could be a RW paramilitary, could be a FARC trafficker.

VENEZUELA-COLOMBIA: Paramilitaries Rule Border Area
By Humberto Marquez

SAN ANTONIO DEL TÁCHIRA, Venezuela, Dec 20 2009 (IPS) - “We’re second-class citizens, victims of a war that hasn’t broken out,” said José Duque from behind the wheel of a car carrying passengers from San Cristóbal, in southwestern Venezuela, to the border with the northeastern region of Colombia, near the city of Cúcuta.
Along the way, winding through the Andes mountains 700 kilometres southwest of Caracas, gasoline stations are besieged by endless lines of vehicles, whose drivers are resigned to waiting two, three, even four hours to fill their tanks.

Duque has a list of complaints almost as long as the gas line-ups. “Where I live we have blackouts for several hours every night. A lot of days we have no running water. When you make a living on these highways you’re in constant danger of getting robbed, or being forced to pay bribes. And on top of everything, this oil-exporting country sabotages our work by rationing gasoline.”

Gasoline is a source of massive cross-border smuggling activity. Authorities in both countries estimate that more than 10,000 barrels (1.6 million litres) are smuggled daily from Venezuela into Colombia, where gasoline is sold at 15, 20 or 25 times the price in Venezuela, which has the world’s cheapest gasoline.

A community leader from the city of San Antonio del Táchira, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Carlos, told IPS that Colombian “mafias” like the Black Eagles, made up of former members of far-right paramilitary groups in Colombia, “have controlled the smuggling of gasoline, food and plastic products from Venezuela to Colombia for years, and also the smuggling of goods from there to here.”

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/12/venezuela-colombia-paramilitaries-rule-border-area/

Not to mention the fine work by the NYTimes' Latin American "journalists," Simon Romero, Juan Forero, and who can forget Francisco Toro, who had to leave as soon as it was discovered he belonged to an NGO in Venezuela which received financial support from the United States Government.

Yeah, the New York Times has outdone itself, just like the Washington Post on Venezuela. Can't do much better on investigative journalism on Venezuela than either one of these sterling institutions.

From the UN news center

This reference you offered doesn't have a great deal to do with the subject at hand, actually. This guy says whatever he is told to say.

From his Wiki:

Antonio Maria Costa

~snip~

In 2007 the five biggest donors to UNODC's budget were, in descending order: European Union, Canada, United States, UN and Sweden.[8] The United States have repeatedly threatened[citation needed] to withdraw funding unless Costa assured that the UNODC would abstain from any expression of support for harm reduction measures in general. According to the Transnational Institute this explains the fact that - unlike other United Nations bodies like WHO and UNAIDS - UNODC does not promote harm reduction policies (e.g. needle exchange and Heroin-assisted treatment).[9][10]

Costa has also been criticized for having reports published that seem to be designed to please donor countries and to support their prohibitionist policies, such as the 2006 UNODC report Sweden's Successful Drug Policy: A Review of the Evidence.[11](Sweden's financed in 2005-2006 about 4% of UNODC's budget)[8]

His latest controversial statement has been to state that only drug money saved the world financial system from a complete collapse, effectively identifying major banks as money-launderers for about $325 billion in proceeds.[12]

Mon, Dec 19, 2005 - Page 7
Uribe admits anti-Chavez plot planned in Colombia
AFP , SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA

Venezuelan former soldiers plotted against President Hugo Chavez's government at a Colombian military building, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said.

Uribe made the stunning disclosure on Saturday at the Caribbean resort town of Santa Marta where he is meeting with Chavez, and after analyzing documents furnished by Chavez.

"The Venezuelan soldiers who are in Bogota went to a building to meet with members of the Colombian military. President Chavez gave us these documents ... we analyzed them and this morning I said to President Chavez: `I must tell you the truth: this is a building of Colombia's public forces,'" he said.

Uribe said that intelligence efforts against the Venezuelan government are conducted in the building, and took full responsibility for the affair.

The two presidents met for six hours amid a climate of unusual goodwill on Saturday to discuss the purported Bogota-based conspiracy against the Venezuelan president, which Chavez first disclosed to his Colombian counterpart during a meeting in Venezuela on Nov. 24.

Seven Venezuelans involved in a 48-hour coup against Chavez in April 2002 have been linked to the new plot. Businessman Pedro Carmona, leader of the failed military-civilian coup, enjoys political asylum in Colombia, where he is working as a university professor.

Uribe refused asylum to six Venezuelan soldiers involved in the coup but gave them permission to live in Colombia while they look for safe haven in another country.

He said on Saturday that he takes responsibility for the events.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/12/19/2003285082

US approves $320M for Plan Colombia as controversial program continues
Jan 17, 2014 posted by Luke Horswell

The United States has finalized their fiscal budget for 2014 which will see Colombia receive the next installment of Plan Colombia to the tune of $320 million.

