Red Terror File: Norwegian terror attacks Soviet secret services “wet job”: Kremlin-run Novosti quotes Belarusian opposition: Neo-fascist mass murderer Breivik trained at “secret paramilitary camp” in Belarus in early 2011, Belarusian KGB codename “Viking”

Blogger’s Note: Put down your coffee. This post rates a “Spew Alert.” KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn’s remarkable 26-year-old predictions about the bogus collapse of Soviet communism have been confirmed in spades yet again. See this blog’s left column for background data. Full story follows . . .

Today, the Kremlin-run media, in a rare burst of candor that somehow slipped past Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s censors, dropped a bombshell. Novosti admits that Norwegian neo-fascist terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who bombed and gunned down 76 adults and youths last Friday, trained at a “secret paramilitary field camp” in the former Soviet republic of Belarus earlier this year.

After his arrest, self-confessed killer Breivik indicated that his intention was to “save Norway” from drowning in a wave of Muslim immigration by inflicting maximum damage to the “communist-infiltrated” Labour Party. The summer camp where he mercilessly shot up more than 60 teen age participants was operated by Norway’s ruling party.

“Breivik visited Belarus several times,” Mikhail Reshetnikov, leader of the opposition Belarusian Party of Patriots, told the Gazeta.ru online newspaper. “This spring, as part of his preparations for his twin attacks, he visited Minsk, where he underwent training at a secret paramilitary field camp.” Reshetnikov cited sources within Belarus’ “security organs,” meaning the Committee for State Security, which still bears its ominous Soviet-era name: KGB.

In his 1,500-page online manifesto, Breivik mentioned that he had visited Belarus to study the effects of fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The former Soviet republic’s state border agency confirms the Norwegian was in Belarus from March 4 to March 11, 2005. Concerning his more recent activities in Belarus, Minsk authorities are mum.

Reshetnikov claimed that earlier this year Breivik participated in “sabotage-terrorism drills” under the tutelage of a “former” Belarusian special service officer and that he had used a fake passport to enter Belarus. “His codename in Belarus’s KGB was Viking,” he added. “Rumors say he also had a girlfriend in Belarus.”

“The theory that Belarus’ special forces were involved in training Anders Breivik seems, of course, far-fetched,” demurred political expert Viktor Demidov to Gazeta.ru. “On the other hand, [Belarusian] President Alexander Lukashenko’s friendship with Muammar Gaddafi is no secret – neither is his fondness for Adolf Hitler.” Norway, notes Novosti, is taking part in NATO air strikes against Libya and embattled dictator Qaddafi has threatened attacks against Europe.

In view of this amazing revelation that exposes a possible conspiracy between Moscow, Minsk, and Tripoli, no one should be surprised that the Kremlin spin doctors have denounced Breivik’s open admiration for Putin. Nor should we be surprised that the boss of the pro-Lukashenko Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus disavows ever meeting Breivik. No doubt, too, some inconveniently honest apparatchik at Novosti will be shipped off to Putin’s neo-gulag or possibly executed in the basement of the Lubyanka.

On that note, while the West’s blind, deaf, and mute leaders continue to wistfully believe that Soviet communism is dead and buried, we begin our summer vacation . . . Have a nice day, comrade.

Grey Terror File: Self-admitted Norwegian bomber/ gunman linked to “ex”-Soviet Bloc: Hooked up with Serbian “nationalists” in 2002; visited Belarus in 2005, bemoans effects of Chernobyl disaster; travelled to Prague in 2010 to purchase arms

– “Right-Wing Extreme Nationalist” Wanted to Save Norway from Islam and “Cultural Marxism”

– Breivik Admired Vladimir Putin, Kremlin Spokesman Swiftly Denounces Norwegian Terrorist as “Devil Incarnate”

– Kremlinologists Who Hold to Golitsynian Thesis Must Consider Possibility Breivik “Cut Out” for East Bloc Secret Services

Last Friday, in the worst act of terrorism in Norway since the Nazi occupation more than 65 years ago, a powerful fertilizer-fuel bomb hidden in a Volkswagen Crafter panel van exploded in sedate downtown Oslo, near the offices of the prime minister, Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, and Ministry of Finance. The Telegraph reports on the shocking devastation in the Norwegian capital:

At the scene of the blast on Saturday, the carnage was evident. Windows were blown out in buildings as far as five blocks away while in the immediate vicinity of Grubbegata Street, which runs alongside the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and the Prime Minister’s office, there was utter devastation.

The road and the pavements around the building were still covered in twisted metal and broken glass yesterday while official documents blown out of offices by the force of the explosion still lay strewn in the street. Other buildings badly damaged included the nearby Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health.

Eight people, including at least two civil servants, were killed. Norway’s center-left prime minister, Labour Party member Jens Stoltenberg, was unharmed in the blast. Norway’s finance minister, Sigbjørn Johnsen, was vacationing in Denmark at the time. Police believe the bomb was likely detonated by a timer device rather than by more sophisticated remote control.

Approximately 90 minutes after the Oslo explosion, a gunman impersonating a police officer boarded a ferry at Tyrifjorden, a lake 25 miles northwest of the capital, and sailed to the island of Utøya, where the Labour Party’s annual youth summer camp meets. Beckoning the young attendees toward him, the gunmen opened fire with several weapons and, over the next hour and a half proceeded without hindrance to stalk and mow down 68, mostly teen-age, camp participants. One security guard was killed.

When Norway’s counter-terrorist unit finally arrived, detained by a lack of suitable air transport, 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik–described in various official statements as a “right-wing extreme nationalist” and even as a “Christian fundamentalist”–peacefully surrendered, admitting to his deed, but denying any criminal wrongdoing.

Breivik was previously a member of Norway’s Progress Party (FrP), which promotes libertarian, conservative, and right-wing populist viewpoints, and its youth wing, FpU. According to current FpU leader Ove Vanebo, Breivik was an active member in the early 2000s, but left the party in 2007 as his viewpoints became more extreme. He eventually “lost all faith” in the Progress Party.

Behind self-confessed mass murderer Breivik lurks a shady “former” Soviet Bloc connection that began at least 10 years ago, when he came into contact with “cultural conservatives” in Eastern Europe. In light of the Soviet strategic deception, it should be remembered that many Eastern European “rightists” began their political careers as communist cadres or as secret police agents or informers.

