Cablegate: Venezuela Meddling in Peruvian Politics

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

S E C R E T LIMA 002551

SIPDIS

NOFORN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/07/2015
TAGS: PE PGOV PREL VE
SUBJECT: VENEZUELA MEDDLING IN PERUVIAN POLITICS

REF: TD-314/34084-05

Classified By: Ambassador J. Curtis Struble for Reason 1.4 (B, D)

1. (S) Ambassador requested a one-on-one meeting with
Foreign Minister Rodriguez Cuadros June 6 to discuss the
Venezuelan government,s involvement with violent, extremist
Peruvian organizations. The Ambassador noted that the
Embassy had learned late last week that Venezuela,s
Ambassador-designate to Peru, Manuel Martinez Ramirez, was
visiting Lima to help organize a &Friends of the Bolivarian
Revolution8 national commission comprising groups such as
Patria Roja and the Ethnocaseritas. The Embassy had alerted
the Ministry of Interior, which had police film the event.
In the event that the Ministry of Interior had not alerted
MFA to this, the Ambassador said, he wanted to be certain the
Foreign Minister was aware of it.

2. (S) Rodriguez Cuadros said that he met that morning with
the Ministry of Interior to discuss the GOV,s engagement
with extremist Peruvian groups; this latest incident was not
the first. The Foreign Minister said that prior to the South
American Summit, which Peru hosted, President Chavez, 5-6
person advance team met in Ayacucho with Patria Roja
representatives. The advance gave their Peruvian
collaborators money used to print anti-Toledo and pro-Chavez
placards as well as to bus demonstrators to an event the
Presidents attended commemorating the Battle of Ayacucho.
The disruptive demonstration was both larger and better
organized that Patria Roja,s usual efforts. While police
intelligence reports are not always credible, the Minister
said, in this case authorities had both audiotapes and photos
to prove GOV financial support for the protestors. Rodriguez
Cuadros worried that the GOV might be meddling elsewhere in
Peru. He thought particularly likely--though he had no
specific evidence--that Chavez was trying to stir things up
in Puno, in the hope of spreading Bolivia,s unrest to
Peru,s Aymaras. Rodriguez Cuadros said that he would be
convoking the Venezuelan Ambassador (sic) to lay out this
evidence and demand the GOV cease and desist.

3. (S) Rodriguez also mused (septel) on the priority need
to enhance development in Peru,s Sierra region as a means to
deny to Chavez what he has found to be fertile ground in
Bolivia and Ecuador.

STRUBLE

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