Venezuela ex-intelligence boss arrested in Aruba

A former high-ranking Venezuelan official under late President Hugo Chavez has been arrested on the Caribbean island of Aruba. Hugo Carvajal is accused of ties to drug trafficking by the United States.

Deutsche Welle, 25 July 2014

Hugo Carvajal, a retired general who served as military intelligence chief under late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from 2004-2011, was arrested at the request of US prosecutors in Aruba, which forms part of the Netherlands.

He is expected to appear in a court in Aruba on Friday. The US wants to prosecute him over alleged drug crimes and helping Colombia's Marxist FARC guerrillas.

In 2008, the US Treasury Department accused Carvajal of arming the FARC rebels, protecting the drug shipments the group sent through Venezuela, giving them official government identity papers and allowing them to maintain a stronghold along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. He was one of a number of high-ranking Venezuelan military officials blacklisted by the US at the time.

Venezuela has condemned the arrest, calling it a "grave violation" of international law. It said that Carvajal was appointed Venezuela's consul general to Aruba in January, but that Dutch authorities had rejected his claim to diplomatic immunity.

"Venezuela emphatically rejects the illegal and arbitrary detention of a Venezuelan diplomatic official bearing a passport that accredits him as such," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Officials in Aruba said there was confusion about whether Carvajal held immunity because of his diplomatic passport. However, his detention went ahead anyway because he had yet to receive his accreditation.

"Immunity is always linked to a function," prosecutors' spokeswoman Ann Angela told news agency AP.

"And he has does not have any function here in Aruba. He is not the consul general; therefore he has no immunity."

Angela said US prosecutors had 60 days to formalize their extradition request.

jr/jm (AP, Reuters, AFP)

Hugo Carvajal arrives at the airport in Oranjestad, Aruba, 

after his release. Photograph: Noel Werleman/EPA

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Dutch royals visit roiling Venezuela

Google – AFP, 23 November 2013

(L-R) The Netherlands Queen Maxima, King Willem-Alexander, Venezuelan

 President Nicolas Maduro and Venezuela's first lady Cilia Flores during the

welcoming ceremony at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on

November 23, 2013 (AFP, Juan Barreto)

Caracas — Dutch King Willem-Alexander and his wife Maxima were to meet Saturday with President Nicolas Maduro, a visit coinciding with anti-government protests by Venezuela's opposition.

"We welcome them with great affection and appreciation," Maduro told reporters.

The royals have been visiting Dutch Caribbean territories Aruba, Curacao and Saint Martin, taking side trips to Colombia on Friday and Venezuela on Saturday.

Maxima was born in nearby Argentina.

Venezuelan opposition leader and Miranda

 state governor Henrique Capriles Radosnki

 speaks during a mass protest in Caracas, 

on November 23, 2013 (AFP, Leo Ramirez)

But the visit comes at a tense political time for Venezuela, where protests were planned Saturday against a year-long expansion of powers for Maduro.

The extraordinary powers were approved earlier this week by the legislature, which is controlled by his socialist party.

Ahead of the demonstrations, the government reportedly arrested a key opposition figure, detaining him in the middle of the night.

"We don't know the whereabouts" of Alejandro Silva, tweeted opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who was narrowly defeated by Maduro in presidential elections held in April.

Opposition leaders said they believe that Silva was taken away from the Caracas hotel he had been staying in by military intelligence officials.

Capriles added in his tweet that he "will hold @nicolasmaduro responsible if anything happens" to Silva.

Venezuela's National Assembly on Tuesday handed Maduro wide-ranging special powers to rule by decree.

Maduro requested the special powers last month, citing the need to fight corruption and take on opponents who are waging "economic warfare" against his government.

He said the powers will also help him battle soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.

A protege of late president and socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez, Maduro two weeks ago launched a crackdown on prices, sending troops into home appliance stores and forcing merchants to slash their prices.

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Give us a ring if you want to quit the kingdom, Rutte tells Caribbean islands

DutchNews.nl, Saturday 20 July 2013

Mountains and coral reefs added

to Dutch landscape

Dutch Caribbean islands which want to leave the kingdom of the Netherlands only have to say so and it will happen, prime minister Mark Rutte has said during a visit to the former colonies.

Rutte told the NRC newspaper that officials looked at him shocked when he made the surprise announcement during a meeting.

‘I said ‘if you want to leave and a majority of your people support that position, then it is possible. Give us a ring and we will arrange it’,’ the prime minister told the paper.

Financial support

Rutte said he hoped the offer would prevent any further requests for financial support. ‘I told them that if we ever talk again about the way the state is organised then it will be if you want to leave the kingdom,’ the paper quoted him as saying.