In a 1,500-page manifesto titled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” which he posted on the Internet just hours before his attacks, Breivik laments the Islamization of Norway and Europe in general, denounces “cultural Marxism,” describes Norway’s ruling Labour Party as “communist infiltrated,” rips off entire phrases from the Unabomber’s anti-technology rant, condemns the NATO war against Serbia in 1999, and discloses his membership in a crypto-Masonic organization called the Knights Templar.

Breivik, who was actually a member of Norway’s Grand Lodge until his hasty official expulsion this past weekend, describes a secret meeting in London, held in 2002, to reconstitute the Knights Templar, a medieval military order that pledged its loyalty to the Pope of Rome. Breivik explains that he had come into contact with Serbian “cultural conservatives” on the Internet and then with “other key individuals across Europe.” He wrote:

I met with them for the first time in London… the founding session in London, 2002. I was the youngest one there, 23 years old at the time. One of the key founders
instructed the rest of the group about several topics related to the goal of the organisation. I believe I scribbled down more than 50 full pages of notes regarding all possible related topics. Much of these notes are forwarded in the book 2083. It was basically a detailed long term plan on how to seize power in Western Europe.

In his diatribe, Breivik describes the new “Knights Templar” as a “cultural Christian” organization that intended to “seize political and military control of Western European countries and implement a cultural conservative political agenda.” Of course, students of communism know that an alleged “vast right-wing conspiracy,” to quote Hillary Clinton, is the bête noire of leftists everywhere.

Breivik then reveals that he had been preparing his “operation” since in late 2009, when he set up a farming business, apparently to provide cover for the discreet acquisition of fertilizer and other off-the-shelf bomb-making components. Instructions on how to build a home-made bomb are readily available on the Internet. Police searching Breivik’s farm found three tons of artificial fertilizer, suggesting as much as three tons went into making the Oslo bomb. On July 24, a Norwegian agricultural supply company, Felleskjopet, said they delivered fertilizer to the farm on May 4, only 10 weeks before Breivik’s rampage.

In addition to rubbing elbows with Serbian nationalists, the Norwegian terrorist made several forays into the “former” Soviet Bloc.

In late August and early September 2010, Breivik spent six days in the Czech Republic because the “ex”-communist state has one of the most “relaxed” laws regarding guns and drugs in the European Union. He noted in his manifesto that “Prague is known for maybe being the most important transit site point for illicit drugs and weapons in Europe.”

Breivik hollowed out the rear seats of his Hyundai Atos in order to create a hidden compartment for the firearms he hoped to buy in the Czech Republic. After two days in Prague, he obtained a prospectus for a mineral extraction business, in order to create an alibi in case he was suspected of preparing a terrorist attack. Breivik was particularly interested in buying an AK-47 assault rifle, a Glock pistol, hand-grenades, and a rocket-propelled grenade.

While in Prague, Breivik paid for the services of prostitutes, acquired several fake police badges to wear with a police uniform, which he had acquired illegally on the Internet and which he later wore during the attack at Utøya. Contrary to his expectations, he was unable to obtain any firearms in the Czech Republic, commenting that this was the “first major setback in [his] operation.” In the end, it appears that Breivik acquired his Ruger Mini 14 semi-automatic rifle and Glock pistol legally in Norway.

Intriguingly, in his manifesto Breivik admits that he visited Belarus and studied the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko. The Kremlin media acknowledges this took place in 2005. Referencing the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, which affected the Soviet Socialist Republics of Ukraine and Byelorussia, he complains:

The majority of people were irradiated as a direct result of the fact that the Soviet Union did not want to evacuate people (one week’s delay) and did not prevent the distribution of irradiated agricultural goods. Moreover, the dictatorship in Belarus [Lukashenko] intentionally continues distributing agricultural goods from the radiation zone. I was in Belarus and I can personally confirm this. I personally spoke with dozens of people who have no choice but to consume irradiated goods. Sixty percent of the radiation fell on the territory of Belarus and the dictatorship continues to intentionally feed its population with irradiated products.

Breivik divides Europeans into three races, including Belarus among those countries with a high percentage of Nordic people. He writes that Belarus–especially the northern part–was about 55 percent Nordic before 1900 but is presently about 30 percent. By 2070, he predicts that figure will be no more than 15 percent. In a list of nationalist parties in Eastern Europe, Breivik includes Syarhey Haidukevich’s Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus, which is linked to the similarly named party in Russia. Haidukevich denies having ever met Breivik.

Founded in 1989, Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party of Russia was one of the first potemkin parties founded during the era of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union. There is evidence that Zhirinovsky is a KGB/FSB agent who was tasked with creating a false opposition party to promote the illusion of democracy in the Soviet system.

Of the European Union, Breivik writes: “The first country that tries to escape the hegemony of the EUSSR and USA will face considerable problems. That is why I don’t think Italy or any other small country will have the courage to go first. Even Serbia chose the protection of the EUSSR/USA instead of risking becoming another Belarus.” He expressed support for Israel, probably because of his anti-Muslim stance.

Meanwhile, a Polish chemical company that sold fertilizer to Breivik insists that the transaction was entirely legal, but Polish police have opened an investigation. “According to our experts, the materials bought in Poland were not critical for the construction of the bomb,” soothed Pawel Bialek, deputy head of the Internal Security Agency (ABW), at a news conference. “At this stage, the information and materials we have do not indicate that the relations with the terrorist were anything other than commercial.”

Bialek elaborated that the owner of the company was “cooperating fully” with the authorities in their investigation, adding that the firm sold over 100 kilograms of one substance and several hundred grams of another to the Norwegian. The transaction was made over the Internet and, Bialek confirmed, there is no evidence that Breivik ever visited Poland. The last point is interesting in view of Breivik’s admission that at one time he visited Belarus, which borders Poland to the east.

Significantly, in his manifesto Breivik expresses admiration for Vladimir Putin, himself an open admirer of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. He describes Russia’s “ex”-communist prime minister as “a fair and resolute leader worth of respect,” but adds  that he was “unsure at this point whether he [Putin] has the potential to be our [the West’s?] best friend or our worst enemy.” After the Norwegian tragedy, Kremlin spokesentity Dmitry Peskov was quick to decry Breivik’s manifesto as the “delirium of a madman” and Breivik as the “devil incarnate.”

In conclusion, we must consider the very real possibility that Breivik, during his strategy sessions with Serbian “nationalists,” his known foray to the Czech Republic, and self-admitted journey to Belarus, fell under the control of East Bloc secret services, especially the Belarusian KGB, which collaborates with the Russian FSB. We must also consider the possibility that Breivik, whom the media is now calling “insane” or possibly a drug addict, is, like the radical Muslims he opposes, another convenient “cut out” for the Moscow Leninists to sow left-right discord in Western Europe ahead of the Fourth World War.

