA terrorist a job as a civil servant? How come Hugo Chavez has the wife of an ETA terrorist working directly with him?
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