U.S. SLAMS CARACAS ON DRUGS

Venezuela is fast becoming a major hub for cocaine trafficking in the
Western Hemisphere, according to a report written by the investigative
arm of the U.S. Congress. The report from the nonpartisan Government
Accountability Office is sure to raise tensions between Venezuela and
the U.S. at a delicate moment in the two countries' often testy relations.

The report, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, blames widespread
government corruption for increases in cocaine transshipments through
Venezuela. Such shipments have soared more than fourfold to 260 metric
tons in 2007 from 60 metric tons in 2004 as the government of
President Hugo Chavez has systematically slashed its antinarcotics
cooperation efforts with the U.S., according to the report.

"A high level of corruption within the Venezuelan government, military
and other law enforcement and security forces contributes to the
permissive environment," says the report, scheduled to be released
this month. Many of the drug shipments come from Colombian "illegal
armed groups" such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the
report says, which the Venezuelan government provides with "a
lifeline" of support and a haven within Venezuela. FARC is a communist
guerrilla group.

The biggest problem: corruption of Venezuelan officials at all levels,
according to the report. Corruption within the Venezuelan National
Guard "poses the most significant threat," the report says, because
the "Guard reports directly to President Chavez and controls
Venezuela's airports, borders and ports." In some cases, the report
says, drugs captured by the National Guard and Venezuela's
Investigative Police, who are often themselves involved in drug
trafficking, aren't destroyed, but are taken by the officials or
returned to drug traffickers.

"The findings of this report have heightened my concern that
Venezuela's failure to cooperate with the United States on drug
interdiction is related to corruption in that country's government,"
said Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican member of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations, who commissioned the report.

"The report's findings require, at a minimum, a comprehensive review
of U.S. policy towards Venezuela," he added.

Venezuela's ambassador to Washington, Bernardo =C1lvarez, said in a
statement that he wouldn't comment on the report because he hadn't yet
received it. But Mr. =C1lvarez said Venezuela is engaged in a "complex
fight against drug trafficking" which has been recognized by the
Organization of American States, Interpol and many other countries.

The GAO report comes at a particularly delicate time in
U.S.-Venezuelan relations. Last month, the two countries agreed to
re-establish ambassadors for the first time since September, when
Venezuela expelled the U.S. ambassador and the U.S. followed suit. Mr.
=C1lvarez said the report wouldn't help this rapprochement.

The report also comes as Mr. Chavez and the Obama administration have
formed an unlikely alliance to restore Honduras's ousted President
Manuel Zelaya, one of Mr. Chavez's closest regional allies, who was
deposed last month. Honduran soldiers, acting on a Supreme Court
warrant, detained Mr. Zelaya in a pre-dawn raid for pushing a
referendum to rewrite the constitution allowing him to remain in power
- -- a move the court had declared illegal -- and put him on a plane out
of the country.

But Mr. Chavez, who is funding Mr. Zelaya's efforts to make a
comeback, has excoriated a U.S.-backed mediation effort to restore Mr.
Zelaya, and angrily threatened to depose the interim government.

In the past few years, drug trafficking through Honduras has risen
sharply, with many shipments of cocaine arriving in flights from
Venezuela on their way to Mexico and the U.S., say officials in
Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital.