Letter to US News & World Report

 Espańol

Editor
U.S. News and World Report
1050 Thomas Jefferson Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 955-2000
fax: (202) 955-2685
October 6, 2003 

To the editor:

Linda Robinson’s article “Terror Close to Home” in your October 6th issue makes outrageous, false, and very serious allegations that Venezuela is linked to terrorism, without offering a shred of verifiable evidence. 

If there were any proof to support the claims made in Robinson’s article, the Bush administration would undoubtedly make it public.  Furthermore, there was no pretense of fairness or balance in the article: in 1874 words, there was not a single quote from anyone rebutting the dubious allegations of the anonymous sources. 

Some of the “evidence” in the article is laughable: for example, it faults the Venezuelan government for issuing Venezuelan identity cards to people from other countries—as if someone from the Middle East can enter the United States more easily if he has a Venezuelan identity card.

To cite only a few examples of the information left out of Linda Robinson’s article: the government of Venezuela has ratified the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism—before the United States—and has signed multiple UN conventions on terrorism, including the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings.  The Chavez government has also deported dozens of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers to countries including Colombia, Spain, Pakistan, and the Netherlands. 

While Venezuela, like many other governments, has at times criticized aspects of U.S. foreign policy, the Chavez administration has done its part to combat terrorism.  By reporting unproven allegations as facts and ignoring contrary evidence, Linda Robinson’s October 6th article portrayed Venezuela in a manner so misleading that it undermined the credibility of U.S. News and World Report. 

Sincerely, 

Bernardo Alvarez Herrera
Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States

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