U.S. NGO’s Case against Venezuela’s Citgo and Chavez Dismissed
Mérida,
September 2nd 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – On Monday a U.S. judged
dismissed a lawsuit filed against Citgo, a U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state
oil company PDVSA. The company and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were
accused of alleged terrorist acts and human rights abuses.
News
service EFE reported that Judge Cecilia Altonaga granted Citgo's request to
make the proceeding null and void and also closed the cases against Chavez, Vice
President Ramon Carrizales, Foreign Affairs Minister Nicolas Maduro and four
other officials.
The
petitioner of the lawsuit against Chavez, journalist Ricardo Guanipa, failed to
follow an order to notify all of the defendants. Through his lawyer he managed
to notify Citgo, which responded with a request to annul the case, but not
Chavez and the other officials.
EFE
reports that the U.S. NGO Freedom Watch lodged the lawsuit last April on behalf
of Guanipa. According to Aporrea.org, Guanipa used to work with Radio Marti, a
U.S.-financed station that transmits to Cuba against the government there,
and Radionexx, a private Venezuelan station that has called for the overthrow
of the Chavez government and for the president's assassination.
Radionexx
stopped operating at the beginning of this year, because, in the words of its
operators in an interview published on Elbrollo.com, "It's useless, this
country doesn't want to understand."
Guanipa
claims he was forced to flee his country over alleged death threats, aggression
and intimidation. He has had political asylum in the U.S. since 2005.
In
the lawsuit, Freedom Watch asserted that Citgo resources were being used by
Chavez to "support terrorism and other crimes against humanity, including death
threats, arrests, torture, and murder." Freedom Watch was seeking US$5 billion
for punitive damages.
On
its website, the NGO calls Chavez a "terrorist communist dictator" and claims
that he has supported the "Colombian FARC, a Marxist-Leninist group of
terrorists, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, Middle Eastern Arabic terrorist
states and others bent on destroying Judeo-Christian and western civilization
and freedom."
The
organisation says it will "bring [Chavez] to justice in a Miami court for his
crimes, not only to compensate his victims, but to set an example for the Obama
administration."
Chavez
responded to Freedom Watch's accusations in April by laughing and saying, "It's
the kind of strange news that comes out everyday."