NOTE: We expect this to be our last post until mid-August. Summer vacation has arrived.

Communist Bloc Military Updates: Belarusian, Red Chinese paratroopers conduct 10-day exercise in former Soviet republic; first time PLA troops near NATO border, Belarus adjacent to ex-Warsaw Pact state Poland

Since the beginning of the year, the former Soviet republic of Belarus has been in a considerable state of political and economic turmoil related in part to its large trade deficit and the devaluation of the Belarusian ruble. “Ex”-communist dictator Alexander Lukashenko desperately requires outside cash infusions and cheap natural gas from Russia, Belarus’ only reliable ally, to prop up his country’s ailing Soviet-style command economy.

In order to deflect domestic anger away from his mismanagement of the country and the fraudulent results of last year’s presidential election, which handed a fourth term to Lukashenko, Comrade Alex has unleashed the Belarusian KGB in a string of vicious crackdowns on the opposition.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, which has toppled dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt and threatens to overthrow those in Libya and Yemen, democrats in Europe are once again urging Belarusians to rise up and overthrow Lukashenko. In the midst of this unrest, Comrade Alex has invited Red China to participate in joint “anti-terrorism” drills with the Belarusian armed forces. Belarus shares a border with Poland, a former Warsaw Pact state that is now part of NATO.

On July 5, an 83-strong special task force of paratroopers of the People’s Liberation Army arrived in Baranovichi, where they held a 10-day exercise with Belarusian counterparts, overcoming “challenges of language, geography and climate to accomplish the planned task with close cooperation and coordination.” On or around July 15, the PLA airborne troops flew back to Urumqi, capital city of Red China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

“It was not only the first drills conducted jointly by soldiers from the Chinese and Belorussian armed forces, but also the first occasion for Chinese paratroopers to leave the country for joint training with foreign soldiers,” reports Red China’s state media, adding:

The two armed forces trained together in counterterrorism, and the two-phased drills included training in mixed units and comprehensive exercises . . . The first phase of
the drills included an obstacle course, hand-to-hand combat, parachuting, combat firing and anti-terrorism tactics. During the second phase, paratroopers encircled and eliminated “terrorists” by combining parachuting and tactical air landing operations.

According to Red China’s defense ministry, “the joint-training exercise serves to consolidate the traditional friendship between China and Belarus and enrich cooperation between the armed forces of the two countries . . .” The PLA contingent in Belarus was relatively small, but raises the spectre of future military drills involving Red Chinese troops in Europe.

Neither Belarus nor Communist China belong to the same “post”-Soviet regional organizations. However, Belarus is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, while the People’s Republic of China is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. For its part, Russia is a member of both military alliances. The SCO and CSTO have inked several memoranda of understanding, thus providing a political framework within which Minsk and Beijing can cooperate side by side with the more powerful Moscow-Beijing Axis. The latter will once again flex its military muscles some time before the end of the year in the planned Peace Mission 2011 combined maneuver.

Lately, Red China has actively promoted relations with the former communist state of Poland.

Latin America File: Peru’s left-nationalist president-elect touches base with Castros, Chavez on regional tour, disavows ALBA (for now); Bolivia’s chief of general staff flies to Havana to promote military cooperation among ALBA member states

Peru’s left-nationalist president-elect, Ollanta Humala, who successfully dodged accusations of a cozy relationship with Venezuela’s communist dictator Hugo Chavez during this year’s election campaign, but which was evident in a previous bid for power in 2006, arrived in Caracas on July 15 for a briefing with his mentor. Like ex-paratrooper Chavez in 1992, Humala is a former military man who instigated a failed coup in 2000, against then President Alberto “Fujishock” Fujimori.

“I have come as a friend and a brother; and this brotherhood leads us to a similar future,” gushed Humala, an advocate of Latin American integration who triumphed over Fujimori’s daughter in a June run-off vote. Referring to Chavez’s battle with cancer, Humala continued: “We are giving you support. Please count on our forces and the prayers of the Peruvian people, who want your recovery because you have a mission to accomplish.” Incidentally, if Humala intends to lead the people of Peru to a “similar future” presently enslaving Venezuelans, then Peruvians will be staring Chavismo (Bolivarian communism) in the face in the not-too-distant future.

During his election campaign, Humala disavowed any immediate intention of linking Peru to the Havana/Caracas-led Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), a bloc of eight socialist states in Latin America and the Caribbean Basin, but seemed to leave the possibility open for the future. “We have no intentions of joining ALBA or any other mechanism at this moment, but rather reinforce the integration process with Unasur [Union of South American Nations] and consolidate the Andean Community of Nations, CAN,” he announced in April.

However, this is probably a ruse to quash the concerns of Peruvian businessmen and international investors since Humala praised ALBA in 2006. El Salvador’s FMLN president, Mauricio Funes, has likewise dodged the issue of joining ALBA, even though his vice president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren–a doctrinaire Leninist, arch-assassin, and former guerrilla commander who is widely perceived to be the “power behind the throne”–strongly supports accession to ALBA.

In what could be a diversionary tactic, last month Humala, while visiting Bolivian President Evo Morales, advocated the federation of Peru and Bolivia. The two countries were previously united as one state between 1836 and 1839. “I dream of the reunification of Peru and Bolivia. I dream of the moment when the border line disappears and we are again a single nation,” said Humala, adding: “It is important to understand that the development of Peru also involves, in all ways the development of Bolivia and vice-versa.” Morales is a self-avowed “Marxist-Leninist” and a key player in the promotion and expansion of ALBA, prompting a pro-business secessionist movement in Bolivia’s rich lowland states.

On July 19, at the invitation of Cuban President Raul Castro, Humala winged his way north, over the Caribbean Sea, to Havana for a working visit  with the island’s communist leaders, including retired dictator Fidel, the barely living inspiration for communist demagogues and Hollyweird troublemakers. Welcomed at Jose Marti International Airport by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, Humala announced: “I come to visit a sister nation.” Humala told reporters that he will meet with President Castro to discuss an open agenda. Peru, where the Shining Path rebellion still simmers, and Cuba have cooperation programs in the areas of health, education, and sports.

While visiting the communist island state, Humala spoke by telephone with Chavez, who had returned to Havana for chemotherapy treatments. In June, the Venezuelan leader spent about three weeks in a Cuban hospital, recovering from surgery that removed a cancerous tumor.

