Chavez Ratifies Subversive Plans against Venezuela
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ratified on Thursday that right-wing sectors and "the US empire" are planning subversive actions against his country.

In a ceremony to grant loans to military officers, Chavez pointed out that the coup d"etat staged five years ago with the involvement of security forces cannot happen again.

He added that a retired general, who has been busy for several years planning assassination plots, has connections with Luis Posada Carriles, whom the president called the father of terrorists in the continent.

Chavez recalled that Posada, born in Cuba and the brain behind the blowing-up of a civilian airplane killing all 73 people on board, was the chief of operations of the Venezuelan political police. He tortured and killed and his old networks are still active, even linked to drug trafficking.

The head of State called the National Armed Force to declare itself anti-imperialist, revolutionary, Bolivarian and socialist. That orientation is imposed by history and circumstances. The rest are excuses to hide cowardice, he said.

The Venezuelan president rejected the alleged apolitical stance of the armed forces and recalled that when he was an army officer, training courses were based on anticommunism and were taught by US professors.

Chavez warned that the Venezuelan revolutionary process is peaceful, but it is not unarmed, because many men and women are armed and ready to defend the nation.

He charged that the United States and the national oligarchy are preparing new adventures and are trying to take advantage of the situation on May 28, when the concession to the opposition station RCTV will expire.

They are preparing another maneuver in May. Let us be on the alert. We cannot make the same mistakes as five years ago, he said, referring to the coup d"etat against his government on April 11-13, 2002.