Otto Reich (politician)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Otto Reich

Otto Juan Reich (born October 16, 1945 in Havana ) is a Cuban- American politician and diplomat . During the reign of US President Ronald Reagan , the Cuban exile was the United States' Ambassador to Venezuela from 1986 to 1989 . From January 2003 to June 2004, he held the position of a special envoy from the US State Department for the Western Hemisphere under the 43rd US President George W. Bush .

Empire was established in January 2002 to the Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere ( Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere appointed). However, his nomination received so much criticism that his nomination was never confirmed by the US Senate . President Bush then named him "Special Envoy to the Western Hemisphere for the Secretary of State" - a position that does not require confirmation from Congress . Reich is considered a fanatical opponent of the Castro regime and has been linked to the Iran-Contra affair while working in the Reagan administration . Reich describes himself as an anti-communist.

biography

Early years

Reich is the son of a Catholic Cuban mother and a Jewish Austrian father. Walter Reich, whose parents died in the Holocaust , fled to Cuba in 1938 and settled in Havana , where he married and ran a furniture business. When Otto Reich was 14 years old, the Cuban Revolution took place under the leadership of Fidel Castro , whereupon the family emigrated to the USA a year and a half later .

1966 was rich in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill the BA in "International Studies". From 1967 to 1969 he served in the US Army , where he was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone .

After receiving an MA in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University in 1973, Reich worked as an assistant to the U.S. House of Representatives , international representative of the Florida State Department of Commerce , as coordinator of community development for the city of Miami, and later as Washington director of the Council of the Americas.

Between 1981 and 1983, Reich was assistant administrator for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), responsible for US development aid for Latin America and the Caribbean . From 1991 to 1992 President George Bush appointed Reich as deputy US representative to the Geneva UN Commission on Human Rights .

Public Diplomacy Office

Between 1983 and 1986, Reich headed the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (OPD). In theory, it was supposed to be subordinate to the US State Department, but later investigations by the US Congress revealed that it was directly subordinate to Lt. Col. Oliver North of Reagan's United States National Security Council in the White House . In collaboration with propaganda experts of the CIA CIA information was disseminated as "white propaganda" to the public opinion and the US Congress to fund the Contra activities against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua to influence. Secret service material was secretly leaked to journalists, which simulated a Nicaraguan threat and made the Reagan government-backed Contras appear as "freedom fighters". The OPD was declared illegal based on the 1987 investigation by the US Court of Auditors into prohibited covert propaganda activities. Unlike North, Reich was never charged with violating the US Congress' prohibition on helping the Contras.

Between 1986 and 1989 Reich was the US ambassador to Venezuela. His appeal was opposed by both Washington Democrats and senior Venezuelan politicians, but the opposition was passed when Venezuela sought access to the US oil market. Just six weeks after his arrival in Caracas , Reich is said to have helped the Cuban exile Orlando Bosch , after he was acquitted in Venezuela of the charge of participating in the bombing of a Cuban airliner, to leave the United States, even though Bosch had not received a visa.

Reich received the US State Department's Superior Honor Award, the Meritorious Service Award and the Republic of Venezuela's highest honor, the Order of Liberation.

During the Clinton administration , Reich was a consultant and lobbyist for companies like Bell Atlantic , McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Co. , AT&T , Bacardi , British American Tobacco and Lockheed Martin , which brought the F-16 fighter to Chile from 1989 to 2001 wanted to sell. As a lobbyist, he was instrumental in promoting the Bacardi-inspired Helms-Burton Act . The Helms-Burton Act, sometimes mocked as the “Bacardi Act” , is a US law introduced in 1996 by Senator Jesse Helms to tighten the US trade embargo against Cuba, which keeps international shipping companies calling at Cuba from entering for a long time in US ports and US citizens are only allowed to travel to Cuba via third countries ( Canada , Mexico , Europe etc.).

From 1998 and 2001, Reich co-hosted “Choque de Opiniones” on the Spanish-speaking channel CNN en Español , a Spanish version of CNN's “ Crossfire ”. He appears regularly in the US and Latin American media.