Humala’s regional tour included Cuba and Venezuela, but he also touched down in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the USA, all of which are governed by center-left/communist regimes. Among those few countries in the Western Hemisphere that have center-right regimes, Humala made pit stops in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico.

In Lima, former president Alejandro Toledo and a past political ally of Humala urged Peruvians to be wary of the military officer-turned-politician:

Let me be clear: I am against the politics and style of Hugo Chavez, and I will not allow Peru to become another Venezuela or Nicaragua. Humala has moved well into the centre and has taken many of his policies from ours. However, there will be no co-government, no ministers from my political group. I know it’s a complicated and delicate relation because of the president-elect alleged close relations with the [leftist] administrations of Hugo Chavez, [Nicaraguan President] Daniel Ortega, [Ecuadorean President] Rafael Correa and Evo Morales.

Earlier this month, in another sign that the member armed forces of ALBA are closing ranks against their arch-enemy in Washington, the chief of the general staff of the Bolivian armed forces, Admiral Armando Pacheco, flew to Havana for a five-day working visit. The Bolivian delegation was officially welcomed by Major General Pedro Mendiondo Gomez, chief of antiaircraft and air defense of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba (FAR). Pacheco told communist party organ Granma that “countries like Bolivia and Cuba are united by a long history and suggested that the two countries’ armed forces should strengthen exchange.” The Bolivian admiral and his entourage will visit various military units and higher military schools of FAR.

Incidentally, before losing territory to Chile in 1879, land-locked Bolivia boasted a shore along South America’s Pacific coast. The Bolivian armed forces maintains a small naval force that patrols the country’s rivers and lakes. Bolivia’s annual armed forces day is called the “Day of the Sea.”

Last November, Antonio Cueto Calderon, commanding general of Bolivia’s army, announced: “We declare ourselves anti-imperialist because in Bolivia there can exist no external power imposing itself. We also declare ourselves anti-capitalist because this system is destroying Mother Earth.” The Bolivian military’s commitment to defending socialism was further consolidated in June when ALBA established a military school in Bolivia to indoctrinate member armed forces in neo-Marxism and “Latin Americanism.”

In early July, reports emerged from several Venezuelan sources, including Caracas’ past top general, that up to 2,000 Cuban troops had arrived in country to ostensibly participate in Venezuela’s bicentennial independence celebrations, but in reality to shore up the Chavez regime while the Venezuelan leader undergoes cancer treatments in Havana.

In actuality, over the last several years a number of stories have trickled into the MSM announcing the presence of Cuban military advisors in Venezuela, where they have been training their Venezuelan counterparts in combat techniques and occupying important posts in Caracas’ military high command, and intelligence and citizen monitoring agencies. In a July 20, 2011 article, the Wall Street Journal reports on the pervasive Cuban influence in the Venezuelan government and military:

During his tenure, Mr. Chávez has tried to indoctrinate the Venezuelan military, bringing on thousands of advisers to replicate Cuban military doctrine, and to deal with security and intelligence issues. Cuban officers are deeply involved in intelligence and security matters in Venezuela, from the acquisition of military equipment to overall military strategy, according to people with knowledge of the matter. One source estimates the number of Cuban intelligence experts working in Venezuela at 3,000.

This does not include the well-publicized significant presence of Cuban medical and educational professionals on Venezuelan soil.

Red Dawn Alert: Castro, Chavez smuggle 1,700-2,000 Cuban troops into Venezuela aboard Caracas’ C-130 Hercules transports, shore up Chavez regime as Hugo returns to Havana for chemotherapy; Cuban commander vet of Angolan civil war

Pictured here: On July 5, representatives of Latin America’s Red Axis congregate in Caracas to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Venezuela’s (fast-diminishing) independence. Bolivian President Evo Morales (third left) laughs with Hugo Chavez’s foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro (right), and Paraguay’s ex-bishop president, Fernando Lugo (second left), as Uruguay’s ex-guerrilla president, Jose Mujica, looks on.

Following Hugo Chavez’s extended medical stay in Havana, during which time he revealed his battle with cancer, and in the light of a possible return to Cuba for chemotherapy, Cuba’s communist dictatorship is anxious to shore up its ally in Caracas. The Cubapolidata blog, citing Venezuela’s former top general, reports that Presidents Raul Castro and Chavez have smuggled 1,700-2,000 Cuban troops into Venezuela under the guise of participating in Venezuela’s bicentennial celebrations:

General Carlos Julio Peñaloza, the former chief of the Unified Command of Venezuela’s Armed Forces, tweeted Sunday (July 3rd) about the arrival of Cuban troops in Port Cabello in Venezuela for the bicentennial independence celebration on Monday (July 4). In a subsequent tweet dated July 5, the general said there are 2000 Cuban troops in the country with the excuse of participating in Monday’s military parade. Will this near battalion strength formation make a permanent presence to shore up Chavez’s security if a threat materializes to his regime?

The reported Cuban military presence in Venezuela, which has been confirmed through other sources, appears to be a little reminder to Chavez’s opposition that a repeat of the events of 2002, which almost dislodged Comrade Hugo from power, will not be tolerated. According to In Defense of Neoliberalism, journalist Patricia Poleo, who writes for El Nuevo Pais, has “denounced the arrival of 1,700 soldiers from the Cuban military commanded by Generals Wilfredo Rodriguez and Julio Casas Regueiro. The troops were brought into the country via Hercules aircraft from the Venezuelan Air Force.” The same source continues:

General Julio Casas Regueiro is the First Vice Minister of the Cuban Armed Revolutionary Forces and a veteran of Angola. He is a very dangerous man, whose photograph is being provided to facilitate the citizens’ duty to capture him at all costs, detain him, and force him to explain the motives behind his command of Cuban troops occupying our territory. He must be captured and tried according to international laws that pertain to prisoners of war.

The original deployment of Cuban forces appears to have taken place on June 29, but this news has yet to trickle into the MSM. The Venezuelan air force operates six C-130 Hercules transports, each of which can carry about 70 fully equipped soldiers or paratroopers, necessitating at least four flights for each aircraft to transport 1,700 Cuban troops to the South American country. The Venezuelan air force is awaiting delivery of two Russian-built Ilyushin Il-76 heavy airlifters

According to International News Analysis, the communist regimes in Havana and Caracas established a military defense pact in 2005, which is an important development in the militarization of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). Last month, the ALBA bloc of socialist states founded a military school in Bolivia for the purpose of indoctrinating member armed forces in neo-Marxism and “Latin Americanism.”