The status of the five of the six islands changed in 2010. Curacao and Sint Maarten are now autonomous countries while Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius have the status of a local authority. Aruba has been independent since 1986.

Criticism

Rutte has visited all six islands during his visit and has been outspoken in his criticism of the way three – Curacao, Sint Maarten and Bonaire – are being managed, the NRC said.

In particular he has instigated a ‘far-reaching probe’ into the integrity of government on Sint Maarten.

The island’s justice minister was forced to resign earlier this year after it emerged he ran several brothels. There has also been criticism of the €9,000 a month paid to parliamentarians. Sint Maarten has just 39,000 residents.

Other islands also have financial troubles. In September 2012 Curacao was placed under a formal compliance order by the Dutch government when its budget showed a shortfall of 153m Antillean guilders, of which nearly 100m guilders was needed to cover debts from previous years.

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Colombian 'drug lord' Javier Calle Serna surrenders

BBC News, 7 May 2012

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Colombian authorities said Javier
 Antonio Calle Serna was on their
list of most wanted men

Police in Colombia say an alleged drugs lord on the country's most wanted list has turned himself in.

Javier Antonio Calle Serna, better known as Comba, handed himself in to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration on the island of Aruba.

Comba is accused of the murder in 2008 of Wilber Varela, a Colombian drugs baron whose drug-smuggling routes he supposedly took over.

Comba, 43, has been taken to New York where he will stand trial.

'The Fighter'

Colombian Deputy Police Chief Gen Jose Roberto Leon said Comba had been in negotiations with the US authorities for months.

He said Comba handed himself in to US Drug Enforcement Administration agents on Friday in Aruba, after the "pressure on him from the security forces got too much".

Gen Leon said Comba, short for Combatiente (Fighter), had started his criminal career in the 1980s, when he joined the left-wing Farc rebel movement.

According to Gen Leon, Comba met drug dealer Wilber Varela in the 1990s and soon joined him as his right man hand in the Norte del Valle drugs cartel.

Deadly feud

Their alliance is believed to have lasted for more than a decade.

But according to police information, during a cartel-internal feud, Comba aligned himself with Wilber Varela's arch enemy, a man known as Daniel "The Madman" Barrera.

Police say their differences escalated and Comba killed his erstwhile boss and mentor in 2008.

Comba is accused of having taken over the drug smuggling routes run by Wilber Varela and creating his own criminal gang, the Rastrojos.

The Rastrojos are believed to run much of the drug trafficking in the western Valle del Cauca province, as well as being involved in extortion and kidnapping.

US authorities say the Rastrojos have smuggled more than 30 tonnes of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico since 2008, using everything from speedboats, to fishing vessels, to semi-submersibles.

Comba is expected to face charges of drug trafficking in New York, where he was taken after he turned himself in.

Van der Sloot pleads not guilty in Lima

RNW, 6 January 2012

The murder trial of Dutchman Joran van der Sloot in the Peruvian capital Lima has been adjourned to Wednesday, 11 September. During the first hearing, the Dutch defendant pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder followed by theft.

Joran van der Sloot (Photo: ANP)

As a result of the adjournment, Mr Van der Sloot won’t have to plead guilty or not guilty to each separate count until next Wednesday. Observers say the move suggests the defence will seek to argue for manslaughter instead of murder.

Mr Van der Sloot is accused of murdering Stephany Flores in his Lima hotel room on 30 May 2010. The Public Prosecutor is expected to seek a 30-year prison term and a fine of 50,000 euros. If Mr Van der Sloot pleads guilty, the court has 48 hours to reach a verdict. If he pleads not guilty, the trial goes ahead.

Mr Van der Sloot has admitted killing Ms Flores in his Lima hotel room. But he claims he had acted on a violent impulse when he saw her read documents on his laptop relating to the disappearance of US teenager Natalee Holloway.

The 24-year-old Dutchman is the main suspect in the disappearance of Ms Holloway on the Caribbean island of Aruba in May 2005. He has never been charged due to lack of evidence. Ms Holloway was 18 when she went missing. Ms Flores was 21 when she was killed.

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Observers to monitor Van der Sloot trial

Mountains and coral reefs added to Dutch landscape

RNW, Gijs van den Heuvel, 8 Oct 2010

(Photo: Auntiem)

The Netherlands is turning into a tropical country. No, it's not global warming. It's an extension of the small state on the shores of the Northsea by three little Caribbean islands, a remnant of the country's colonial past.

