Media Completely Ignore American Secret Agents Trial for Terrorism in
Venezuela
One might think that a supposedly innocent American citizen on trial for
terrorism inside a hostile enemy country, facing decades behind bars in
Venezuelas notorious prisons, would spark a nationwide media furor.
by Alan Macleod
February 26th, 2021
By Alan Macleod
CARACAS Unless you read the local Venezuelan press, you are unlikely to
know that an American secret agent is currently standing trial in Venezuela
on charges of terrorism and weapons trafficking.
Matthew John Heath was arrested in September outside Amuay and Cardon oil
refineries in possession of a submachine gun, a grenade launcher, C4
explosives, a satellite phone and bricks of $20 bills. The Venezuelan
government also alleges that he was found carrying a small coin or badge
that CIA employees use to prove their identity to one another without
raising suspicions. On Wednesday, Heath pled not guilty to all charges.
Situated in Falcon state in the west of the country, the Amuay and Cardon
facilities are the largest refineries in the oil-rich nation, considered an
enemy of the United States since it elected socialist president Hugo Chavez
in 1998. The facilities have been the site of controversy before: in 2012, a
fire at the plants killed 55 people; after conducting hundreds of interviews
with experts and witnesses and carrying out over 200 inspections and
technical tests, the Venezuelan government claimed that the evidence of
sabotage was overwhelming.
A spy falls
A former marine, Heath is also widely reported to have been a CIA agent,
serving the agency as a communications operator between 2006 and 2016, at
which time he took a job at security firm MVM (for obvious reasons, the CIA
does not confirm or deny the identity of its staff). Although MVM is
technically a private company, it was founded by three former Secret Service
agents and continues to work closely with Washington. According to business
directory Dun & Bradstreet, the firm provides security staffing and
consulting services, primarily to U.S. government entities. Indeed, the
only clients listed on its website are American government agencies. Need a
secret agent? begins its description of the company.
There is not a hint of this, however, on MVMs public-facing website, which
describes the organization as merely providing extensive domain expertise
in the areas of counter-narcotics, criminal and civil investigations, public
safety, and national security. MVMs 800 employees, it states, are here to
offer professional and administrative services,
informational technology
services,
and mission solutions.
This follows a broader trend of the U.S. government outsourcing clandestine
operations to private contractors a process that ensures there is less
accountability and public scrutiny, as well as one that keeps its more
controversial actions at arms length. A lot of what we do today was done
covertly 25 years ago by the CIA, said Allen Weinstein, cofounder of the
National Endowment for Democracy, an organization that funds pro-American
groups worldwide.
As Venezuela Foils CIA Terror Plot" Pompeo Tours Its Neighbors To Talk
Regime Change
Venezuela has announced it has foiled a potential terror attack, arresting a
former CIA operative Matthew John Heath.
MintPress News | Alan Macleod | Sep 18, 2020
Radio silence
One might think that a supposedly innocent American citizen on trial for
terrorism inside a hostile enemy country, facing decades behind bars in
Venezuelas notorious prisons, would spark a nationwide media furor
especially as Heath claims that he was tortured while incarcerated. But far
from it. In fact, there has been zero mention of the case in national U.S.
media this week, including nothing in The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC
News, The Washington Post, Fox News, or USA Today. This is striking, as the
news was published on the largest newswire service, Reuters, meaning that
virtually every outlet in the West must have seen it and could freely
republish it themselves or use its material for a story.
Virtually the only Western media outlets touching the story were local news
stations in Tennessee, Heaths home state. Yet none of those outlets
mentioned Heaths alleged background as a secret agent, nor the
incriminating items in possession of which he was arrested, rather
presenting him as a completely innocent victim of an authoritarian regime.
Few even offered an explanation as to why, amid a raging pandemic, he would
leave the U.S. and go to Venezuela of all places. NBC affiliate WBIR Channel
10 was the only exception, claiming he had traveled there to gain more
boating experience, a defense that is unlikely to convince many Venezuelan
prosecutors.
The State Department, which rarely misses an opportunity to denounce
Venezuelas Maduro government for human rights transgressions, has also been
largely silent over the case. Its entire comment on the situation amounts to
one tweet from spokesman Ned Price, in which he tepidly asks Venezuela for a
fair trial.
The CIA's Jack Ryan Is 'Regime-Change' Propaganda Aimed At Venezuela
The new Jack Ryan series comes in the context of four movies that have all
had Department of Defense and/or CIA support.
MintPress News | Alan Macleod | Nov 22, 2019
Limited hangout
The deafening silence from Washington and from corporate media suggests that
Heath was indeed in Venezuela on official business and that the government
has made a conscious decision to cut ties to him, leaving him to his fate so
as to not draw more attention to its own actions. Kicking up a storm of
protest would entail inviting far more scrutiny upon itself and potentially
losing any plausible deniability that it is not engaged in a campaign of
international terrorism against the South American nation.
The United States has been carrying out a decades-long push for regime
change against the Venezuelan government, supporting coup attempts, funding
and training political movements, and propping up self-declared president
Juan Guaidó as the countrys rightful ruler. In January, the U.S. lost its
most powerful ally in the cause, as the European Union chose to stop
recognizing Guaidó after he lost his seat in the Venezuelan National
Assembly in recent elections.
Earlier in the year, the U.S. was similarly caught with its hand in the
cookie jar, after two former Green Berets led an amphibious invasion on
Venezuela with the goal of shooting their way to the presidential palace and
installing Guaidó as dictator. The attempt failed spectacularly, and few of
the heavily armed fighters managed to even make it to land, the event
quickly being dubbed Donald Trumps Bay of Piglets. Trying to defend
themselves, the American mercenaries implicated a number of key figures,
including Trump himself, as well as former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince. The
coup plotters even claim they met at the Trump Doral resort in Miami.
Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put out a half-hearted denial, claiming
only that there was no U.S. government direct involvement in the botched
coup attempt.
Heaths case is the latest in a series of U.S. cloak and dagger moves
against the Caribbean nation. Whether he is found guilty or not, it appears
that he will be receiving no help from the U.S. government. When things go
wrong in espionage, you are apparently on your own.