A14 The World
Secret cables detail how U.S. tried
to stop arms sales BY JUAN FORERO
bogota, colombia — Russia delivered at least 1,800 shoulder- firedantiaircraftmissiles toVene- zuela in 2009, U.N. arms control data show, despite vigorous U.S. efforts to stop President Hugo Chavez’s stridentlyanti-American government from acquiring the weapons. The United States feared that
the missiles could be funneled to Marxist guerrillas fighting Co- lombia’s pro-American govern- ment or Mexican drug cartels, concerns expressed in U.S. diplo- matic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and first reported in the Spanish newspaper El Pais. It had been unclear how many
of the Russian SA-24 missiles were delivered to Venezuela,
EZ SU
KLMNO
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2010 Venezuela acquired 1,800 Russian antiaircraft missiles in ’09
though the transfer itself was not secret. Chavez showed off a few dozenatamilitaryparade inApril 2009, saying they could “deter whatever aerial aggression against our country.” A high-level RussiandelegationtoldAmerican officials inWashington in July of that year that 100 of the missiles had been delivered in the first quarter of 2009. Then earlier this year, Russia
reported to the U.N. Register of Conventional Arms, which re- cords the transnational sale of weaponry, that the deal totaled 1,800missiles. TheU.N. registry did not reveal
the model of the delivered weap- onry. But the American com- mander formilitary forces in Lat- in America, Air Force Gen. Doug- lasFraser,publicly expressedcon- cern this year that Venezuela was purchasing as many as 2,400 of themissiles. Matt Schroeder, a missile ex-
pert at the Federation of Ameri- canScientists inWashington, said the missiles are among the most
sophisticated in the world and can down aircraft from 19,000 feet. “It’s the largest recorded trans-
fer in theU.N. arms registry data- base in five years, at least. There’s no state inLatinAmerica of great- er concern regarding leakage that has purchased somanymissiles,” he said, referring to reports of Venezuelan arms flowing to Co- lombian guerrillas. The database also shows that
from 2006 through 2008, Russia delivered to Venezuela 472 mis- siles and launching mechanisms, 44 attack helicopters and 24 com- bat aircraft, purchases funded by Venezuelan oil sales. A self-styled Socialist who
claims that successive U.S. gov- ernments want to topple him, Chavez told his countrymen dur- ing the 2009military parade that “we don’t want war with anyone, but we are obligated to prepare.” Months later, in December 2009, he said in a nationally televised address that “thousands of mis- siles are arriving” but did not say
what kind. Secret American cables said
that the United States was con- cerned about the Chavez govern- ment’s acquisition of Russian arms, which also included attack helicopters, Sukhoi fighter planes and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. A State Department cable on
Aug. 10, 2009, to embassies in Europe and South America said Russian sales to Venezuela total “over $5 billion last year and growing.” Therewas also concern about Spain’s plans to sell aircraft and coastal patrol boats to Vene- zuela. The cables show how both the
BushandObama administrations tried to stop the arms sales by highlighting the possibility that the weapons could end up with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a rebel group that Colombian officials say has receivedmaterial support fromChavez’s government. “InearlyMarch,SecretaryClin- ton raised the sale with Russian
FM Sergey Lavrov,” the August 2009 cable says, referring to Hil- laryRodhamClintonandRussia’s foreignminister. A cable from Washington to
Moscow dated Feb. 14, 2009, said FARC computer files seized by Colombia’s army indicated that Venezuela tried to facilitate arms market deals for the rebels. It expressed fear that missiles ac- quired by the FARC, which is mired in the drug trade, could windupwithMexicancartels that “are actively seeking to acquire powerful and highly sophisticat- edweapons.” Chavezhas longdeniedthathis
government assists the FARC. A spokeswoman for the Venezuelan Embassy inWashington said dip- lomats there could not respond to the allegations by U.S. officials. The Venezuelan ForeignMinistry in Caracas did not respond to phone calls. The August 2009 cable notes
that Russian ammunition sold to Venezuela was found in FARC hands and that U.S. officials raised the issuewith Russian dip- lomats visitingWashington. The American efforts to derail
Russian and Spanish arms sales to Venezuela appeared to strain U.S. relationswithbothcountries. In a meeting in Moscow in
2005, Anatoliy Antonov, who oversaw disarmament issues for the Russian foreignministry, told aU.S. Embassy official thatWash- ington was trying to restrict Rus- sian access to the armsmarket. The United States also urged
Spain to halt the sales of patrol boats, ocean-going corvettes, C- 295 transport planes and patrol aircraft to Venezuela, a deal the Spanish government said was worth $1.7 billion andwould help revive the country’s shipbuilding industry. The Spanish cemented the sale
of thevessels toVenezuela,but the United States blocked the sale of the aircraft because they used sophisticated American electron- ics. Irked that Washington had
halted the aircraft sale, the for- eign minister at the time, Miguel Angel Moratinos, lamented that the United States “did not recog- nize Spain’s positive steps but only focusedonnegative episodes in the relationship,” according to a cablewrittenby the ambassador in January 2006. “We are the eighth-largestpow-
er in theworld but theUSGtreats us like a fifth-rate power,”Morati- nos told the ambassador, refer- ring to theU.S. government.