It has been discussed for what seems like ages, but on 10 October 2010 it is really going to happen: the country called "Netherlands Antilles", a former Dutch colony in the Caribbean, will be disbanded. Of the five islands, the two biggest will acquire an autonomous status in the Dutch kingdom. The three smaller ones - Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, jointly known as the BES islands - will henceforth be governed directly from The Hague on a par with municipalities in Holland, adding a whiff of the tropics to the flat country behind the European dykes. A sixth Caribbean island, Aruba, was given autonomous status much earlier, in 1986.

This remains unchanged.

The changes are the implementation of new legislation drawn up by the Netherlands' government a couple of years ago aimed at improving the governability of the "overseas dominions". They had already lost their colonial status in 1954. In several referendums held since 2004 the islands' populations have voted in favour of the new form of government.

Facts and figures

So how will people in the former Netherlands Antilles experience the new form of government? And will the Netherlands and the rest of the world notice anything?

The change in the kingdom's make-up will hardly affect the average Dutchman in Europe, but it won't do any harm to adjust a few of the most-cited statistics about the Netherlands. Such as these:

• The Dutch territory will expand by 322 square kilometres (roughly the size of Malta)
• The Netherlands will have a new highest point. It used to be the Vaalserberg in the province of Limburg, with an altitude of 322.5 metres. But this will be dwarfed by Mount Scenery on the island of Saba, which reaches 877 metres. And a good number two is The Quill on Sint Eustatius, at 600 metres.
• In addition to its flat, sandy Northsea coastline, the Netherlands will acquire coral reefs. Divers know they are found off Bonaire, but Saba and Sint Eustatius are also surrounded by coral reefs.
• The two official languages of the kingdom, Dutch and Frisian, will be accompanied by two new ones: Papiamentu (on Bonaire) and English (on St Maarten).

On the islands

The Antilles islanders will be faced with quite a few changes, although not everyone will notice these immediately.

• In 2011, the US dollar will be introduced as the new currency. Owing to their proximity to the US, they are mostly dollar economies anyway.
• Dutch and European law will apply on the islands.
• But some of Holland's laws which are radically at odds with the local culture on Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba, will be introduced only gradually. These include liberal legislation on abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriages. The islanders will be allowed two years to get used to the idea before the laws come into force.
• Local schools have to change gears in order to better qualify pupils for Dutch school diplomas. The curriculum in subjects like history and geography has of course been adapted to the Caribbean location of the islands.

Misunderstandings

Friso Fennema, a spokesman for the Government Office for the Caribbean Netherlands told RNW that there are some persistant misunderstandings among the islanders. He would like to set the record straight:

• Many people believe that Papiamentu and English will be banned as official languages. That's not true; they will continue to be used.
• Many islanders are convinced that only European Dutch nationals can apply for government jobs. That is false, in fact 93 percent of vacancies are currently being filled by local applicants and that is not going to change.
• Employers on the islands fear that they will have to pay the European Dutch minimum wage, and are concerned that the unemployment benefit will be raised to the European level. That is out of the question, Mr Fennema said, because then the Antillean islands would become totally unattractive for Caribbean entrepreneurs.

Anthem

On Sunday 10 October the untitled national anthem of the Netherlands Antilles will give way to the Wilhelmus, the stately, sedate Dutch national anthem, dating back to the 16th century. But the Antilles anthem had a shadowy existence anyway, as every island had its own song.

It remains to be seen whether that will change in practice. Why on earth would the Caribbean islanders sing the words, "William of Nassau am I, of German blood". Speaking of which, many inhabitants of the flat European part of the Netherlands can't make sense of the anthem's text either.

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Status change means Dutch Antilles no longer exists

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US dollar introduced in Dutch Caribbean islands

RNW, 1 January 2011

The Dutch Caribbean islands of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba have introduced the US Dollar as their official currency to replace the Antillean guilder. As a result, the Netherlands now has two official currencies, the Euro in the European part of the country and the US Dollar in the Caribbean islands. The old Antillean guilder will remain legal tender for one month.

The 'dollarisation' of the islands comes after months of intensive preparations by local banks and businesses. The head of the Bonaire chamber of commerce said local businesses had not used the opportunity to secretly raise prices, but any offenders would be dealt with. All products will be priced in both guilders and dollars for another six months to help customers get accustomed to the new currency.

As part of a process of political reform of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, referendums were held on all five islands which formed the then Netherlands Antilles. The people of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba voted in favour of becoming special municipalities of the Netherlands. Curaçao and St Maarten voted in favour of an autonomous status within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands Antilles were formally dissolved on 10 October 2010. The sixth Dutch Caribbean island, Aruba, had already become autonomous in 1986.

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