 May 2002
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Patrica Watson, Editor Sara Burke, Assistant Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
US Support for the April Coup in Venezuela Richard Bennett is the host of Intel Briefing. Wayne Madsen is a former National Security Agency officer. The following is from "US returns to bad old ways in Venezuela," an Intel briefing posted on 4/13/02 at www.intelbriefing.com/afi/afi020413a.htm. Under the cover of training exercises in the Caribbean the US Navy provided signals intelligence and communications-jamming support to the Venezuelan military. Particular focus by US Navy SIGINT vessels was on communications to and from the Cuban, Libyan, Iranian, and Iraqi diplomatic missions in Caracas. The National Security Agency (NSA) supported the coup using personnel attached to the US Southern Command's Joint Interagency Task Force East (JIATF-E) in Key West, Florida. NSA's Spanish-language linguists and signals interception operators in Key West, Sabana Seca on Puerto Rico, and the Regional Security Operating Centre in Medina, Texas also assisted in providing communications intelligence to US military and national command authorities on the progress of the coup d'etat. From eastern Colombia, CIA and US contract military personnel, ostensibly used for counter-narcotics operations, stood by to provide logistics support for the leading members of the coup. Patrol aircraft operating from the US Forward Operating Location (FOL) in Manta, Ecuador also provided intelligence support for the military move against Chavez. Additional US Navy vessels on a training exercise in the Outer Range of the US Navy's Southern Puerto Rican Operating Area also stood by; some of these vessels reportedly had NSA Direct Support Units aboard to provide additional signals intelligence support to US Special Operations and intelligence personnel deployed on the ground in close co-operation with the Venezuelan Army. For its part, the CIA provided Special Operations Group personnel. They had been in the country since the summer of 2001. The group reportedly made contact with senior, pro-US military officers, and business and union leaders, especially those with the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and the Venezualan Workers' Confederation (CTV).
The coup was also supported by Special Operations psychological
warfare (PSYOPs) personnel deployed from Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
They put together Spanish-language television announcements, purportedly
from Venezuelan political and business leaders and aired by Venezuelan
television and radio stations, saying Chavez "provoked"
the crisis by ordering his supporters to fire on peaceful protesters
in Caracas. US electronic warfare technicians also helped to jam
cell phone and radio frequencies in Caracas and other major cities
in co-operation with the Venezuelan Army High Command. 
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