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At An OPEC meeting in Caracas yesterday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recalled his “good Venezuelan friend” Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as Carlos “The Jackal”.
“I remember that hair-raising tour, as a good Venezuelan friend, who is in Europe, called it. I’m referring to Carlos Ilich Ramirez, who they nickname the Jackal,” he said. “In those days (Ramirez) sent me a letter from his Paris prison and he said to me: ’This tour is hair-raising.’ I will never forget that phrase of Carlos's.” (Spanish version here).
Generally regarded as the most ruthless terrorist of the 20th century, The Jackal, a Venezuelan guerrilla who claims to have killed 83 people, might seem a strange friend of any president, but it's fair to say he's an even unlikelier subject of good natured conversation at an Opec conference.
On a cold, quiet Sunday morning in December 1975, Carlos led a team of five gunmen and one gunwoman into a meeting of Opec ministers in Vienna.
Three guards were killed before the terrorists strung hand grenades around the room and their leader introduced himself: "You will have heard of me already; I am the famous Carlos". Eleven ministers were subsequently taken as hostages to Algeria and freed for ransoms. Carlos escaped.
Carlos is currently serving a life sentence in French prison. Chavez wrote an adulatory letter to the terrorist in 1999, which was recently reprinted in Harper’s.
Trust Hugo Chavez to reminiscence at an OPEC meeting about his friendship with the man who terrorised OPEC ministers and killed their guards.
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