A drug cartel’s power in Venezuela

A drug cartel's power in Venezuela
BY JACKSON DIEHL
@JacksonDiehl

Venezuela is afflicted with the world's highest inflation, its second
highest murder rate and crippling shortages of food, medicine and basic
consumer goods. Its authoritarian government is holding some 70
political prisoners, including the mayor of Caracas and senior
opposition leader Leopoldo López, and stands accused by human rights
groups of illegal detentions, torture and repression of independent media.

All of that is now pretty well known, and it is finally beginning to
gain some attention from Latin American leaders who for years did their
best to appease or ignore Hugo Chávez and his "Bolivarian Revolution."
What's less understood is the complicating factor that will make any
political change or economic reconstruction in this failing state far
more difficult: The Chávez regime, headed since his demise by Nicolás
Maduro, harbors not just a clique of crackpot socialists, but also one
of the world's biggest drug cartels.

Ever since Colombian commandos captured the laptop of a leader of the
FARC organization eight years ago, it's been known that Chávez gave the
Colombian narcoguerrillas sanctuary and allowed them to traffic cocaine
from Venezuela to the United States with the help of the Venezuelan
army. But not until a former Chávez bodyguard defected to the United
States in January did the scale of what is called the "Cartel of the
Suns" start to become publicly known.

According to multiple news accounts, Leamsy Salazar has been cooperating
with U.S. federal prosecutors who are developing criminal cases against
a host of senior Venezuelan generals and government officials. Chief
among them is the man Salazar began guarding after Chávez's death:
Diosdado Cabello, the president of the National Assembly and the second
most powerful member of the regime after Maduro.

The day after Salazar's arrival in Washington, Spain's ABC newspaper
published a detailed account of the emerging case against Cabello, and
last month, ABC reporter Emili Blasco followed up with a book laying out
the allegations of Salazar and other defectors, who say Cuba's communist
regime and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah have been cut in on the
trafficking. That was followed by a lengthy report last week in the Wall
Street Journal that said Cabello's cartel had turned Venezuela into "a
global hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering."

Cabello has responded with the regime's most familiar tactic: an assault
on the press. Last month he brought defamation suits against 22
journalists from three Venezuelan news organizations that published
accounts of Blasco's reporting, including El Nacional, the one remaining
independent national newspaper. In early May, a judge imposed the
penalty Cabello sought without bothering to hold a trial; the regime
long ago captured the judiciary. The journalists were banned from
leaving the country and ordered to appear for weekly court check-ins.

The order came down as El Nacional's publisher, Miguel Henrique Otero,
was traveling abroad. Last week he flew to Washington to seek support
from the Organization of American States. The regime, he told me, is
desperate to deflect the drug trafficking allegations, which could
destroy what remains of its international credibility. While leftists in
Latin America and the United States have been willing to overlook
assaults on the opposition and media, "nobody wants to associate with
drug traffickers," Otero said.

"This is a very serious blow to the regime," Otero said. "Their only way
of combatting it is to claim it is a right-wing conspiracy directed in
Miami and Madrid, and to say that the press that report the charges are
part of it."

It's not clear whether or when U.S. prosectors will bring charges
against Cabello and his associates, but arrests look unlikely. A U.S.
attempt to capture one senior general, former military intelligence
chief Hugo Carvajal, in Aruba last year failed. But the leaking of the
cartel case and any charges, if made public, could divide as well as
isolate the regime. Cabello leads one of three "families" that Otero
says are battling for Chávez's legacy; the others are headed by Maduro
and by Chávez's daughter. Only Cabello is linked to the cocaine
shipments, and there are drug-free elements in the military leadership.

Like many opposition leaders, Otero is hopeful that Venezuela can
resolve its crisis through democracy. If an election for the National
Assembly due this year is held and is fair, the opposition should win
handily. But Maduro's term extends to 2019 — and those in the regime
tied to drug trafficking, and vulnerable to U.S. prosecution, will not
willingly surrender power. Could rival elements of the regime or
military move against them?

Says Otero: "The situation is so dramatic and so catastrophic that the
probability of some kind of event occurring is high."

JACKSON DIEHL IS DEPUTY EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR FOR THE WASHINGTON POST.

Source: A drug cartel's power in Venezuela | Miami Herald Miami Herald -
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article22375902.html