Communist Bloc Military Updates: Russia to deploy two army brigades to Murmansk, Arkhangelsk to defend Arctic oil and gas claim; Moscow, Beijing to hold fifth combined “Peace Mission” exercise in 2011

– Reds in Space: Kremlin Gloats over Space Launch Supremacy as NASA Winds Down Successful 30-Year-Old Shuttle Program with No Manned Orbital Lift Capacity until at Least 2015

– Useful Idiots Bin: The Nepmen at MGM Capitulate to Beijing, Alter Invading Communist Hordes in Red Dawn V2.0 from Chinese to North Koreans

Pictured here: STS-135: The space shuttle Atlantis blasts off from the Kennedy Space Center on July 8, 2011, beginning the last flight of the 30-year-old space shuttle program.

According to a report published by Communist China’s state media last December, Moscow and Beijing plan to hold their fifth combined “Peace Mission” military exercise some time this year.  The first four, which took place in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2010, reinforced the inter-operational capacities of the Russian Armed Forces and the People’s Liberation Army, as well as the ideological anti-Western solidarity of the two communist superpowers. During Peace Mission 2007, Vladimir Putin, then president of the Russian Federation, announced the resumption of strategic bomber patrols that were a regular feature of the Cold War animosity between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

Together, the Moscow-Beijing Axis, formally inaugurated in 2001 with the Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendship, represents the “one clenched fist” of communism predicted by Anatoliy Golitsyn more than a quarter of a century ago in his first book, New Lies for Old (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1984). In this remarkably prescient work, the former KGB major, who was privy to the clandestine workings of the “inner KGB,” warned the West that the Soviet communists would feign their demise, quietly back the creation of a “neutral socialist Europe,” aggressively undermine the USA’s role in NATO, and then end the feigned “Sino-Soviet split” in an open alliance. Since the demise of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991, this is precisely what has happened in Eurasia.

In December, Jiang Yu, spokeswoman for the foreign ministry of the People’s Republic of China, declined to confirm Russian media reports that the two countries, allied under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, will hold joint land, sea, and air drills in the Sea of Japan and Far East border region. “Those drills,” Jiang said, referring to the previous Peace Mission maneuvers, “which were designed to improve responsiveness to new threats and challenges, deepen bilateral strategic coordination and expand military ties, strengthening both sides’ capabilities.” She added: “All the exercises contributed to safeguarding regional peace and stability.” Together, the Russian Strategic Missile Forces and the PLA, with its increasing strategic airlift capacity, which now includes 20 Russian-built Ilyushin Il-76s with 30 on order, are a formidable military combination.

At the same time, in order to enforce its claim over much of the Arctic Ocean seabed and the untapped oil and gas reserves there, the Kremlin intends to deploy two army brigades to Murmansk or Arkhangelsk, near Finland and Norway. Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov insists that he has yet to work out the details of the deployment, such as troop numbers, weapon types, and base locations, but in the Russian Ground Forces a brigade includes at least 2,000 soldiers.

The Russian Federation and its circumpolar neighbors–the USA (Alaska), Canada, Norway, and Denmark (Greenland)–have asserted jurisdiction over parts of the north polar region, leading to diplomatic squabbles more than anything else. On June 30, Putin, prime minister of Russia since 2008, held out the usual velvet-gloved fist, saying that Russia “remains open for dialogue,” but will “strongly and persistently” defend its interests in the region.

A Russian paratrooper drop in the Arctic a la “Ice Station Zebra,” scheduled for the spring of 2010, failed to materialize, but news of this planned Kremlin stunt provoked Canada, which is normally prickly about its sovereignty in its chilly northern archipelago, even with respect to its closest ally, the USA.

Meanwhile, Russia is no doubt gloating over its space launch supremacy over the USA, a development that came about by accident, more than anything else, as NASA winds down the 30-year-old space shuttle program with the launch of the Atlantis this past Friday. The 135^th and final space shuttle flight successfully achieved orbit and rendezvoused with the International Space Station, where astronauts installed a giant cargo pod, known as the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, to the Earth-facing port of the station’s Harmony “node.”

Henceforth, the USA–which can barely afford to finance its own space program in the shadow of a looming Greece-style default crisis–will have to fork over US$51 million per seat to the Kremlin’s space agency, Roskosmos, so US astronauts can hitch a ride aboard Russia’s veteran, single-use Soyuz space capsules. NASA does not expect to have the capacity to launched manned spacecraft into orbit until at least 2015, at which time the US space agency, motivated by a new vision, will turn its attention toward returning to the Moon.

Russia’s perceived victory in the 54-year-old space race is, by its own admission, dubious. “We cannot say that we have won the space race, but simply that we have reached the end of a certain stage,” demurred Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of the Russian space agency, in an interview. “I cannot think today of another international space project that is so effective in its scale, its significance and its results as the ISS,” he added.

“While Russia gains a symbolic victory,” reports the AFP news agency, “it will be a costly one, with the obligation to build more space ships to go back and forth to the ISS eating up a budget that could be spent on other projects.” Russian space industry expert Igor Marinin commented to AFP: “The situation is not very convenient because it lays a heavy burden on Roskosmos’s production capacities.” This year, Roskosmos declared its budget as US$3 billion, a fraction of NASA’s massive US$18.5 billion budget. The Kremlin’s space agency has also lately faced some embarrassing setbacks, including the failure of several satellite launches that led to the sacking of the long-serving space chief Anatoly Perminov in April. Russia also faces new rivals, notably the PRC, which in 2003 became the third country in the world to send a “taikonaut” into space in its own rocket.

Incidentally, in recent months the northern tier of South America has become the little-reported focus by the USA’s enemies of much space-related construction and activity. Next year, for example, Red China will launch a second “socialist” satellite for Hugo Chavez, with whom Beijing enjoys a strategic partnership. In nearby French Guiana, Russia, rather troublingly, has built a spaceport from which it hopes to launch satellites into geosynchronous orbit, beginning in August of this year.

In this light, the Pentagon should very seriously consider the possibility that Moscow, especially, could use South America as a platform to lob ballistic missiles at CONUS. Indeed, although Chavez decries the accuracy of such news reports, Germany’s Die Welt alleges that Iranian technicians have already scoped out a site in Venezuela where they hope to construct underground silos that will one day fire medium-ranged missiles capable of striking the southern USA.

