Ramón Rodríguez Chacín (born November 9, 1951) is a Venezuelan politician. A retired naval officer, he was Minister of the Interior and Justice in 2002, and again in 2008. He took part in the November 1992 coup attempt.

Early years

Rodríguez Chacín specialized in

counter-insurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionar ...

and

counter-intelligence Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or o ...

tactics while serving in the

military of Venezuela The National Bolivarian Armed Forces ( es, Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana - FANB) of Venezuela are controlled by the Commander-in-Chief (the List of Presidents of Venezuela, President) and a civilian Ministry of Defense (Venezuela), Minist ...

. He graduated from the Venezuelan Naval School in 1970.

Cejap

Rodríguez Chacín was one of the founders of the ''Comando Específico José Antonio Páez (Cejap)'', an elite group of police and military forces intended to fight

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian confl ...

(FARC) and

National Liberation Army (Colombia) The National Liberation Army (Spanish: ''Ejército de Liberación Nacional'', ELN) is a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conflict,

(ELN) guerrillas.

1992 Coup d'état attempts

On November 27, 1992, Rodriguez Chacín was involved in the November 1992 attempted coup d'état (not to be confused with

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Repub ...

' February 1992 attempted coup). Rodríguez Chacín was jailed and served two years on charges of

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

and

rebellion Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority. A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and ...

Hugo Chávez government

With the election of

as president of Venezuela in 1999, Rodríguez Chacín worked as his

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as the a ...

chief.

Minister of the Interior (I)

Rodriguez Chacín was Minister of the Interior in 2002 (from January), being replaced in May 2002 by

Diosdado Cabello Diosdado Cabello Rondón (born 15 April 1963Vicepresidencia de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela also drug lord of Venezuela , atentamente alcardonDiosdado Cabello Rondón, accessed 19 April 2010) is a Venezuelan politician and current mem ...

Operation Emmanuel

In 2007 Rodríguez Chacín played a key role in organizing

Operation Emmanuel Operation Emmanuel ( es, Operación Emmanuel) was a humanitarian operation that rescued politician Clara Rojas, her son Emmanuel (born in captivity), and former senator Consuelo González from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in ...

, designed to fly into Colombia and receive three Colombian hostages held by the FARC in the jungles as part of a plan to push the Colombian government for a

humanitarian exchange The Humanitarian Exchange or Humanitarian Accord ( es, Acuerdo Humanitario, Intercambio Humanitario or Canje Humanitario) referred to a possible accord to exchange hostages for prisoners between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ...

of hostages for prisoners. According to the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'', the videotaped coverage of the hostage release showed minister Rodriguez Chacín telling

FARC The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conf ...

rebels "We are with you... Be strong. We are following your cause."

Release of Polanco, Gechem, Beltran and Perez

In January 2008 another liberation of four Colombian hostages by the

was managed by Rodríguez Chacín.

Minister of the Interior (II)

Rodriguez Chacín was appointed Minister of the Interior for a second time in January 2008, replacing

Pedro Carreño Pedro Miguel Carreño Escobar is a Venezuelan politician and lawyer. Carreño has served multiple roles within the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela during the presidencies of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. Career Military career Carreño ...

. Rodriguez Chacín, the Minister of Interior and Justice, stepped down on September 8, 2008: "For strictly personal grounds, I have decided to leave my job. President

, our Commander-in-Chief has decided that the new interim Minister will be my colleague and comrade,

Tarek El Aissami Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah (; ar, طارق زيدان العيسمي مداح; born 12 November 1974) is a Venezuelan politician serving as Minister of Industries and National Production since 14 June 2018, and as Minister of Petroleum sin ...

" (who is now deputy minister of citizen security).

Allegations of links to FARC

The German magazine '' Der Spiegel'' reported in 2008 that Rodriguez Chacín was a frequent guest at

camps in Colombia and that Hugo Chávez had assigned him the task of managing communications with FARC. In September 2008, The U.S. Department of the Treasury accused Rodriguez Chacín of materially assisting FARC's narcotics trafficking activities; the Venezuelan government said he was not guilty of those charges.

US intelligence The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territor ...

officials claimed that in an email between Rodriguez Chacín and the FARC leadership that he asked to train Venezuela's military in

guerrilla tactics Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or Irregular military, irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, Raid (military), raids ...

as preparation in case the United States invades. They also claimed that regarding an alleged 250 million dollar Venezuelan loan to buy weapons, Rodriguez Chacín wrote: "don't think of it as a loan, think of it as solidarity". The source for these documents was allegedly a 2008 cross-border raid by Colombian military into Ecuador which destroyed a FARC camp. Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States

Bernardo Alvarez Bernardo is a given name and less frequently an Italian, Portuguese and Spanish surname. Possibly from the Germanic "Bernhard". Given name People * Bernardo the Japanese (died 1557), early Japanese Christian convert and disciple of Saint Franc ...

stated, "We don't recognized the validity of any of these documents... They are false, and an attempt to discredit the Venezuelan government." In 2008, the U.S.

Office of Foreign Assets Control The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the U.S. Treasury Department. It administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions in support of U.S. national security and foreign policy ...

(OFAC) sanctioned three current or former Venezuelan government officials, including Rodríguez, saying there was evidence they had materially helped the

(FARC) in the

illegal drug trade The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through ...

. The order "freezes any assets the designated entities and individuals may have under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits U.S. persons from conducting financial or commercial transactions involving those assets".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chacin, Ramon Rodriguez 1951 births Living people Governors of Guárico Prisoners and detainees of Venezuela Venezuelan Ministers of Interior Venezuelan prisoners and detainees People of the 1992 Venezuelan coup d'état attempts Venezuelan politicians convicted of crimes People convicted of treason