[Mb-civic] Chavez Stokes Confrontation Over U.S. Role in Venezuela - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Chavez Stokes Confrontation Over U.S. Role in Venezuela

By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 19, 2005; Page A15

CARACAS, Venezuela -- After the rumble of tanks died down and the last 
soldier high-stepped past the spectators' pavilion, President Hugo 
Chavez told the thousands attending Venezuela's Independence Day parade 
July 5 that no invading army could match the fighting force that had 
just marched by, "armed to the teeth."

The hypothetical invasion he invoked was patently clear: Two days 
before, Chavez announced the discovery of evidence that the United 
States had drawn up blueprints to invade Venezuela, a plan he said was 
code-named "Operation Balboa."

American officials dismissed the claim as fiction, just as they have 
denied Chavez's repeated assertions that the CIA is trying to 
assassinate him, or that the Bush administration was behind the military 
coup that briefly toppled his government in April 2002.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/18/AR2005071801370.html?nav=hcmodule

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