Finally, movie company MGM has capitulated to the PRC’s “market socialism” by massaging the long-awaited Red Dawn remake, which was originally due to be released last November. Red Dawn V2.0 was to depict a Communist Chinese invasion of the USA. The original Red Dawn, which hit the screens when your resident blogger was 16 years old, starred Patrick Swayze (who died in 2009), Charlie Sheen, and Jennifer Grey as Colorado teens who, with a little help from a downed US Air Force pilot played by Powers Boothe, fend off the Soviet Armed Forces and their Latin American allies.

In creating the updated version, MGM filmmakers scoured the globe for a new “red menace” since, Fox News sagely pontificates, “Russia is no longer red or a major threat to United States’ security.” Oblivious to the Soviet strategic deception plan, Fox blathers on: “It seems unlikely that ‘Red Dawn’ would be a major hit in the Asian country even with the digital adjustments. But the changes are bigger than just one film for MGM. They are about creating good faith with the Chinese market as a whole.”

With some post-production “digital editing,” therefore, MGM’s “magicians” transformed the invading communist hordes from Chinese to North Koreans, even though Pyongyang has no air- or sea-lift capacity to credibly launch an invasion of North America and, in fact, is unable to feed its own army. “China is one of the fastest growing markets, so yeah, it is a big deal,” says Hollywood Reporter senior film writer Pamela McClintock. “Avatar did $200 million there and the Chinese box office brings in $1.47 billion annually.” Indeed, money talks, comrade.

As an aside, I was initially excited about viewing the Red Dawn remake, but I think I’ll pass. Hollywood has once again sacrificed a credible (Final Phase-themed) plot line on the altar of Mammon. Perhaps, the Nepmen at MGM should attend the next Sino-Russian Peace Mission military exercise (see above), or maybe they should tour the 30,000-acre “special economic zone” (city?) that Red China plans to build near Boise, Idaho, for a “refresher course” on the global communist threat.

North Africa/Middle East Files: NATO-backed Libyan insurgents inch closer to Tripoli, prepare for final assault against Qaddafi; Russia decries French arms drops to Berber tribes; Obama urges Saleh to yield power to Yemen’s communist-led opposition coalition

– Yemeni Southern Secessionist Military Officer: Saleh Cynically Using Jihadists, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to Thwart Socialist Takeover

Pictured here: Anti-Saleh protesters in Taiz, Yemen on April 13, 2011. Note Che Guevara mugshot. Insurgents worldwide, including the Student Left, look to the Argentine-born communist and Castro bud for inspiration.

On Friday, NATO-backed Libyan rebels announced that they would soon be in a position to launch a final military assault against Tripoli, where socialist dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi has been holed up since mid-February, relying heavily on Eastern European and sub-Saharan mercenaries, as well as Polisario Front guerrillas to fend off rebel ground attacks and NATO air strikes. Loyalist troops still hold two key cities west of the capital, Zawiyah and Zuwarah.

After heavy fighting, rebel fighters captured the hamlet of Gualish last Wednesday, bringing them closer to the strategic garrison town of Gharyan, the last major government-held redoubt standing between them and Tripoli to the north.  “Three times we tried to take Gualish before we succeeded,” 21-year-old rebel fighter, Mohial Omar crowed on Saturday.  The objective, 28-year-old Talal Ahmed, another rebel fighter, confirmed, is to head straight for Gharyan, which lies on the main highway 80 kilometers south of Tripoli.  “Once we control that city, Gaddafi will no longer be able to receive weapons from the south, nor will he be able to flee in that direction,” Ahmed bragged.

On Friday, Colonel Qaddafi ranted in a radio broadcast that “the regime in Libya will not fall. It is based on the people, not on Gaddafi.” In another defiant speech before
thousands in Tripoli’s Green Square, the arch-terrorist who ordered the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, once again threatened to send hundreds of Libyans to the European Union where they would carry out terrorist attacks.  “I told you it is eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth,” he foamed.

The rebel National Transitional Council (TNC), which enjoys substantial international recognition, including from the USA, Russia, and Red China, is based in Benghazi, Libya’s largest eastern city. Algeria’s socialist dictatorship neither recognizes the rebel government nor has it demanded Qaddafi’s resignation.  Indeed, this week Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of the TNC, accused Algeria of providing air support for Qaddafi loyalists during the early days of the five-month-long civil war.

For their part, Moscow and Beijing have both criticized the NATO campaign in recent weeks, pointing out that the air strikes have gone well beyond the parameters of United Nations resolution 1973, which simply imposes a no-fly zone over Libya.  Russia, in particular, is not happy about French arms drops to anti-regime forces among the country’s Berber tribes, who have historically opposed the Qaddafi regime.  “If this is confirmed, it is a very crude violation of UN Security Council resolution 1970,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rumbled on June 30, ahead of a meeting with French counterpart Alain Juppe in Moscow. Incidentally, UNSC resolution 1970 is different from 1973. The former imposes sanctions on Libya.

“It appeared that in certain zones the security situation was extremely tense for these undefended populations,” retorted French military spokesman Thierry Burkhard, justifying Paris’ decision to arm the Berbers.  Burkhard said the supplies were limited to ammunition and “light arms,” including machine guns and rocket launchers.  He denied a report in Le Figaro newspaper that the arms drops included anti-tank missiles.

The African Union, which Qaddafi formerly head up as chairman, has also criticized the French arms drops, cautioning that such interference risks causing a “Somalia-ization” of Libya. Somalia has been in a state of anarchy for 20 years, ever since Siad Barre’s communist dictatorship collapsed.

The revolt against Qaddafi’s 42-year-old dictatorship is part of a wider eruption of anti-regime protests across North Africa and the Middle East, dubbed the “Arab Spring,” that began in earnest in January. The popular uprisings, tinged with an Islamist hue, began in Tunisia and Egypt, ousting the socialist dictatorships there, and spread to Syria and Yemen, where security forces responded in heavy-handed fashion, gunning down hundreds, if not thousands.

On the Arabian Peninsula, the Obama White House is anxious to restore law and order to Yemen, a key ally in the War on Terror, at least under the long-standing dictatorship of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. On June 3, Hashed tribesman under the leadership of Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar launched a rocket attack against the presidential compound, severely injuring Saleh and other top government officials, who were evacuated to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment. The same month, in the southern part of the country, thousands of Al Qaeda militants seized Zinjibar and Jaar and have controlled these towns and other parts of Abyan province ever since.

