Vheadline report says CIA backed plan to down plane carrying Chavez to NY

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chavez's leadership, Venezuela has joined Vietnam as Cuba's closest
international diplomatic and political friends. This article also
discusses the recent failed bombing of the presidential betwee in
Caracas.  In addition, relations between Venezuela and the Dominican
Republic have been severely strained by evidence that former
Venezuelan Carlos Andres Perez -- who fled Venezuela facing corruption
charges well before Chavez was elected -- was organizing a plot to
topple Chavez from the Caribbean nation.
Fred Feldman

Posted: Sunday, September 21, 2003
By: Roy S. Carson


Venezuelan Military Intelligence says overwhelming evidence the CIA
planned to bring down Chavez Frias' airplane en route to United
Nations in New York


Details behind the sudden decision to cancel President Hugo Chavez
Frias' next-week trip to Washington D.C. and New York (to deliver a
speech to the United Nations) are being revealed by security services
who say they have "overwhelming evidence" of a CIA-backed plan to
"bring down" the Chavez Frias' airplane during the scheduled flight to
the United States from Caracas.  Sources in Venezuela's Military
Intelligence Directorate (DIM) have told VHeadline.com that "presented
with overwhelming evidence of Washington's planned attack on the
Presidential flight, it was decided that the President's personal
security was preeminent and that he should not go!"

State Security & Political (DISIP) police agents were involved in a
gun battle in Plaza Altamira Friday night as they moved to detain a
suspect now named as Jorge Rojas Riera, for the Friday morning bombing
at the Casa Militar barracks, across Avenida Urdaneta from the
Miraflores Presidential Palace.  It is reported that President Hugo
Chavez Frias was working at his desk when the 1:00 a.m. blast went off
but that his life had never been put in danger as many gleeful
wire-service reporters had immediately cabled to their North American
publishers.


Reports say that some 60 DISIP and National Guard (GN) officers were
able to take the suspect into custody but only after a skirmish with
opposition-controlled Chacao municipal police officers and gunmen
identified as former army officers who had been dismissed the service
after they participated in the April 11, 2002, coup d'etat.  Police
say Rojas Riera was detained after officers were forced to use an
electronic stun gun to capture and 'cuff him.  Little is known of the
detainee other than that he has been identified having been employed
at Plaza Altamira as a "security agent" by opposition organizers ...
meanwhile he has told interrogators that he acted independently in the
Friday morning's grenade attack.

Rebel army officer Felix Moreno was reportedly wounded in an exchange
of gunfire. Chacao Mayor Leopoldo Lopez says part of the blame has to
be laid on DISIP agents who did not identify themselves ... he says
they arrived to Plaza Altamira just before midnight and were heavily
armed but were not in uniform.  "there was a lot of running-around and
another gun-battle close to Torre Britanica (south of Avenida
Francisco Miranda) in which a DISIP wagon was overturned.

Strong rumors are circulating today that the man arrested had earlier
sought political asylum at the Dominican Republic embassy in Caracas
but had been asked to return later


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