Journalist for Diario La Verdad in Venezuela. Journalist for The Christian Science Monitor in Madrid. Another one from Agencia COLPISA, also in Madrid. The director of PROVEA, a human rights NGO in Caracas. Ambassador of Venezuela to Spain. An ETA terrorist, Arturo Cubillas. A collective of so-called journalists in Venezuela… What do these individuals have in common?
The ETA-Chávez connection, highlighted after the Spanish equivalent of the Supreme Court requested Venezuela to extradite a number of individuals involved in terrorist activities, is generating a torrent of misinformation rarely seen. At the center of this issue is one Arturo Cubillas Fontan: extradited from Algeria to Venezuela in 1989, following an agreement between Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González and Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez. Had Cubillas lived his life as a law-abiding citizen, appearing periodically at police offices in Venezuela for monitoring, perhaps nothing would have happened.
Cubillas married Goizeder Odriozola, a Venezuelan of Basque descent and former collaborator with PROVEA. Odriozola’s rise within chavismo, culminating in positions like personal secretary to Chávez himself, renders the leader’s argument—of not knowing whether Cubillas is involved in terrorist activities—simply absurd. What kind of vetting processes has the Venezuelan strongman implemented to assess the suitability of employing the wife of a wanted terrorist? Moreover, what reasonable explanation can be offered for the Chávez regime not only employing Cubillas but also granting Venezuelan citizenship to ETA terrorists? Because that is precisely what Hugo Chávez’s administration did on August 9, 2004. Was this part of a campaign to naturalize hundreds of thousands of foreigners living in the country, so they could vote for Chávez in the recall referendum on August 15, 2004?
The Christian Science Monitor reported today that Cubillas became a citizen in 1993. That is false. Diario La Verdad published a photo—allegedly of Cubillas—that turned out to be of someone else. Marino Alvarado, director of PROVEA, is supposed to represent Cubillas, and when both went last week to the Attorney General’s office in Venezuela to request an investigation into the allegations, they submitted a three-page document containing false identification numbers. The Venezuelan ambassador to Spain, Isaías Rodríguez, suggested that the two recently detained ETA terrorists who claimed to have received training in Venezuela from Cubillas were tortured, an accusation echoed almost verbatim by Cubillas. A ‘collective of journalists’ has protested against the ‘attacks’ suffered by Goizeder Odriozola and her family due to Spain’s extradition requests for her husband. Odriozola, curiously a former collaborator of a human rights NGO, even publishes opinion pieces in GARA, the ETA publication.
There is too much misinformation surrounding this case. One can only hope that the Spanish judiciary can stay focused, filter out all the BS, and take action against Cubillas. Because Hugo Chávez won’t lift a finger against him. Odriozola remains the right-hand of Chávez’s Vice President. Cubillas continues to work in Chávez’s Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, terrorizing hundreds of Spanish landowners.