Amidst Yemen’s chaos, the best-organized political force appears to be the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), which ruled Communist South Yemen until 1990, when the Yemen Arab Republic and People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen united under terms mostly favourable to Saleh’s pragmatic pro-Moscow administration.  In 1994, a brief civil war erupted between the north and south, ending only when Saleh loyalists crushed the secessionists in Aden. More than 15 years later, Yemen’s “ex”-communists appear to be considering two options for Yemen’s future:  leading a coalition government in Sanaa, with or without Saleh’s General People’s Congress, or leading the southern part of the country into a renewed independence.

On July 8, a Time magazine reporter visited Aden, a port city that once berthed the Soviet Navy, and posed the question, “Is South Yemen preparing to declare independence?”  This news source reports that “in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden, hardly a single Yemeni flag is flown without the triangular, sky-blue badge and red star of the socialist party hastily spray-painted on its left side, recreating the banner of the now defunct People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen . . .” Time continues:

The military personnel loyal to the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh are distinctly absent in Aden. Unlike Yemen’s capital where anti-government banners and signs are found only near Sana’a University, the port city is emblazoned with anti-government graffiti on walls, shops and even across the high security walls of now empty
government buildings. Slogans like “Get out Ali, you dog. Long live the South” can be read up and down the Mu’alla district of the city where anti-regime protesters have blocked off the entire road, one of Aden’s largest and busiest. While some of South Yemen’s protesters support unity under a new government, most demand a free and independent state.

To gauge the political temperature in southern Yemen, the Global Post interviewed a prominent member of Harak, the separatist Southern Movement that was founded in 2007. Since Saleh’s incapacitation, Yemeni Vice President Abd al-Rahman Mansur al-Hadi has concentrated the bulk of the country’s elite forces around Sanaa, allowing Harak separatists to operate openly for the first time since the organization’s founding. “We want to reestablish our southern state. It will be a liberal, social democracy. We’re closer than ever,” declared Brigadier General Ali Mohammed Assadi, a prominent Harak leader.

Yemeni socialists and southern secessionists view Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as a barrier to their plans for political supremacy, attributing the rise of AQAP to Saleh’s “Cold War mentality” and his anti-terrorist alliance with the USA.  Qassin Dawoud, a long-time member of the YSP, explains:

During the 1994 civil war, there was still a cold war mentality being used in Yemen’s case. Saleh made the U.S. choose between him and the socialists. Since the beginning, they were all together against the socialists. Sixteen thousand Afghanistan veterans were sent south to fight us. No one talks about this. These same men bombed the U.S.S. Cole and these same men are threatening to overrun the south and occupy Aden. 20 years later, the civil war is still being fought in South Yemen. And just as he did before, Saleh is using jihadis to do it.

In the wake of a secret meeting in Europe between a Saleh aide and Yaseen Saeed Noaman, YSP leader and former prime minister of South Yemen, John Brennan–President Barack Hussein Obama’s assistant for counterterrorism and homeland security–flew to Riyadh this weekend. There Brennan urged the hospital-bound Saleh to swiftly submit to a peace deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council. “During the meeting, Mr. Brennan called upon President Saleh to fulfill expeditiously his pledge to sign the GCC-brokered agreement for peaceful and constitutional political transition in Yemen,” the White House said in a statement.  In exchange for a safe return to his homeland with immunity from prosecution, the GCC deal supports the implementation of a power-sharing government among Yemen’s various political groups. On Monday, Brennan travelled to Sanaa, where he spoke with VP Hadi.

Several days ago, it appeared that Saleh was in fact prepared to finally follow through with his earlier promises for regime change. In a brief video aired on Yemen state television on July 7, a heavily bandaged Saleh said: “We welcome the sharing within the framework of the constitution and in the framework of the law, we welcome power sharing in the framework of the Constitution of Yemen, which allows for multiplicity of parties and politics and allows for the freedom of opinion.”

In the end, Yemeni’s “ex”-reds may end up taking over the entire country, both north and south, for the first time, even though we are told by the experts that the Communist Bloc supposedly no longer exists.

Doom File: Treasury Secretary Geithner urges Congress to raise legal debt ceiling beyond $14.3 trillion by August 2 or USA will face Greek-style “default crisis,” reportedly plans to quit post after debt negotiations

So, after decades of national and personal debt-based spending, the USA is bankrupt. This has been widely known for a long time, but now dot.gov is unable to hide the truth.

“The Treasury Department continues to project that the United States will exhaust its borrowing authority under the debt limit on August 2, 2011,” Assistant Treasury Secretary for financial markets Mary Miller said in a statement last week. Miller added: “Secretary Geithner urges Congress to avoid the catastrophic economic and market consequences of a default crisis by raising the statutory debt limit in a timely manner.”

According to BBC News, the US Congress has raised the country’s debt ceiling at least 75 times in the past 50 years.

Not so coincidentally, reports the British media, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner may quit his post later this year. “If Mr Geithner, 49, does depart,” speculates The Independent, “he may leave Mr Obama even more exposed as the economy becomes the key political issue determining his chances of a second term.” Perhaps Geithner knows something about the full extent of America’s impending demise. He has promised to stick around until Congressional debt negotiations conclude. Geithner is pictured above, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative in Chicago, on June 30, 2011.

When dot.gov uses terms like “exhaust,” “catastrophic,” and “crisis,” you know things are probably much worse. If America defaults on its debt, this will impact Washington’s ability to maintain its military superpower status and project power overseas. The US debt-holding communists in Moscow and Beijing need only bide their time before launching an economic Armageddon against the USA. This will be followed up, we suspect, with missile decapitation strikes against CONUS.

Breaking News: Bolivarian Revolution to continue as Chavez makes surprise return to Venezuela, shrugs off effects of cancer operation

source

North Africa/Middle East Files: Sudanese troops invade, occupy oil town in southeast Libya as Qaddafi defies NATO, threatens terrorist reprisals against Europe; “ex”-communists, Islamists prepare to govern post-Saleh Yemen, form “transitional ruling council”

– Sudan Armed Forces Repudiates Telegraph Article Alleging Occupation of Libyan Town, Khartoum Unofficially Supports Libyan Rebels (source)

The political-military situation in civil war-wracked Libya has become more complicated in recent days. On July 1, The Telegraph, citing NATO officials enforcing the United Nations-sanctioned “no-fly” zone over the North African country, reported that Sudanese troops have invaded and occupied the government-held town of Kufra and nearby military base, encountering no resistance from soldiers loyal to embattled strongman Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi. Kufra is well inside Libyan territory, approximately 300 miles north of the country’s short border with Sudan. It is not immediately clear why the Sudanese invaded.

