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Raúl Isaías Baduel (born 6 July 1955) is a Venezuelan politician, retired general, and former Defense Minister under President Hugo Chávez. He was a member of Chavez' MBR-200, joining in December 1982.

In 1993 Baduel attended the School of Americas, an officer training school for Latin American military officers run by the United States Army. He was instrumental in restoring Chávez to power after the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt. In 2005, he accused the United States of waging a fourth generation war against the Venezuelan government in an attempt to undermine the socialism of the Bolivarian Revolution. He was commander in chief of the Venezuelan Army from 2004 until July 2007.

He became prominent internationally in November 2007 when he publicly broke with Chavez and announced his opposition to the constitutional changes proposed in the 2007 constitutional referendum (narrowly defeated) that would have, amongst a wide variety of changes, have strengthened the powers of the presidency and removed the restriction on public officials being re-elected.

In October 2008 Baduel was detained on suspicion of mismanaging government funds and self-enrichment in 2006/7, during his tenure as Defense Minister, and questioned over the disappearance of 31m Bs ($14.4m) from the Defense Ministry bduget. On 2 April 2009, Baduel was arrested, having repeatedly failed to appear in court in 2008, and was to be formally charged within 30 days. Baduel said that his arrest was politically motivated.

References

1. ^ Raúl Isaías Baduel, New York Times, 1 December 2007, Why I Parted Ways With Chávez
2. ^ Rosa Miriam Elizalde and Luis Báez, Voltairenet, 7 June 2005, "General Raul Baduel: The US are waging a 4th generation war against Venezuela"
3. Matthew Walter, Bloomberg.com, November 15, 2007, Chavez Ex-Ally Baduel Rallies Opposition to Constitution Change
4. Venezuelanalysis, 5 April 2009, Former Venezuelan Defense Minsiter Baduel Arrested on Corruption Charges
5. Al Jazeera, 3 April 2009, Chavez foe held over 'corruption'

External links

• Raúl Isaías Baduel, New York Times, 1 December 2007, Why I Parted Ways With Chávez

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