Chavez lauds Carlos the Jackal as 'great' pro-Palestinian fighter
Venezuelan president praises alleged terrorist mastermind as important revolutionary fighter.
By The Associated Press Tags: Israel newsVenezuelan president Hugo Chavez has defended the alleged terrorist mastermind Carlos the Jackal, saying the Venezuelan imprisoned in France was an important revolutionary fighter who supported the cause of the Palestinians.
Chavez praised Carlos - whose real name is Ilich Sanchez Ramirez - during a speech Friday night saying: "I defend him. It doesn't matter to me what they say tomorrow in Europe."
Ramirez gained international notoriety during the 1970s and 80s as the alleged mastermind of a series of bombings, killings and hostage dramas. He is serving a life sentence in France for the 1975 murders of two French secret agents and an alleged informant.
"They accuse him of being a terrorist, but Carlos really was a revolutionary fighter," Chavez said during a televised speech to socialist politicians from various countries, who applauded.
In his speech, Chavez also sought to defend other leaders he said are wrongly labeled bad guys internationally, including Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Chavez called both of them brothers and said he now wonders whether Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was truly as brutal as he was reputed to be.
"We thought he was a cannibal," Chavez said, referring to Amin, whose regime was notorious for torturing and killing suspected opponents in the 1970s. "I have doubts. ... I don't know, maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot."
Chavez has previously called Ramirez a friend, and a controversy erupted in 1999 after the leftist leader confirmed he had written a letter to him in prison, in response to a note from Ramirez.
Chavez's remarks on Friday were among his most strident in support of Ramirez. He said he believes Ramirez was unfairly convicted, and called him one of the great fighters of the Palestine Liberation Organization at the time.
Ramirez was captured in Sudan in 1994, and whisked in a sack to Paris by French agents. He was convicted three years later.
He is also accused of having a role in two 1982 bombings - on a Paris-Toulouse train and outside the Paris office of an Arab-language newspaper - and is suspected in two other train bombings on Dec. 31, 1983.
Chavez didn't refer to any of the accusations against Ramirez, but suggested the Venezuelan is paying a price for backing the Palestinians' cause ? which Chavez also supports.
Venezuela broke off diplomatic ties with Israel in January to protest its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, and since then Chavez has often traded verbal barbs with Israeli officials.
On Friday, he protested remarks by Israeli President Shimon Peres, who predicted during a visit to Argentina that the people of Venezuela and Iran will make their leaders disappear before too long.
"Talking about Chavez, among other things he said he will soon disappear - just like that," which has different connotations, Chavez said. "Imagine if one of us said something similar talking about him or them - any of them, the 'good guys.'"
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Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. |
| Photo by: (AP) |
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about where your friends stand. as compared to Israel.
if anyone were to write a play on a So. American tin horn dictator, one w/o merit or liberty, this is the one to mimic. Does he have any idea of his unimportance?
he'd like to be powerful but has no clue. Communism failed and so will this clown. His ego outmatches his limited capacity.
them or israel... isn't it?
Pres.Chavez is hugely popular. He has found a niche or a somewhat populist vacuum. Whether he praises the "Jackal" a well known terrorist, who has executed some well known and spectacular operations, like holding members of OPEC hostage or his collaboration with the Palestinian Liberation Movement. The fact that many an innocent has died, has no meaning to Pres.Chavez. For Pres.Chavez is a populist demagogue, with major setbacks in a failing domestic economy. His latest moves against Colombia, like placing troops and tanks on the common border, only deflects growing criticism by his own countrymen. One can only assume that Pres,Chavez will be around for a long time,contrary to what some may believe. Good day from freezing Swiss Alps.
Both well established human rights abusers
Both well established human rights abusers
That horrid day at the UN in Septembe 07 when Chavez followed then President Bush to the podium and, with a snivelling smile on his face spoke of the smell of "sulphure" in a disgusting and ugly attack on Bush. It is two years later and the Venezuelan continues to behave like a pig. He is crude. He is rude. He is selfish. He is just one more in a line of banana republic two-bit leftist dictators who spill blood and terrify people while claiming revolutionary love for the people. His support for Carlos the Jackal is all anyone should need to actually figure out where the "smell" is really coming from.
Chavex makes hero's out of the world's most horrible killers. Perhaps he looks at these villians and sees apart of himself within them. This guy is a sociopath who has no feelings for the victim's of those he praises. This guy deserves to suffer the same fate of the terrorists and dictator's he praises. I am surprised that this hasn't happened already.
I was sympathetic to Chavez's efforts to relieve poverty in Venezuala.... now I just know Chavez has been spending too much time listening to Ahmadinerjad's dribble. Is there a point when the credibility of some of these appologists for criminals becomes so low that they are not worth discussing?
If Carlos was so gung-ho for the Pals then why did he kill people elsewhere ? Why did he not try to kill Israelis in Israel. Because Israel is always on alert for problems. What the Jackal did was to kill innocent people in countries that were at the mercy of his expertise in murder. Basically a sad madman. Let him rot his life away in a French jail.
When is the Free World going after the loose canon Chavez who extols Islamist-Jihadist terrorism?
How he managed to become a Colonel is beyond understanding. Then he has now sent thousands of troops with light tanks to the border with Colombia, on the Guajira. How he plans to fight a well trained Colombian Military with battle experience far beyond the scope of Venezuela is where one can believe, why Chavez truly is an admirer of Idi Amin or Carlos Ramirez aka the jackal. The day, Colombia closes its frontier with Venezuela, Caracas will starve within 10 days. Unless, they plan to live off tomatoes. Yes, Pres. Peres is right. These clowns come and go. This one has definitely a one way ticket to Havana.
Myself I would rather be remembered as a fan of people like Peres, Mandela, Willy Brandt and Olof Palme. Chavez' choice says so much about him and his collapsing corrupt macho-regime.
providing Fidel... with good diapers!
If innocent non-Pals are murdered it is great. It is good for the cause and jusfified. If Palestnian terrorists are killed, then it is a massacare, war crime blah blah. Now you understand why there is terrorism in the world.
Just received a communication from the first Venezuelan in Outer Space. "My name...Hugo Chavez!" Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha!
whose ignorance reflects just about every time he opens his mouth.
Now that the US government has withdrawn it's unwitting support for Chavez, he is running into real trouble at home. Only an oil crisis can save him from himself. Or a Columbian invasion. Latin America loves a man on a white horse, for a while . . . And the Chavez Show has grown stale.
I hope the intelligence services would do the world a service and terminate with extreme prejudice this loud-mouth South American tin pan dictator, Hugo Chavez. His nation and the rest of the world would be safer without him.