[mobglob-discuss] fyi: reports of Venezuelan opposition plans involving armed commandoes

[michael a. lebowitz]

>
>http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=10463
>
>VHeadline.com has received a copy of a subversive opposition dossier 
>(detailed below) which gives general guidelines for a breakdown of law and 
>order across the country in the wake of expected disturbances and 
>widespread riots, Wednesday.  Unnamed opposition resistance cells detail 
>chilling preparations for how to deal with widespread anarchy in words 
>couched with obvious hatred and fear of what may happen if Venezuela's 
>majority poor decide to resoundingly reject the opposition majority's 
>ambitions to restore a status quo of more than forty years of corrupt 
>political-economic manipulations which brought Venezuela to the brink of 
>bankruptcy even before reform President Hugo Chavez Frias took over the 
>helm in February 1999.
>
>The opposition blue touch paper has been lighted after Deputy Interior & 
>Justice (MIJ) Minister Carlos Bettiol has asked opposition Coordinadora 
>Democratica to suspend marches scheduled for Wednesday after it was 
>revealed that no applications to hold demos had been filed with 
>appropriate law enforcement agencies. Bettiol says the administration 
>fears that anti-Chavez protest arrangements announced only in the 
>opposition-led media will deteriorate into disorder and anarchy.
>
>"It is completely irresponsible ... CD had left it until the eleventh hour 
>to send a single representative, Enrique Naime without any organizational 
>team to speak of ... the marches should suspended ... we cannot have this 
>kind of irresponsibility ... if this is the kind of leadership that the 
>opposition has, it should seek out others."
>
>Bettiol has asked international organizations, diplomatic missions and 
>foreign personnel present in Venezuela to take due note that the 
>opposition is not working in a responsible fashion ... we asked them to 
>meet with us three days ago and they have blankly refused!"
>
>Permission to hold a total of six opposition marches or not, Caracas and 
>other major cities across the nation are battening down the hatches for 
>big trouble tomorrow, Wednesday, hoping against hope that there will not 
>be massive bloodshed as predicted by more radical coup-plotting elements 
>in the anti-Chavez opposition.
>
>Security measures have been visibly stepped up and although Executive Vice 
>President Jose Vicente Rangel gives assurances that the Metropolitan 
>Police (PM) has not been intervened again, he goes on to explain that the 
>reinforced presence of the Armed Forces (FAN) on the streets and at police 
>stations is the result of intelligence that shows that firebrand Caracas 
>Metropolitan Mayor Alfredo Pena has called out a special Fenix Group of 
>attack commandos .. rabid anti-Chavez Mayor Pena says the commandos will 
>be in place at strategic positions across Caracas to protect 
>demonstrators, but the government is mindful of the role that Pena's 
>private army played in the toll-up to the April 2002 coup d'etat which saw 
>USA-backed Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona Estanga seize the Presidency 
>and immediately move to dissolve the Constitution, parliament and the 
>judiciary.
>
>JV Rangel says "since we are obliged to preserve law and order and to 
>impede whatever act of provocation against democracy, we will take 
>whatever measures are necessary but this does not imply intervention of 
>the Metropolitan Police ... as of this moment we have not formally 
>received any notification of these marches ... while security at public 
>manifestations, marches and other public concentrations are not 
>exclusively the onus of the government, it is our duty to provide security 
>for those who are with the government as well as for those who are with 
>the opposition..."
>
>"The government assumes its responsibility but we also ask the opposition 
>to assume theirs ... there is a shared responsibility between the 
>government and the opposition ... we all have a responsibility to 
>safeguard the security of those who choose to demonstrate peacefully."
>
>In late-breaking news Caracas Libertador Mayor Freddy Bernal has rejected 
>plans for a Friday march on the Interior & Justice (MIJ) building in 
>downtown Caracas ... he says that "CD representative Enrique Naime does 
>not have necessary authority" but Naime is qualifying the executive's 
>decision as "an act of sabotage" by the government ... "they did not want 
>to discuss security arrangements, all that happened was that around 2:00 
>p.m. they said they would not give us permission to hold our 
>march."  Naime has now turned to Metropolitan Mayor Alfredo Pena claiming 
>that the former-Chavez ally turned rebel, will overrule the Libertador 
>municipality's decision.
>
>Meanwhile the Internet has been buzzing with "intelligence chatter" from 
>both opposition and Chavez supporters.   In a military-style dossier 
>received by VHeadline.com late this afternoon, opposition supporters are 
>advising their friends and allies to "be prepared for any eventuality" and 
>to support "special action groups."
>
>The unidentified authors say they are "not attempting to advise in 
>military tactics but that it is important that the civilian population 
>understands that certain acts of combat must be conducted by professionals 
>and that their function should be to give every assistance and not to 
>impede all and any actions to overthrow the government."
>
>"The probable theater of combat will be in the city streets, characterized 
>by its intensify and the non-existence of specific fronts ... it will 
>happen in the streets, inside buildings, in the undergrowth and under the 
>streets if we take over the Metro ... you need to prepare yourself 
>mentally and logistically for whatever happens.  In the near future we 
>will be distributing a basic manual of urban resistance ... the objective 
>will be to assist the professionals and to use your basic tools in the 
>most effective form possible, protecting your life without getting in the 
>way of military professionals who may from time to time appear."
>
>Some guidelines for organization:
>
>1. Organize groups of no greater than 10 persons ... preferably your 
>closest friends, confidantes and neighbors.  Not at neighborhood vigilante 
>units but this is the moment to coordinate neighborhood defense 
>groups.  You are attack units and if attacked you will defend what is yours.
