A Well Armed Chaos

Venezuela, like many other countries, continues to be buffeted by the world economic crisis. Despite a $1.4 billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund, the oil-rich nation was spiraling toward economic chaos at press time. However, thanks to the $1.8 billion worth of weapons sales President Clinton has approved since 1993, it will at least be a well-armed chaos. Among the equipment Venezuela has purchased -- or obtained approval to purchase from U.S. companies -- are two Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters, 11 amphibious assault vehicles, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Much of the money Venezuela has committed to military spending will go directly to Lockheed Martin to service and maintain 24 previously purchased F-16s.

U.S. arms sales in the Clinton years Direct government sales Government-approved sales (scale in millions of dollars)

Like the country's economy, the Venezuelan government is not exactly stable. In 1989 hundreds died in antigovernment protests. The country also hosted two failed coup attempts in 1992. In addition, President Rafael Caldera suspended basic constitutional guarantees from 1994 to 1996 -- and in some border regions, those rights have yet to be restored.

In fact, the country's overall human-rights record is rather dismal. Human Rights Watch's 1998 report on Venezuela found that the "Security forces resorted to systematic abuses, including torture, extrajudicial executions, and the disproportionate use of lethal force.... Police committed at least 90 extrajudicial executions between January and August [1997]....

"Local human-rights groups reported indiscriminate arrests, torture, and arbitrary killings in the Apure state ... where constitutional guarantees continued to be suspended due to incursions by Colombian guerilla groups."

The U.S. State Department reached many of the same conclusions. "The [g]overnment's human-rights record continued to be poor in certain areas and includes extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects by the police and military, torture and abuse of detainees, failure to punish police and security officers guilty of abuse, arbitrary arrests, and excessively lengthy detentions, illegal searches, and corruption and severe inefficiency in the judicial and law enforcement systems," reads the report. It goes on to state that "Perpetrators of extrajudicial killings act with near impunity, as the [g]overnment rarely prosecutes such cases." However, the Clinton administration still deems Venezuela a responsible enough government to send it some of our most lethal exports.

--Mat Honan

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