The Death of Hugo Chávez: Was it a Political Assassination?
Freedom on Information (FOIA) Demands on Possible Assassination Plans
Within hours of the announcement of the death of President Hugo Chávez, civil rights groups in the United States filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) demands with federal agencies seeking information and documents that “relate to or reference or discuss any information regarding or plans to poison or otherwise assassinate the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez.”
The records demands have been made to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, and the Defense Intelligence Agency and have been filed by the civil rights legal organization, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, the anti-war group, ANSWER Coalition and Liberation Newspaper.
The Venezuelan government is also calling for an investigation into the circumstances of President Chávez’s illness, specifically whether he was poisoned or deliberately exposed to cancer causing elements, according to NBC News and other media outlets.
The opening of the Freedom of Information Act reads as follows:
We are writing to request the following information on behalf of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), and Liberation Newspaper, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552:
All records and documents, including but not limited to, emails, letters, cables or other communications, memoranda, notes, minutes, photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, digital recordings, intelligence assessments, communications, records or other data that relate to or reference or discuss any information regarding or plans to poison or otherwise assassinate the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, who has just died.
This request in made in light of the U.S. government’s acknowledged history of knowledge and possession of information regarding, and/or participation in, attempts to assassinate foreign leaders. The acknowledged attempts by the U.S. Government to assassinate foreign leaders, include Fidel Castro, Rafael Trujillo, and General René Schneider Chereau (See, e.g.., January 3, 1975 Memorandum of Conversation between President Gerald Ford and CIA Director William E. Colby), among others [secured by the National Security Archives pursuant to the FOIA].
This request is also made in light of the exhumation of Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat’s body to determine whether his death was caused by poisoning, including media reports that “[t]he Institute de Radiophysique discovered abnormal levels of polonium-210” in his personal effects, Chris McFreal, The Guardian, November 27, 2012, Yasser Arafat Exhumed and Reburied in Six-Hour Night Mission: Samples Taken From Corpse of Late PLO Leader Will Be Used to Investigate Claims He Was Poisoned With a Radioactive Substance; Arafat’s Body is Exhumed for Poison Tests, New York Times, November 28, 2012.
As described further below, the public has an urgent and compelling need for information underlying any effort to assassinate the President of Venezuela, including any knowledge the U.S. government has or had regarding such efforts and in particular any role the U.S. government had in such efforts. According to multiple media sources, the Venezuelan government is also calling for an investigation into the circumstances of President Chávez’s illness, specifically whether he was poisoned or deliberately exposed to cancer causing elements. See, e.g. “Venezuela VP: Chávez’s cancer was an ‘attack’ by his enemies,” NBC News, March 5, 2013.
e Death of Hugo Chavez. Executive Orders to “Assassinate Foreign Leaders” Emanate Directly from the US President
The Revocation of Executive Order 12333 which banned the CIA from conducting “targeted assassinations”
Was the president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez Frias the object of a targeted assassination by the Obama administration?
When addressing this issue, it is worth recalling that in the immediate wake of September 11, 2001 President George W. Bush restored the sordid practices of the CIA by revoking President Ford’s 1976 Executive Order 12333 which banned the CIA from conducting “targeted assassinations”.
The revocation of Executive Order 12333 is of crucial significance. It provides a green light to the US president to “lawfully” order the assassination of foreign leaders of “rogue states”. Although couched in the framework of post 9/11 counter terrorism, the revocation of EO 12333 gives carte blanche to the US Head of State. In this context, the CIA would receive orders to assassinate foreign leaders directly from the US President:
….The Bush administration has concluded that executive orders banning assassination do not prevent the president from lawfully singling out a terrorist [or foreign leader of a rogue state] for death by covert action… Bush’s directive broadens the class of potential targets beyond bin Laden and his immediate circle of operational planners, and also beyond the present boundaries of the fight in Afghanistan, officials said. But it also holds the potential to target violence more narrowly than its precedents of the past 25 years because previous findings did not permit explicit planning for the death of an individual … [I]nside the CIA and elsewhere in government,… much of the debate turns on the scope of a targeted killing campaign. …
…The CIA’s Directorate of Operations, which runs the clandestine service, is mindful of a traumatizing past in which assassination attempts in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East were blamed on rogue agents when they failed. The agency is determined to leave no room this time for “plausible denial” of responsibility on the part of the president and the agency’s top management. That does not mean that operations will be publicly proclaimed, one source said, but that the paper trail inside government must begin undeniably with “the political leadership.”
...”The important thing is that the accountability chain is clear,” said John C. Gannon, who retired in June as deputy director of central intelligence,… “I would want the president’s guidance to be as clear as it could be, including the names of individuals… With explicit authority, he said, “I think the case officers are capable [of targeted killing] and would follow instructions, and would, I think, have the capability of succeeding.”
National security officials noted that the White House and at least three executive departments already maintain lists in which terrorists are singled out by name… One view, apparently a minority position but one expressed in private recently by two senior managers in the Directorate of Operations, is that the clandestine service should target not only commanders but also financiers of al Qaeda. “You have to go after the Gucci guys, the guys who write the checks,” said one person reflecting that view. It is easier to find financiers, he said, and killing them would have dramatic impact because they are not commonly prepared to die for their cause… Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.)… said fundraisers are legitimate targets for death. “Under traditional terms of war, those who assist belligerents are belligerents,” he said….
If Bush has drawn up such a list, it is among the most closely held secrets of government. It could not be learned whether names have been proposed to him by the clandestine service, or whether he has signed orders that would amount to individual death warrants …
(Washington Post, 29 October 2001, emphasis added)
American public opinion is led to believe that a policy of “targeted assassinations” in time of war is necessary to “fight evil” and uphold democracy.
Washington had hinted at the time of the revocation of EO 12333 that it is not only Al Qaeda which was being targeted, foreign leaders in “rogue States” or countries “which harbor international terrorism” could also be the object of “targeted assassinations.”
The revocation of EO12333 in 2001 has laid the foundations for the establishment of broad procedures, which more recently have resulted under the Obama administration, in the endorsement by the US Congress of targeted assassinations of both foreigners and US citizens. These procedures de facto also encompass the targeted assassination of foreign heads of state.
With regard to President Chavez, it is important to emphasize that there are clearly defined procedures pertaining to the “lawful” assassination of foreign heads of State by the US government, allegedly on national security grounds.
There are secret lists of names as confirmed by US government sources.
The orders carried out by the CIA to kill a foreign leader emanate from the US president.
An earlier version of this text was first published by Global Research on December 7, 2001
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