>
>2. If you are unable to go out on the streets, no matter.  For each group 
>there should be 7-8 giving logistic support -- you should do everything to 
>help with observation, food, attending the wounded, intelligence, guarding 
>prisoners, delivering supplies and munitions, collecting confiscated 
>weaponry and communications.
>
>3. Do not give your cell-group a name but instead an identification number 
>such as CDL 1-10,000.
>
>4. Do not publish information in any open forum.  Do not expect 
>instructions only from recognized military ... if hostilities break out 
>get your information from known (opposition) media, radio hams and 
>suchlike ... during the first few hours there should be total chaos 
>because of the total absence of information but do not despair.  Do not go 
>out in the street unless your group has agreed on a defined 
>objective.  Things could happen so rapidly that you may only be able to 
>join a large clandestine effort or a super-celebration.  Do not lose 
>contact with your help group since they will keep you informed of what is 
>happening in the streets.
>
>5. Do not boast about anything your group does and do not treat this as a 
>joke.  Secrecy is fundamental.  Appoint a leader and a substitute who, 
>among other things, will keep in touch with other resistance groups.  Only 
>the group leader and his deputy are to know the identities of other group 
>leaders so as not to compromise security. We are talking of local 
>resistance networks at this point but we will go national as soon as it 
>becomes necessary.  Whichever is the case we must remain clandestine.
>
>6. Agree on a mechanism of communication using previously arranged code 
>words and expressions.  Key words used in wall-graffiti and drop-points 
>for messages can be used like the French resistance did in WW2.
>
>7. Observe, observe, observe and identify who is your primary enemy.
>
>8. Do not rush out like a herd of animals at the first rumor of success 
>... wait for proper notification from a recognized military official.  Be 
>cautious.  Know to differentiate between the truth and enemy trickery.
>
>9. Use pseudonymns and do not give your name over the phone or Internet.
>Protect your computer against hackers.  Cellphones are NOT reliable ... do 
>not speak freely in the street ... you never know who is listening.
>
>10. If you have shortwave radio equipment guard it like gold and get 
>back-up batteries for emergency situations.  Establish contact times.
>
>11. If you have an AM radio transmitter, keep it in a safe place and 
>prepare plans for clandestine broadcasts ... you cannot believe the 
>importance of a radio transmitter in a counter-revolution.
>
>12. Prepare baseball helmets and visors, balaclavas ... improvise ... gas 
>masks, soak handkerchiefs in vinegar.  Get out binoculars, spray paint, 
>kitchen knives, bottles of water, gloves and wire-cutters, dark clothing, 
>first aid kits for every group member.  Make sure they are well hidden but 
>accessible for immediate use  Your objective should be to help our armed 
>forces to get rid of the Bolivarian Circles (CB) ... just don't expect CB 
>members to be running around in t-shorts advertising themselves ... they 
>could be disguised as Cuban militaries just to cause greater intimidation 
>of the population and to our armed volunteers.
>
>13. Identify the enemy and any foreigners who are trying to hide.  Collect 
>information, but don;t do anything until the moment arrives.  Do not play 
>at being soldiers -- the fact that a person has been a pro-government 
>militant does not make him/her a target ... there are some good people 
>there, just that they have been deceived by the Castro commies.  It 
>doesn;t matter what they do, they are not our equals.
>
>16. Your group meetings should be discreet and appear to be informal.  Do 
>not arrive together and do not leave in a group ... very important, do not 
>leave a trail.  Do not throw away confidential documents.
>
>"Now that is is possible and even probable that there will be hostilities, 
>we are prepared to respond and give aid to our army.  And if our army does 
>not appear, we will win against he enemy alone.  History may judge us as 
>cowards and traitors.  Prepare yellow armbands to identify yourself to 
>friends in enemy territory.  Urban combat will be explained in detail in 
>the basic manual which we will publish shortly.  There are basic skills to 
>get from street to street, break into buildings, infiltrate enemy 
>groupings to clean them out.  Do everything to help and nothing to 
>hinder.  Make plans to disarm the enemy ... each weapon that you take from 
>them is one less with which to kill us and one more to defeat 
>them.  Prepare a supply of Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs ... there is a 
>lot of information in the WWW, read the classic Anarchist cookbook."
>
>"If your resistance compatriot falls, forget his/her corpse ... take the 
>weapon and the ammunition which we will need. Always secure an escape 
>route and an alternative if possible, make sure you cover each other's 
>backs and make sure you can get away.  Always watch the woofs, balconies 
>and surrounding walls of buildings.  Sharp-shooters take vantage points .. 
>let your colleagues know where they are using signals.  You can learn how 
>to make smoke grenades on the Internet."
>
>The opposition communique continues for many paragraphs more with explicit 
>instructions on how to deal with government soldiers and law enforcement 
>officers which are seen generically as "the enemy."
>
>The flow of words goes on to warn that the Bolivarian Circles will try to 
>run "like rats" from (slum areas) Catia, 23 de Enero and Petare to 
>Venezolano de Television (canal 8 VTV) where "we will blitz them ... the 
>CBs will attempt to create scenes to distract the 'patriot army' but we 
>will take on the invading communist professionals."
>
>"We will attend the patriot army wounded and take prisoner the 
>Castro-commie traitors.  The CBs may take thousands of Venezuelans into 
>concentration camps, for example in the UCV university stadium, but we 
>will liberate them."
>
>"The CBs will persecute politicians and dissident military men but we will 
>hide them and devote ourselves to saving the country.  Foreign resistance 
>will help us whip their asses so they do not feel secure anyplace."

---------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Office: Phone (604) 291-4669
          Fax   (604) 291-5944
Home:   Phone (604) 689-9510