The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today designated two senior Venezuelan government officials, Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios and Henry de Jesus Rangel Silva, and one former official, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, for materially assisting the narcotics trafficking activities of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a narco-terrorist organization.

“Today’s designation [...]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has spent close to $33 billion to influence the regional politics of Latin America, helping to finance the economies of nations such as Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, a former U.S. intelligence official has testified before the U.S. Congress.
The Venezuelan government also provided resources to Colombia’s FARC guerrillas, the Basque separatist [...]

The biggest threat in the region is not Colombia but Venezuela. Mr Chávez has recently veered towards outright support for the FARC. Colombia alleges that the captured laptops show that he gave the guerrillas $300m (and also that the FARC is seeking uranium for a ‘dirty bomb).

Mr Chávez’s mismanagement of Venezuela’s oil boom has made [...]