Let me share with you the administration's thoughts about what's taking place in Venezuela. It remains a somewhat fluid situation. But yesterday's events in Venezuela resulted in a change in the government and the assumption of a transitional authority until new elections can be held.
The details still are unclear. We know that the action encouraged by the Chavez government provoked this crisis. According to the best information available, the Chavez government suppressed peaceful demonstrations. Government supporters, on orders from the Chavez government, fired on unarmed, peaceful protestors, resulting in 10 killed and 100 wounded. The Venezuelan military and the police refused to fire on the peaceful demonstrators and refused to support the government's role in such human rights violations. The government also tried to prevent independent news media from reporting on these events.
The results of these events are now that President Chavez has resigned the presidency. Before resigning, he dismissed the vice president and the cabinet, and a transitional civilian government has been installed. This government has promised early elections.
The United States will continue to monitor events. That is what took place, and the Venezuelan people expressed their right to peaceful protest. It was a very large protest that turned out. And the protest was met with violence.
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Top secret documents recently obtained and posted on www.venezuelafoia.info show that in the weeks prior to the April 2002 coup against President Chavez, the CIA had full knowledge of the events to occur and, in fact, even had the detailed plans in their possession.
An April 6, 2002, top secret intelligence brief headlining “Venezuela: Conditions Ripening for Coup Attempt,†states: “Dissident military factions, including some disgruntled senior officers and a group of radical junior officers, are stepping up efforts to organize a coup against President Chávez, possible as early as this month, [CENSORED]. The level of detail in the reported plans -¬ [CENSORED] targets Chavez and ten other senior officers for arrest…†The document further states “to provoke military action, the plotters may try to exploit unrest stemming from opposition demonstrations slated for later this month…â€
So the CIA knew that a coup attempt would take place soon after April 6, 2002, and moreover, they knew the plan would include Chavez’ arrest and an exploitation of violence in the opposition march. In other words, they knew the plans before the coup occurred and surely they knew the actors involved, many of whose names are probably in the censored parts of the top-secret documents.
One could assume that if the CIA had the detailed plans in their possession in the weeks prior to the coup it was because they were associating and conspiring with the coup plotters.
So, when Ari Fleischer and Philip Reeker made those statements on April 12, 2002, on behalf of the US government, they did so with full knowledge that a coup had taken place, Chavez had been arrested and the violence in the opposition march, which they attributed to Chavez, had actually been a premeditated part of the coup plot. The top secret documents that prove this information show they were sent to the US State Department and the National Security Agency ... which means frankly, the White House knew what was happening all along.
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