Venezuelan conspiracy theories a threat to critics

Posted on Wednesday, 07.23.14

Venezuelan conspiracy theories a threat to critics
BY HANNAH DREIER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Roderick Navarro was in class when he got the news
that a high-ranking minister had accused him of plotting to assassinate
Venezuela's president.

His first thought was, "Not again."

The 26-year-old student leader had already been accused by the ruling
socialist party for collaborating with the U.S. to overthrow Venezuela's
then-leader Hugo Chavez in 2010. But as messages from friends lit up his
phone, Navarro began to worry that it was more serious this time. The
denunciation came on live TV, with orders to appear before the national
intelligence service.

Announcements of foiled coups and plots against the government have long
been a part of the Chavista discourse. A study by the Caracas-based
newspaper Ultimas Noticias counted 63 alleged assassination plots
between when Chavez took office in 1999 and his death in 2013. Since
then, such claims have come even more frequently. President Nicolas
Maduro's government has denounced more than a dozen purported plots
since coming to power 15 months ago, according to a tally by The
Associated Press.

While the Chavez administration tended to point fingers at the CIA or
shadowy outside groups, Maduro's accusations often target local
opposition figures, who say they face imprisonment, constant
surveillance and the threat of vilification or violence from
pro-government groups.

The most serious recent allegations came in late May, as authorities
tried to mop up dissent that led to a three-month wave of deadly
anti-government protests. Top officials accused a handful of opposition
leaders of working with the U.S. ambassador in neighboring Colombia to
"annihilate" Maduro.

During a news conference that all broadcasters were required to carry
live, officials showed heavily annotated slides of emails that they said
the plotters had sent each other.

It was a bizarre tableau even by Venezuelan standards, prompting a
popular television comic to create a 10-minute spoof. His show was shut
down days later in what fans believe was a reprisal, a reminder that the
accusations may not be believed by government critics, but can't be
laughed off either.

Opponents say the drumbeat of alleged conspiracies helps the
administration shift attention away from domestic problems such as
soaring prices and rising crime.

The charges against local critics are "one way that the Maduro
administration has added extra paranoia to its strategy," said Gregory
Weeks, a political science professor specializing in Latin America at
the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "Chavez went after local
opposition, too, but he didn't feel the need to use conspiracy theories
to do so."

To outsiders, the allegations can seem far-fetched. Chavistas have
accused conspirators of using newspaper crossword puzzles to communicate
with enemies of the state, of developing tools to give leftist leaders
cancer, and of plotting to "ruin Christmas" with a coup. They rarely
provide much evidence.

But the charges don't seem that wild to many government supporters, who
are well-versed in the history of American plotting against leftist
governments from Chile to Cuba during the Cold War and are a quick to
recall Washington's endorsement of a coup that toppled Chavez for two
days in 2002.

With independent Venezuelan media sources dwindling, people getting
their news from television and radio are unlikely to hear much
questioning of conspiracy theories.

Fruit vendor Herman Acosta believes the allegations and says the
government should do more to protect itself from those who conspire
against it.

"I believe the government, because there have been coups all over Latin
America and the U.S. has always been the prime actor," he said.

Behind closed doors, diplomats say the accusations make them think twice
about what they say in public. In 2008, Chavez kicked out the U.S.
ambassador after accusing him of plotting to overthrow the government.
This month, a prominent Chavista politician and television host accused
the Canadian Embassy of similar meddling.

In the weeks since the May news conference, Maduro's administration has
linked an additional two dozen people to the alleged coup attempt,
including the editor of El Nacional, which is one of the Venezuelan
newspapers most openly critical of the government.

Some of the alleged plotters are trying to prove their innocence.

Pedro Burelli, a former director of Venezuela's state oil company who
now lives in Washington, hired a private investigation firm to look into
the authenticity of the emails presented in May. The firm said records
subpoenaed from Google showed the messages attributed to Burelli had
never been sent.

Navarro, the student leader, presented himself for several hours of
intelligence service questioning in June, a few weeks after Interior
Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres denounced him and several other
government opponents. He feared he would be arrested if he didn't show up.

"I was worried because there's no independent justice here," he said.

Navarro is keeping a low profile, working with other students on a plan
to re-ignite street protests. He says he is determined not to show fear
in the face of the accusations.

But Hugo Perez, a sociology professor at the Universidad Central de
Venezuela, says activists have reason to worry. When a government starts
talking about opposition plots, any target "is no longer a political
adversary - it is the local agent of a foreign conspiracy and therefore
an absolute enemy," he said.

For two years, Perez has run a blog devoted to tracking Chavista
conspiracy theories. Lately, he's had enough material to post several
times a week.

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Hannah Dreier on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hannahdreier

Associated Press writer Jorge Rueda contributed to this report.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/23/4250543/venezuelan-conspiracy-theories.html