It was a case des­tined for the X-Files and con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists alike, when Venezue­lan pres­i­dent Hugo Chavez spec­u­lat­ed that the US might have de­vel­oped a way to weaponise can­cer, af­ter sev­er­al Latin Amer­i­can lead­ers were di­ag­nosed with the dis­ease. The list in­cludes for­mer Ar­gen­tine pres­i­dent, Nestor Kirch­n­er (colon can­cer) Brazil's pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rouss­eff (lym­phoma can­cer), her pre­de­ces­sor Luiz Ina­cio Lu­la da Sil­va (throat can­cer), Chavez (undis­closed), for­mer Cuban pres­i­dent Fi­del Cas­tro (stom­ach can­cer) Bo­li­vian pres­i­dent, Evo Morales (nasal can­cer) and Paraguayan pres­i­dent Fer­nan­do Lu­go (lym­phoma can­cer). What do they have in com­mon be­sides can­cer? All of them are left-wing lead­ers. Co­in­ci­dence? In his De­cem­ber 28, 2011 end-of-year ad­dress to the Venezue­lan mil­i­tary, Chavez hint­ed that the US might have found a way to give Latin Amer­i­can lead­ers can­cer.

"Would it be so strange that they've in­vent­ed the tech­nol­o­gy to spread can­cer and we won't know about it for 50 years?" Chavez asked. "It is very hard to ex­plain, even with the law of prob­a­bil­i­ties, what has been hap­pen­ing to some lead­ers in Latin Amer­i­ca. It's at the very least strange," he said. Chavez said he re­ceived warn­ing from Cu­ba's for­mer leader Fi­del Cas­tro, who has sur­vived hun­dreds of un­suc­cess­ful as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempts. "Fi­del al­ways told me, 'Chavez take care. These peo­ple have de­vel­oped tech­nol­o­gy. You are very care­less. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat ... a lit­tle nee­dle and they in­ject you with I don't know what'," he said.

Un­solved mys­ter­ies

Sounds far-fetched? Wik­iLeaks re­port­ed that in 2008 the Amer­i­can Cen­tral In­tel­li­gence Agency (CIA) asked its em­bassy in Paraguay to col­lect all bio­met­ric da­ta, in­clud­ing the DNA of all four pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. Right here in the Caribbean con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists be­lieve that the CIA al­so had a hand in the deaths of T&T's own civ­il rights ac­tivist and Pan-African­ist Kwame Ture, Ja­maica's leg­endary reg­gae icon Bob Mar­ley and Do­mini­can Prime Min­is­ter Rosie Dou­glas. Dur­ing the Unit­ed States Sen­ate Se­lect Com­mit­tee's in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to CIA's as­sas­si­na­tion plots on for­eign lead­ers in 1975 it was re­vealed that the agency had de­vel­oped a poi­son dart gun that caused heart at­tacks and can­cer.

The gun fired a frozen liq­uid poi­son-tipped dart, the width of a hu­man hair and a quar­ter of an inch long, that could pen­e­trate cloth­ing, was al­most un­de­tectable and left no trace in a vic­tim's body.

Kwame Ture or Stoke­ly Carmichael, the rad­i­cal for­mer Black Pan­ther leader who in­au­gu­rat­ed the Black Pow­er Move­ment of the 1960s went to his death claim­ing that the CIA had poi­soned him with can­cer. Ture died of prostate can­cer at the age of 57 in 1998. His friend, mul­ti-me­dia artist and ac­tivist Wayne "Rafi­ki" Mor­ris, said Ture said "with­out equiv­o­ca­tion" that the CIA gave him can­cer. "I knew Kwame from 1976 and for all the time I knew him he nev­er drank or smoked cig­a­rettes," Mor­ris said. "He was a very good swim­mer and ex­er­cised reg­u­lar­ly, he didn't have any med­ical con­di­tion and was very con­scious of his health."

If the shoe fit...

Bob Mar­ley died of melanoma can­cer in 1981. He was 36-years-old. The of­fi­cial re­port is he con­tract­ed can­cer af­ter in­jur­ing his toe which nev­er healed while play­ing foot­ball in 1977. The con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists al­lege that Mar­ley was giv­en a pair of boots with a piece of cop­per wire in­side that was coat­ed with a car­cino­genic sub­stance that pricked his big toe by Carl Col­by, son of the late CIA di­rec­tor William Col­by. There is an eerie sim­i­lar­i­ty be­tween Mar­ley and Cas­tro in­volv­ing poi­soned shoes. Cuban am­bas­sador to T&T, Hum­ber­to Rivero said the CIA and Cuban ex­iles tried more than 600 at­tempts to kill Cas­tro from ex­plod­ing cig­ars, in­ject­ing him with can­cer, to a wet suit lined with poi­son. In the case of Mar­ley the CIA al­leged­ly used can­cer in his shoes, for Cas­tro they placed the high­ly tox­ic poi­son thal­li­um salts in his shoes. Af­ter on­ly eight months be­ing elect­ed as Prime Min­is­ter of Do­mini­ca, rad­i­cal politi­cian Rosie Dou­glas was found dead on the floor of his res­i­dence in 2000.

The cause of death was list­ed as a re­sult of a mas­sive heart at­tack. His heart was twice its nor­mal size. Just like Ture and Mar­ley, he ex­er­cised reg­u­lar­ly. Dou­glas' el­dest son, Cabral in­sist­ed that his fa­ther had been mur­dered and al­so hint­ed at the in­volve­ment of the CIA. Mos­hood Abi­o­la, the man wide­ly be­lieved to have won the 1993 elec­tions in Nige­ria, was re­port­ed to have died of a heart at­tack af­ter he was giv­en a cock­tail which ex­pand­ed his heart to twice its size in 1998. Jack Ru­by, the as­sas­sin who killed US pres­i­dent John Kennedy's al­leged as­sas­sin Lee Har­vey Os­wald, died from lung can­cer in 1967. What was strange was the can­cer cells were not the type that orig­i­nate in the res­pi­ra­to­ry sys­tem. He told his fam­i­ly that he was in­ject­ed with can­cer cells in prison when he was treat­ed with shots for a cold. He died just be­fore he was to tes­ti­fy be­fore Con­gress.

Locker­bie bomber, Ab­del­baset al-Megrahi, de­vel­oped ter­mi­nal can­cer. The leader of Cana­da's left-lean­ing Op­po­si­tion par­ty, the New De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP), Jack Lay­ton died of an undis­closed form of can­cer in 2011. It will ap­pear that hav­ing left­ist ten­den­cies are haz­ardous to a per­son's health. From 1953 the Rus­sians were us­ing mi­crowaves to at­tack the US em­bassy staff in Moscow, Rus­sia. One third of the staff even­tu­al­ly died of can­cer from this mi­crowave ir­ra­di­a­tion. Imag­ine how ad­vanced and so­phis­ti­cat­ed as­sas­si­na­tion tech­nol­o­gy has be­come to­day.