OK, so I should probably tread carefully here. But the story Diosdado Cabello just told about General Hugo Carvajal’s whereabouts makes absolutely zero sense.
It bears noting that last week, after Ismael García tweeted that Carvajal had run off to the U.S. alongside a defecting Supreme Tribunal magistrate, the magistrate turned up in Caracas and proved the story wrong. But Carvajal?…he hasn’t even said “this mouth is mine”. Meanwhile, very well clued-in reporters tell us he’s been busy saying his goodbyes.
Is Diosdado seriously trying to tell us that if they had the guy but he’d broken a leg after a parachute jump, they wouldn’t trot him out, cast and all, in front of the cameras!?
And then he follows the crazy parachute-accident alibi with even crazier stuff about a gringo kidnapping. It makes no sense, except as an after-the-fact excuse for the fact that the guy slipped through their fingers.
We should be clear, General Carvajal is not the kind of foot-soldier whose cooperation you would seek to incriminate the higher-ups. He is the higher-up. Though far from a household name, he was director of Military Intelligence as recently as last December, and he was named, alongside now Defense Minister Rangel Silva, in the Treasury Department’s list of drug kingpins in 2008 for his support for FARC. We’re talking about a big fish here, a guy with intimate first hand knowledge of the detail of the Bolivarian drug racket.
And Diosdado’s account of his whereabouts is, to say the least, extremely peculiar.
Caracas Chronicles 
Francisco,
It doesn’t make sense that now, after Aponte Square left, someone like that general would be publicly saying “cheerio, cheers, I’m going to the USA”. Chavismo doesn’t have Spetsnaz troops, but they could neutralise him in a jiffy.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if he or any other general could just jump on a plane and go somewhere. Specially on their private planes.
I agree that Diosdado’s theory is insane. I find it difficult that DEA is pulling off a Mossad type abduction for a drug lord. Specially at the risk of being uncovered and committing such an aggression.
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I definitely don’t think the DEA would do that either. The guy is a) indeed with a broken leg in hospital or b) on the run – not peacefully saying goodbyes – or – conspiracy theory comes here – c) abroad and hasn’t talked because his wife is still in Venezuela
The DEA story could be Diosdado’s way of “para curarse en salud”, he is just saying “if he were ever to disappear”…at least that’s what I understood
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I think the question we need to ask is:
WHERE THE HELL IS THE MAN?
And i agree with rodrigo, DEA wouldn’t be that bumb-
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Wasn’t Diosdado the one that said Chavez was fine and did not need another operation in February just the day Chavez announced that he did?
Out of the loop? Out of touch?
Just think, he is about the best Chavismo has to offer.
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A little bit out of touch because not even the worst dictatorship is monolithic. Just 30 days – thirty- days after Mao’s death, the unfamous Band of Four (which we should understand as the Band of 5, Mao included), was already sentenced and out of power. There is not absolute power or unity. The only way for any country is institutional strengthening, where fidelity to particular men or groups is minimized.
Most of these guys have fears related to their particular behavior, -personal or institutional- and will do whatever (they believe) it takes to survive. Y echarse cuchillo entre ellos….. We’ll see a lot of that
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There are a few things about the article you link to that don’t square right.
1) Carvajal hangs out with his “closest 4 buddies” and then tells them he’s leaving to go to the US? when you are going to “defect” you don’t let your right hand tell the left what it’s doing.
2) He’s been trying to talk to Chavez for 2 months? 2 months and he can’t get 5 minutes with Chavez so he decides to go to the DEA and narc on everybody and his brother in law?
Really?
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You could find just two things that don’t seem to make sense about this situation? I could find like 37!!
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Sorry Quico, but you wrote “very well clued in reporters” and then link to that “chapuceria” of an article.
You should have written, “gossip columnists” instead of reporters for all that the article was worth!
Still, given what is coming down the pike, we are going to see rumors that make this one seem like Pulitzer prize material.
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I know Hernán Lugo personally, he’s the guy whose reporting on 2D, 2007 prompted Chávez’s notorious “Shit hits the F.A.N.”/Victoria de Mierda outburst after that vote. The guy has better sources inside chavismo than almost any other reporter for oppo media. He’s not a gossip columnist, he’s a proper reporter. The story is obviously insane, but then the whole situation is insane…
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Everyday they seem to be improvising more and more. Apparently, Chavez is the only one to direct access to Cuban consultants and the so called “Sala Situacional de Miraflores”. Either that, or Diosdado is out of his effin mind…or both.
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So Ismael Garcia was half right. As for the magistrate that gave an interview to SoiTV it turns out it’s Luis Velazquez Alvaray, the guy who left the country abt 5 years ago while being investigated for buying an overpriced building. He’s probably not as juicy as Dugarte but still
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And he has a new hairdo!
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Lol he as too much hair and his new hair is a little too black
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Tirar piedras, escondiendo la mano won’t hack it.
With backs against the wall,
the long knives are out.
We, the little people should pay heed.
It may be time to listen, to keep still.
May we all keep out of harm’s way
cheers
Yeah, what do I know? probly a load of crap. :-)
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“El ex director de la DIM general Hugo Carvajal se despidió de sus amigos en una hacienda en Apure, pues les confesó que se iría a Estados Unidos a reunirse con organismos de inteligencia y revelar toda la información que posee, la cual podría comprometer al Gobierno, revelaron fuentes de inteligencia. La reunión se efectuó en un fundo aledaño a la hacienda del jefe regional de la DIM, ubicadas en el sector Rabanal, en el municipio Biruaca, con cuatro personas allegadas, de mayor confianza del general, precisaron.”
