Cuba - Chávez exposes CIA presence in Zulia

CARACAS, October 12.— The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States has been deploying agents in Zulia under the protection Manuel Rosales, the governor of that Venezuelan state, President Hugo Chávez stated today, PL reports.

"There is a great conspiracy within the region, part of a plot to be activated after the regional elections on November 23, and it must be neutralized in time, affirmed the president during an event in Guajira.

Chávez specified that the opposition, allied with the U.S. government, is attempting to win the governorship and the mayoralties of this region in order instigate actions in 2009 to remove him from power before the end of his mandate in 2012.

The exposé follows the seizure of a mobile cannon in Maracaibo – 700 kilometers west of Caracas – as part of an investigation into a plot to assassinate the president and stage a coup d’état, as revealed in early September.

During the event to commemorate the Day of Indigenous Resistance, the president also condemned the existence of international forces trying to manipulate indigenous communities in order to divide them and create independent territories in Venezuela.

Handing over collective ownership titles for 1,259 hectares of land to the Warao people, Chávez demanded an apology from European governments for the massacre committed in the conquest initiated on October 12, 1492 when, he confirmed, the violation of Abya Yala (the indigenous name for the American continent) began.

Translated by Granma International