Venezuela says United States wants to control the illegal drug trade

January 14, 2006
In a communique issued by the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Madrid as response to the barring of Spain's sale of military planes to Venezuela, and then made public by the chancellor’s office, Venezuela has claimed that the reason why the United States government vetoes the selling of Spanish planes to Venezuela is because Washington wants to continue imposing the flight of American anti-drug patrols over Venezuela’s territory .
However, Spain says it will keep its promise and will equip the planes using European parts to bypass the US licenses.
In May 1999, President Hugo Chavez announced that United States military jets could no longer enter his country's airspace as it still does in the other Andean nations. If the US did so it would violate Venezuela's sovereignty he said.
Venezuela wants to buy 12 planes with a combined value of 2 billion U.S. dollars to carry out its own anti-drug surveillance and interception flights. The republic of Venezuela is the country where most of the drug seizing occurs as its geographic position makes it the natural route of illegal drug trade from the South America to the US.
The communique casts doubts about the real intentions of the US ban on the military planes sale and accuses the US of undermining Venezuela’s response capacity to deal with this threat. The announcement states that the ban is an evidence of the double speech of George W. Bush and formulates the question: Do they want to combat or to control the illegal drug trade?.
Venezuela is also attempting to buy planes from Brazil, but this move has also been vetoed by the US government under the grounds that Brazilian planes use American technology.
Sources•"US troubles with Chávez hinder drug interdiction in Venezuela". El Universal (Caracas), January 9, 2006
•"Chacón: US is delaying anti-drug convention". El Universal (Caracas), January 5, 2006
•"Spain defies US on Venezuela deal". BBC News, January 13, 2006
•"EEUU desea controlar el narcotráfico"". El Universal (Caracas), January 14 , 2006 (in Spanish)