Well-clued in? With all due respect, criminals planning to defect don’t gather their ‘friends’ to tell them they’re going to turn sapos. People in the drug trade at that level don’t have friends. Once in, never out – except dead or canary or, simply, disappear maybe buying a new face and pray to all the narco-saints you’re never found. Perhaps “El Pollo” is in the US, or Europe, who can say at this point with any certainty? Maybe he’s even dead, already. The people I work with describe “El Pollo” as a gopher or ‘ejecutor’ of Rangel Silva’s orders, very senior but still one or two levels below top management. But the claim in the article you linked, that Carvajal gathered his friends in Apure to tell ’em ‘Compadres, me voy a entregar a los gringos y cantar’ is nonsense. Also, right up until Chavez was revealed last June to have cancer, the ONLY dominant meme in Washington DC re Venezuela on the right was the alleged Iran-Caracas terror connection. First it was hammered away at by Norman Bailey, and then by Roger Noriega. Curiously, their common link is Martin Rodil, who worked as a Venezuelan embassy driver and a low-level official in a multilateral institution before he hooked up with Bailey. “The narco-generals are taking over after Chavez is gone” meme replaced the Iran-Caracas terror meme after Chavez’s cancer was revealed.
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Yes, the way Mr. Lugo Galicia describes the meeting is a bit weird. However, there you have Aponte Aponte, Velasquez Alvaray and many other who got the short end of the stick. They thought they were untouchables, that nothing could harm them til the bitter end.
I personally know the case of a certain army officer who was a loyal chavista. After a certain scandal showed his ugly head, Chavez gave him the boot, called him a thief and said that he should be executed. The poor guy thought that Chavez was being mislead and tried his best to get an audience with him to no avail. Only after being sent to jail did he realize that he was a fool. Una vez que pierden el oido de Chavez, estan jodidos.
People like Aponte Aponte will complain about being mistreated, or being the victims of gossips and envious people, but they do hope that Chavez will be fair and loyal to them. With Chavez absent, it wouldn’t be a surprise that Carvajal is leaking a veiled threat to force his former associates into cooperation: If chavismo doesn’t offer him protection, he’d be willing to go to the DEA, just like Aponte Aponte did. After all, if Mr. Lugo got that info, you can bet your ass that the head honchos know about it too.
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Are you suggesting the driver is a Cuban deep penetration agent?
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Both Bailey and Noriega given boot for running mouths! Noriega is the enemy within
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I recall that when Hugo Chavez first became disabled, it was because of an old parachuting injury which was acting up. And now, yet another heroic and macho Bolivaran suffwrs a similar injury!
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Slightly O/T but an “older friend” retired military instructor swears-Chavez was afraid to
jump and found excuses to get out of actually going and jumping out of planes. Yet, he bragged and was proud to be called a “paratrooper”. [Also, I was surprised weeks ago when Chavez it was reported -went to the beach with his daughter. Again, swore to me by someone that Chvez did not like the water and could not swim…
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The fact that they’re not producing him and he hasn’t appeared on any media is evidence that they don’t have him. You don’t put Diosdado on TV to prove that Carvajal is OK. And what the hell would Carvajal be doing jumping out of planes anyway? That’s easily the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day. The rats are starting to abandon ship and the old man’s about to kick the bucket.
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Why wouldn’t they say he was injured in a car wreck, or suffered a heart attack? Those would both be so plausible, and explain his inability to present himself.
It is so strange, that I almost believe their story is true. It would be such a dumb cover story, why would you make up something so stupid.
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True, stranger things have happened and it almost seems so dumb that maybe it did happen. However you’d think that Carvajal being seriously injured in a parachuting accident would’ve been reported soon after it happened and not as an effort to disprove a DEA rumor. No relatives, no armed forces statement, nothing just Diosdado’s word. Still, it makes me wonder why something that stupid would be floated as an excuse.
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I like the introduction about Ismael Garcia, “traidor blah blah et cetera et cetera…”. Is that the sound of a bona fide outraged patriot, or of a balloon rapidly deflating?
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I noticed that too – priceless! “Traitor, yaddi yadda, now to get to the point…”
The guy’s just phoning it in at this poing…
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My guess is that they just don’t know where he is…and they’re nervous.
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Yes, phoned-in and nervous pretty much sums it up. And incoherent.
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Ricardo koessling twitted last week the same parachute story. Additionaly eligió cedeño said he was in a clínic as well. Carvajal is a secretive character with very few public appearances so I don’t think they’d parade him around. But as juan said i think we should all spread these rumours around to fuck with their heads, they’ve been driving us crazy for 13 years! I want some payback!
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^ this.
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Drug racket? And you think, no matter what the context, that anything will change without legalization?
Geez I thought you guys read the economist.
The next big revolution in Latin America will be against the bullshit started by Nixon, and it will be nasty, and out of it will rise the Bolivarian dream, the real one, well at least minus the bs imposed by current affairs. Get with the program. Hope HCR reads this shit!
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Quico, Jorge dice que aunque no cumple con ningunos de tus requerimientos sigue de vago… Carrés rouges à la chasse des tigres. Eso sí, dice que él es socialista y sólo trabaja 35 horas por semana.
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“A ellos no les importa para nada la tranquilidad del país, y mucho menos la tranquilidad de la familia.”
Sounds like a mafia threat from a movie…
—
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