foreroj@washpost.com
Online collective goes to battle for WikiLeaks
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several U.S. companies as part of what it called Operation Pay- back.WikiLeaks has also drawn the support of traditional civil rights organizations and advoca- cy groups, which see the contro- versy surrounding WikiLeaks as an important test ofU.S. commit- ment to freedomof the Internet. Several groups have expressed
dismay over recent statements by U.S. politicians suggesting that WikiLeaks founder Julian As- sange shouldbebrandedaninter- national terrorist or perhaps even assassinated. In a series of ads to be published in U.S. newspapers this week, the Australian activist groupGetUp calls onWashington to “stand up for our shared demo- cratic principles of the presump- tion of innocence and freedomof information.” But it is the activities ofAnony-
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mous and its members that have caused the greatest stir online. In addition to launching “denial of service” attacks on various Web sites, the group’s members have issued open letters in support of WikiLeaks andsought todrumup support forAssange asTimemag- azine’s “Person of the Year.” (By Sunday, hewas intheNo. 1 spot in Time’s poll, with nearly 400,000 votes.) When contacted through Twit-
ter, Anonymous members said in recent days they have been driven by fears of civil rights intrusions and totalitarian futures. “Whether the fear is logical or
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named because he said he feared arrest, compared the attacks on U.S. companies’ Web sites — known to some as “hacktivism”— toearlierversionsofcivilprotests: “It was like the sit-ins during the 1960s when you had college stu- dents taking up space in restau- rants.” Now, Anonymous is helping a
wider audience comb through the WikiLeaks documents in a new campaign called Operation Leak- spin.Onthe socialmediaWeb site Reddit, the Montana member of Anonymous said he helpsmoder- ate a “sub-Reddit” section where users sift through various leaked State Department cables. Reddit users post comments, vote on which cables are themost revela- tory and click back toWikiLeaks’ site to viewthe entire cable. TheMontana man said Reddit
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allows the Anonymous move- ment, whose members chat with one another on hard-to-find serv- ers and ininstantmessage rooms, to influence abroader readership. “Rather than putting these ca-
blesonourownserver,we’remak- ing itmore available to everyone. We got everyone’s attention with the distributed denial of service attacks, so now we’re looking more at what’s in the leaks,” he said. “The call now is to stop the attacks. I didn’t domuch of those. I wasn’t one of the people who thought itwasnecessary,butwhat I thinkdoesn’
tmatter.Themajori- ty has to think it.” It’s unclear how many people
consider themselves as part of the Anonymous movement. Various
Twitter groups seemingly affiliat- ed with the organization provide rough estimates of its influence: Anonops has nearly 10,000 fol- lowers; Operation Leakspin has more than 1,300 followers; Anon- ymous Operations has about 1,200 followers. The group achieved some infa-
mytwoyearsagowhenWikiLeaks published the private emails of former vice presidential candi- date Sarah Palin and said it re- ceived the files fromAnonymous. Anonymous members meet on
otherWeb sites, whose addresses are publicized on Twitter or else- where. They issue announce- ments on
www.anonops.blog-
spot.com, featuring information about the locations and times of upcoming demonstrations sup- portingAssange inLondonor at a local courthouse. “PROTEST!” reads one head-
lineontheWebsite,announcinga demonstration on Tuesday out- side theWestminsterMagistrates’ Court in London. “Julian Assange will be appearing at court for a bail hearing please come and make your voice heard!” On
anonymousfreedom.org,
members urge people to go on Reddit and focus on particular countries: “We are, at the mo- ment, particularly interested in china and iran!” the site says, di- recting people to cables between the State Department and over- seas embassies regarding sales of Chinese sales of weapons to Iran; or toKenya against Somalia. In England, the 26-year-old ad
agency employee said he commu- nicates with fellow Anonymous members on hard-to-find Inter- net Relay Chat roomswhere hun- dreds of users can talk to one another without disclosing their
identities.Themovement,hesaid, is inspiredbymany literary sourc- es, includingsciencefictionwriter Isaac Asimov and his “Founda- tions” series about the future. “The whole Asimov series is
about the lack of transparency, but after time, everything be- comes clear,” he said. “A lot of the people inAnonymoushave grown up with the Internet and see a future where the Internet is cut back, where we have no net neu- trality, and there are different tiers of service and it isn’t free to all.’’ TheEnglishmember ofAnony-
mous guided a Post reporter to a chat roomof fellowmemberswho had nicknames like “steerpike,” “pheadanon” and “Grommell.” There, on a collaborative site
called
Piratepad.net, Anonymous members tapped out their rea- sons for defending WikiLeaks. “We’ve seen the power the Inter- net can have in organizing the masses,” onemember said. “Look at the protests in Iran. I fight for wikileaks because I don’t want to live in a future where people can- not talk about dissent without attracting the notice of govern- ment bouncers in black suits.” Another person revealed a
moreulteriormotiveinthePirate- pad chat room: “Themost impor- tant result from doing these at- tacks is the media exposure,” the Anonymous member wrote. “It does provide somewhat of a rush, and it is very empowering to note how many people are passionate about their freedom.We are here for exposure, period, NOT dam- age.”
shapirai@washpost.com warrickj@washpost.com
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