When Juan Manuel Santos claimed quite categorically that Venezuela was about to close a purchase of 50 MiG fighter-bombers, even many sceptics hesitated before dismissing the notion out of hand. Santos, a former Colombian minister of foreign trade, briefly a designado (stand-in for the President), member of the family that owns the Bogotá newspaper El Tiempo, and cousin of Vice-President Francisco Santos, is usually considered a well-informed person.
He was not the originator of the story: it had been making the rounds of the media, though a much smaller number of MiGs had been mentioned. Santos made a point of insisting on his figure as accurate. He added that Venezuela had insisted on having the planes fitted with the most up-to-date equipment and weaponry.
Santos did not say from whom Venezuela was supposed to be buying the MiGs, but the implication of his emphasis on state-of-the-art fittings was that this was not a purchase of 'surplus' aircraft from some former member of the Soviet Union.
Another implication is that this would strengthen Cuba's influence over President Hugo Chávez , as the readiest source of MiG pilots to act as trainers is Cuba.
'Triangulation' counterclaim. Venezuelan foreign minister Roy Chaderton says that the story, which is false, is no more than 'a montage [...] designed to exacerbate extremist groups in Colombia and Venezuela.'
Chaderton suggested that it was part of a 'triangulation' effort between Santos, 'a US person with high official rank' and a Colombian TV station which is 'hostile to Venezuela'. Though he did not name the US official, the context made it clear that he was referring to special envoy Otto Reich, who days ago told an Italian journalist that Washington's greatest worries in Latin America 'come from Cuba and Venezuela.'
The TV station is Radio Cadena Nacional (RCN), which last week published a report claiming to reveal links between Colombia's Farc guerrillas and a Venezuelan NGO, Renacer. As to Santos, Chaderton recalled that when he was a minister, Santos had praised the 2002 coup that briefly deposed Chávez , and that, once Chávez had been reinstated, he 'continued to support the coup-mongers.'
Military sources in Caracas also dismiss Santos's claim, on the grounds that it would make no sense for Venezuela to shift from Nato to non-Nato equipment. One pointed to the long-term headaches caused in Peru by a military government's decision in the 1970s to buy Soviet military hardware as a gesture of independence from the US.
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