Editing Hugo Chávez (section)

====Aiding FARC====
[[File:Raulreyesfarc.png|thumb|Raúl Reyes]]
According to the [[International Institute for Strategic Studies]] (IISS), "Chavez's government funded [[FARC]]'s office in Caracas and gave it access to Venezuela's intelligence services" and said that during the 2002 coup attempt that "FARC also responded to requests from [Venezuela's intelligence service] to provide training in urban terrorism involving targeted killings and the use of explosives". The IISS continued saying that "the archive offers tantalizing but ultimately unproven suggestions that FARC may have undertaken assassinations of Chavez's political opponents on behalf of the Venezuelan state". Venezuelan diplomats denounced the IISS' findings saying that they had "basic inaccuracies".<ref>{{cite news|last=Martinez|first=Michael|title=Study: Colombian rebels were willing to kill for Venezuela's Chavez|url=http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/10/venezuela.farc.documents/index.html|access-date=21 April 2014|newspaper=CNN|date=10 May 2011}}</ref>

In 2007, authorities in [[Colombia]] declared that through laptops they had seized on a raid against [[Raúl Reyes]], they found in documents that Hugo Chávez offered payments of as much as $300&nbsp;million to the FARC "among other financial and political ties that date back years" along with other documents showing "high-level meetings have been held between rebels and Ecuadorean officials" and some documents arguing that FARC had "bought and sold [[uranium]]".<ref name="Padgett">{{cite news|last=Padgett|first=Tim|title=Chávez and the Cash-Filled Suitcase|url=http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1838145,00.html|access-date=28 March 2014|newspaper=TIME|date=3 September 2008}}</ref><ref name=USATODAYfarc>{{cite news|title=Colombia: Chavez funding FARC rebels|url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-03-02-venezuelacolombia_N.htm?csp=34|access-date=21 April 2014|newspaper=USA Today|date=4 March 2008}}</ref>

In 2015, Chávez's former bodyguard [[Leamsy Salazar]] stated in the book ''Bumerán Chávez'' that Chávez met with the high command of FARC in 2007 somewhere in rural Venezuela. Chávez created a system in which the FARC would provide the Venezuelan government with drugs that would be transported in live cattle and the FARC would receive money and weaponry from the Venezuelan government. According to Salazar, this was done to weaken Colombian President [[Álvaro Uribe]], an enemy of Chávez.<ref name=ROTTENstate>{{cite news|last1=Cristóbal Nagel|first1=Juan|title=Something Is Rotten in the State of Venezuela|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/28/something-is-rotten-in-the-state-of-venezuela-chavez-maduro-cabello-salazar-farc/|access-date=17 May 2015|agency=[[Foreign Policy]]|date=28 April 2015}}</ref>

In 2019, federal prosecutors from the [[Southern District of New York]] further provided documents outlining that in 2005 Chávez ordered top lieutenants to discuss plans to ship cocaine to the United States with the help of the FARC and "flood" the country with the drug, as part of his policy objectives to combat the United States.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Forero |first1=Juan |last2=de Córdoba |first2=José |date=15 September 2019 |title=Venezuela's Hugo Chávez Worked to Flood U.S. With Cocaine, U.S. Prosecutors Say |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelas-hugo-chavez-worked-to-flood-u-s-with-cocaine-u-s-prosecutors-say-11568557780 |access-date=3 May 2023 |website=[[Wall Street Journal]]}}</ref>