Since the February uprising against his four-decade-old socialist regime, Qaddafi’s forces have been concentrated around the capital Tripoli, Sirte, the eastern town where Qaddafi was born, and Sebha, the desert outpost where the dictator was raised. NATO officials explained that control over Kufra and the military facility there have granted the Sudanese a “key strategic foothold” between the regime and the internationally recognized opposition Transitional National Council (TNC), which holds northeast Libya and enclaves in the west, like Misrata.

In another move that appears to expose Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s support for Qaddafi, the Sudanese army has not disrupted oil production on nearby southern oilfields. “Our surveillance shows that they are not moving oil, so its not about money in the short term,” revealed one Western official. “The commercial oil companies monitoring is reporting that there has been no movement of oil out of Libya. The Gaddafi army was coming in and taking out the oilfields every time the rebels start pumping oil. They’ve dismantled the fields quite carefully so the rebels need security down there. Clearly there needs to be tribal support but the Sudanese could make it too risky for Gaddafi’s intervention as well.”

Incidentally, on July 9, the pro-Islamic regime of President Bashir will lose control over a large chunk of its territory when the primarily Christian Republic of South Sudan secedes, becoming the world’s newest independent state. In August 2010 Bashir flew to Tripoli where he discussed the Darfur rebellion with Qaddafi. Both dictators face international arrest warrants on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Meanwhile, crazy man Qaddafi, who supposedly renounced terrorism in 1999, has threatened to send waves of terrorists to the European Union to avenge months of NATO air strikes against his country. On Friday, in a telephone address relayed to 100,000 supporters in Tripoli’s Green Square, Qaddafi demanded that NATO halt its bombing campaign or risk seeing Libyan fighters descend on Europe “like a swarm of locusts or bees.” Qaddafi ranted:

Retreat, you have no chance of beating this brave people. They can attack your homes, your offices and your families, which will become military targets just as you have transformed our offices, headquarters, houses and children into what you regards as legitimate military targets. If we choose, we can descend on Europe like a swarm of locusts or bees. We therefore advise you to retreat before you face catastrophe.

During the Cold War, Qaddafi was a reliable client of the Soviet Union. However, in May his former Soviet benefactors finally turned their backs on Qaddafi, offering to negotiate his exit from power in favor of the NATO-backed TNC.

Elsewhere in the Arab world, anti-regime unrest continues, especially in Yemen, where long-time dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh was gravely injured in a rocket attack on the presidential compound one month ago. On June 18, the Arab media reported that an aide to Saleh met secretly with the former prime minister of Communist South Yemen to discuss the future of this war-torn, Al Qaeda-infested country on the Arabian Peninsula. The formerly ruling Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), which is one of the major components of the opposition coalition, is jockeying for a place of leadership in post-Saleh Yemen. Red China’s state media reports:

The opposition coalition Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) said on Friday that they are “unilaterally preparing for forming a transitional ruling council after the ruling party along with acting President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi refused to join them,” an opposition official told Xinhua.

“The JMP is due to hold meeting on Saturday to discuss the mechanism for forming the transitional ruling council, which would include representatives from the protesters, separatist Southern Movement and Houthi-led Shiite rebels,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Opposition leaders believed that Saleh would be unable to run the country if he returns due to his “severe injuries.”

The YSP operates behind the facade of the Southern Movement in agitating for the restoration of the old Soviet-backed People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, which merged with the Yemen Arab Republic in 1990.

Bolivarian Revolution File: Chavez’s cancer revelation unnerves supporters in Venezuela, dictator confers with government ministers in Havana, allies confident spokesman for Latin America’s Left will contest 2012 election

The truth has finally emerged that the reason for Hugo Chavez’s prolonged hospital recuperation in Cuba, now well over three weeks, is that Venezuela’s 56-year-old communist dictator is battling cancer. Different news reports variously assert that Chavez has colon or prostate cancer. On July 2, Reuters reported:

Since Chavez somberly told his people and the world late on Thursday that he had undergone surgery in Havana to remove a cancerous tumor, many have questioned whether he will be able to run the nation. A phone call to Cuban state TV on Friday did little to quell the speculation and his condition remained hotly debated from Venezuela’s jungle hinterlands to its Caribbean beaches. “Nobody expected this illness … we are very optimistic we are going to come out of this,” Chavez said in the call.

President Chavez would not confirm when he would return to his homeland, but admitted that his treatment could take several months. According to a source, “a wing of the military hospital in Caracas was being prepared to receive him when he returns.”

“Chavez will be out (of Venezuela) for the time that is needed for him to recover,” Vice President Elias Jaua told the Havana/Caracas-funded Telesur TV network. “The president is at the head of the country and will continue to be at the head of the country. We have absolute faith and confidence in God … that Hugo Chavez will be the candidate of the Bolivarian Revolution, of the people and patriots of Venezuela, and that he will carry on being president beyond 2012.”

“Courage is not lacking in you, President Chavez, and rest assured that you are not without the solidarity of all your friends,” Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, a former urban guerrilla, said in a statement. Other world leaders, notes Reuters, have suffered cancer but remained in office, including Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo, France’s Francois Mitterrand, the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Havel, and US President Ronald Reagan.

Pictured above: Supporters of Chavez attend a demonstration in Caracas on July 1, 2011. The country’s army chief dispelled any talk of unrest or infighting within the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela. On Friday, General Henry Rangel Silva affirmed that “the military would guarantee constitutional order during Chavez’s absence for treatment in Cuba.” Note Cuban flag in photo.

Over the past 12 years, the communization of Venezuela and of Latin America in general has been closely associated with Chavismo, the “21st century socialism” championed by Chavez himself. Many leftists in South and Central America virtually equate the man and the ideology. If Chavez does not recover from cancer, contrary to the hopeful proclamation of aides and groupies, then communism’s consolidation of power throughout the Western Hemisphere could suffer a serious setback.

Meanwhile, a US Senate panel recently hailed the triumph of “democracy” in Latin America. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee Chairman, Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, praised three countries in particular. “Brazil, Chile and Uruguay have made great strides in the quality of democracy over the past 30 years,” Menendez said. Like Brazil’s president, Uruguay’s leader is an ex-guerrilla. State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, Roberta Jacobson, however, acknowledged that were some “concerns” over the state of democracy in Venezuela and Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas re-assumed control in 2007.