Venezuelan coup in 2002

Reich is seen as directly involved in the failed coup attempt against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez . After the coup failed, it became public that Reich had met regularly at the White House with the conspirators, including Pedro Carmona , who was installed by the coup plotters as Chavez's successor for two days. It also became known that, in addition to Reich, an official of the Bush administration, Elliott Abrams , the coup plans were not just generally known. Abrams himself supervised the operational planning of the coup and discussed and sanctioned it in detail, right down to the timing and the chances of success. On the day of the installation of Carmona, Reich gathered ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean in his office and informed them that the replacement of Chavez was not a breach of democratic rule, because he had resigned and was therefore "responsible for his own fate" .

Reich's involvement is considered likely because of his background as a US representative in Latin America. Officials and anonymous sources confirmed meetings with some of the coup planners prior to April 11, 2002, but emphatically denied supporting the coup itself on the grounds that they allegedly insisted on constitutional means. Others believe that this is only intended to mask the US government's involvement and that there are indications that the US was instrumental in leading the coup. Because of the allegations, US Senator Chris Dodd requested an overview of US activities before and during the coup attempt. The OIG report found no errors on the part of US agencies, either in the US State Department or in the US embassy.

According to a report in the New York Times , Reich warned the US Congress that there was more at stake in Venezuela than the success or defeat of Hugo Chavez. He accused Chavez of interfering with the historically independent state oil company PDVSA , providing Colombian guerrillas with a safe haven and supplying Cuba with oil on more favorable terms. He added that the US government had received reports that "foreign paramilitary forces" - whom he suspected of being Cuban - were involved in the bloody suppression of the anti-Chavez demonstrations in which fourteen people were killed.

The US, which recognized the coup plotters as the de facto government , condemned the coup only after Chavez returned to office.

Later activities

Not long after his appointment as special envoy, Reich was appointed to the direction of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation , better known as the School of the Americas , in 2002 .

Since leaving the White House in 2004, he has headed his own international consulting firm, Otto Reich Associates, LLC, based in Washington DC.

In April 2013, during the presidential election campaign , Reich was accused by the Venezuelan interim president Nicolás Maduro as a member of a conspiracy that planned an assassination attempt on him. With the same justification of a threat to his life from Reich and others, the now-elected President Maduro canceled his trip to New York to attend the UN General Assembly in September 2013.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ To American Diplomat Waits in Political Limbo , The New York Times December 15, 2002, accessed January 14, 2018
  2. ^ Letter from the Comptroller General to the Chairman of the Committee on Government Operations. (PDF; 967 kB) July 30, 1987, accessed on August 29, 2007 .
  3. ↑ ... there was the case of Orlando Bosch. In: The New Yorker . October 2002, accessed August 29, 2007 .
  4. ^ Duncan Campbell: Friends of terrorism , The Guardian , Feb. 8, 2002
  5. ^ Ed Vulliamy: Venezuela coup linked to Bush team , The Observer , April 21, 2002
  6. ^ Otto Reich: Mastermind of the April 2002 coup d'etat against President Hugo Chavez. (No longer available online.) June 24, 2004, archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; Retrieved August 29, 2007 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vheadline.com
  7. ↑ BBC News : US denies backing Chavez plotters , April 16, 2002
  8. ↑ a b Christopher Marquis: US Cautioned Leader of Plot Against Chavez , New York Times , April 17, 2002
  9. ^ Official US Government Statements Venezuela. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 20, 2006 ; Retrieved August 29, 2007 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / embajadausa.org.ve
  10. ↑ 'They want me dead!' Venezuelan president claims US murder plot. In: Russia Today, April 7, 2013, accessed November 26, 2013.
  11. ↑ Venezuela's Maduro Cancels New York Trip on Alleged Threats. In: Bloomberg, September 26, 2013, accessed November 26, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Rich, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Juan Reich, Otto (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban-American politician and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana