CHAVEZ WANTS INTERPOL TO ARREST AN OPPONENT WHO FLED HIS TYRANNY

NYTIMES:

Venezuela on Friday called for the capture of a government opponent who owns a critical television channel and who recently fled the country after authorities sought to arrest him.

The government put out an international request for Guillermo Zuloaga's capture through Interpol, Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said.

Zuloaga is the majority owner of Globovision, the country's only remaining channel that takes a critical line against President Hugo Chavez.

Authorities believe Zuloaga is in Miami, along with Nelson Mezerhane, who owns a minority stake in Globovision, El Aissami said.

A court last week issued an arrest warrant for Zuloaga and one of his sons.

Prosecutors want Zuloaga jailed while he awaits trial on charges of usury and conspiracy for keeping 24 new vehicles stored at a home he owns. Zuloaga has called the charges bogus and an attempt to intimidate him and silence Globovision.

Mezerhane was already in Florida when banking regulators seized control of his bank, Banco Federal, on Monday citing major financial problems. Mezerhane condemned the bank takeover as political retribution against him and Globovision.

''They flee, they go away, of course,'' El Aissami said. ''In Miami -- where Mr. Zuloaga is, where Mr. Mezerhane is -- they have the necessary conditions of complicity and impunity.''

WHO IS EL AISSAMI? HERE:

The recent designation of Tarek El – Aissami as Minster of Interior and Justice of Venezuela has raised concerns because of his connections with extremist groups.

Mr. El – Aissami is a Venezuelan national of Syrian descent who, before becoming Minster of Interior and Justice, occupied the position of Deputy Interior Minister for Public Security. His father, Carlos Aissami, is the head of the Venezuelan branch of the Iraqi Baath political party. Before the invasion of Iraq, he held a press conference in which he described himself as a Taliban and called Osama Bin Laden, "the great Mujahedeen, Sheik Osama bin Laden." Tarek's great-uncle Shibli el-Aissami was a prominent ideologist and assistant to the party's secretary general in Baghdad during the Saddam Hussein regime.[1]

It was discovered that in 2003 El Aissami was appointed, along with another radical student leader from the University of the Andes in the city of Mérida, Hugo Cabezas, to head the country's passport and naturalization service, the Onidex (Identification and Immigration Office). The choice came as a surprise precisely because of their ties with guerrilla movements at Universidad de Los Andes (ULA). Evidence has surfaced that during this time both men illegally issued Venezuelan passports and identity documents to members of Hezbollah and Hamas.

CHAVEZ IS PART OF THE AXIS OF EVIL ALONG WITH TURKEY AND IRAN AND SYRIA AND AL QAEDA AND THE TALIBAN.

WE SHOULD TREAT THEM ALL ACCORDINGLY.

AND THAT DOESN'T MEAN APPEASE THEM, EITHER.