US: Concerns about Defense Minister are "of long standing"

According to the Department of State, the US government is aware of the background of incoming Venezuelan Defense Minister General-in-Chief Henry Rangel Silva. The brand-new minister has been accused by the US government of links with drug trafficking and with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

"Our concerns about Rangel Silva are well known and of long standing," remarked US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland in a press release, as quoted by AFP.

In 2008, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control froze US assets of the then director of the Directorate for Intelligence, Security and Prevention (Disip), the Venezuelan intelligence police. The United States accused him of links with the Colombian guerrillas, specifically with the FARC, the US government statement recalled. He was designated under the Kingpin Act for materially assisting Farc's narcotics trafficking activities.

Rangel Silva was promoted to General-in-Chief, the highest military rank in Venezuela, by President Hugo Chávez in 2010, shortly after Rangel told a Venezuelan reporter that the army was "wedded" to the political project of President Chávez. The army "has not half loyalty but full loyalty to the people, a life project and the commander in chief. We are wedded to this country project," he uttered.