Plan Colombia is bilateral agreement between the United States and Colombia aimed reducing drug trafficking and cultivation as well as fighting leftist rebel groups.

Of the $320 million, $140 million will be attributed to counter-narcotics, $28.5 million to the army and $140 million for development and institutional strengthening.

This allocation of aid demonstrates the priority the US places on counter-narcotics efforts in the region despite the fiscal difficulties it faces domestically. Colombia’s Ambassador to the US, Carlos Villegas, has said “The action taken by Congress to maintain support for Colombia demonstrates strong bipartisan support for the program and reinforces the importance of long-standing strategic partnership”.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/us-approves-320m-aid-colombia-plan-colombia-continues/

yes, thats right!

History.
recent history.

"Plan Colombia" is a term used to refer to all U.S. support and legislation aimed at combating Colombian Drug cartels and left-wing insurgency groups in Colombian territory

now, this may not sound like familiar policy to people too young or indifferent to recall the Central American actions of the US govt from decades ago, or remind anyone of Vietnam, but little if anything has changed since then. except body counts dont make the nightly news anymore.
We still have the playfully naive assertions that the victims are at fault, and we are the good guys.
not a very funny joke, but a joke nonetheless.
dont be a joker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_production_in_Colombia

im sure more recent figures would be interesting.

And who is blaming any victims?

If we're going to talk about """history"""" and Colombian coke, let's talk about their partners in crime, the regime in VZ and the Boligarchs who support their activities. Let's read the GUARDIAN from six or so years ago:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/03/venezuela.colombia

Response To John Carlin's Anti-Chavez Propaganda
Wednesday, 6 February 2008, 1:36 pm
Opinion: Toni Solo

Guardian exclusive: Hugo Chavez is Venezuelan President

By Toni Solo

Majority world opinion was not stunned on February 3rd when the UK Guardian's web site reported a fact about Venezuela. Perhaps it should have been. After extensive investigative research with my own insecure image in the mirror, I can reveal that this undiplomatic low-level unintelligence source commented, "well, chop me off at the knees and call me tripod...." Fact : Hugo Chavez is the Venezuelan President.

John Carlin's anti-Chavez propaganda piece, datelined the Observer February 3rd, really does contain just that single item of substance, buried deep inside yet another fact-impoverished Guardian web site report on Venezuela. It is the only relevant substantive fact in the article. The rest of Carlin's piece consists almost entirely of allegations plucked from thin air and quotations from Colombian government patsies or from unidentified "high-level security, intelligence and diplomatic sources".

Carlin's main allegations are that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) depend heavily on Venezuelan support and that the Venezuelan civil and military authorities facilitate FARC narcotics dealing on a large scale as a matter of policy. He alleges, "Thirty per cent of the 600 tons of cocaine smuggled from Colombia each year goes through Venezuela." But he offers no fact-based argument to support that claim. It seems to be based on a US State Department report which Carlin does not acknowledge.

Then he portentously asserts "In the end Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro made a public pronouncement in Uruguay in which he said, without addressing the substance of the allegations, that they were part of a 'racist' and 'colonialist' campaign against Venezuela by the centre-left Spanish newspaper El País, where I originally wrote about Farc and the Venezuelan connection." Why should the Venezuelan authorities respond to allegations that have, in fact, no substance?

Carlin as US propaganda shill : drugs and terror

Before looking a bit more closely at Carlin's self-evidently dishonest and insincere reporting, it needs placing in relation to the current campaign by the Bush regime and its allies in the European Union to discredit the government of Hugo Chavez. Recently US Drug Enforcment Agency official and US Southern Command military officers have accused the Chavez administration of failing to act forcefully to prevent narcotics trafficking and of being a destabilising influence in the region. Carlin's piece is likely to be recycled endlessly in mainstream media as "proof" of Venezuelan government links to narcotics and "terror".

More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0802/S00060.htm

Interpol Spain criminal arrested in Venezuela
Friday, 04 April 2014 12:01

One of the top ten most wanted by Interpol in Spain has been arrested according to National Bolivarian Police (PNB) state coordinator, Yolmar Garcia.

Venezuelan Gabriel Reyes, 24, was detained in Avenue Carabobo, San Cristobal, Venezuela, when police were attempting to move crowds along and limit disturbances.

Reyes has been charged with drug smuggling, criminal association, closing roads and civil disorder.

Miguel Rodriguez, Internal Affairs Minister, said the arrest of Reyes “reveals the relationship between drug smuggling, and other organised crime with the violent protests”.

More:
https://www.euroweeklynews.com/news/world-news/item/119735

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