First, an operation with armed men was registered in La Guaira, the port that serves Caracas. The Venezuelan Government reported on Sunday an attempt to “maritime invasion” of a military unit that, according to the version of the regime, intended to provoke a revolt and remove it from power with the supposed support of the United States and Colombia. In the clash with the Venezuelan security forces at least eight people died. The Chavista apparatus ended up disrupting the plan on Monday with a series of captures, at least eleven, including those of two US citizens. The ingredients of this new case deepened, once again, the tension between Washington and Chavismo.
The authorities assured that they were “terrorist mercenaries”. However, in the later hours they arrested a group of military personnel, including Captain Adolfo Baduel, son of General Raúl Baduel, who was a friend of the late ex-president Hugo Chávez and is currently in jail for conspiracy. For its alleged connection with the armed incursion, baptized as Operation Gideon, Luke Denman and Aaron Barry were also arrested. According to Maduro, they are two ex-soldiers with a US passport with experience in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Jorge Arreaza, spoke without half tones of “attack”, while the Minister of Communication, Jorge Rodríguez, presented as evidence on Tuesday an audio trying to link opposition leader Juan Guaidó with the operation and accusing him of having endorsed a contract with US security firm Silvercorp. Those accusations were already advanced a month ago by Clíver Alcalá, a former dissident Chavista general who lives in Colombia, before turning himself in to the DEA, which involves him in an international investigation against drug trafficking.
“This new attack adds to the escalation of aggressive actions and provocations organized by the United States […] The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela holds the governments of Donald Trump and Iván Duque responsible for the unpredictable and dangerous consequences of this wave of provocations and mercenary aggressions, “the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. President Donald Trump, however, assured yesterday that his Administration, the main supporter of the opposition to the regime, has nothing to do with that operation despite the alleged confession of the former detained soldiers. The State Department considers it “one more disinformation campaign”.
The operation was carried out in the coastal town of Chuao, Aragua State, by state security agencies. And shortly before the captures, Major Juvenal Sequea Torres, of the National Guard, had declared to the digital channel Venezolanos por la Información (VPI) that the units detained in La Guaira and Chuao were part of a contingent of “patriotic soldiers” in mission and members of a supposedly much broader environment of officers who want to force Maduro out of power.
Doubts abound in the opposition ranks about the veracity of the information offered by the Government and they alerted about the authorities’ attempt to take advantage of the situation, which adds to the coronavirus health emergency, to redouble the repression. However, at least two of the officers involved in the plot were seen in videos that were widely circulated since Sunday on WhatsApp networks and on social networks announcing a rebellion to conjure up the political usurpation and liquidate the dictatorship.
One of them, Juvenal Sequea Torres, participated in the failed uprising of April 30 of last year, which failed to weaken the regime and ended with the release of opposition leader Leopoldo López, who later had to request asylum at the residence of the Spanish Embassy in Caracas. Operation Gideon constitutes at least the sixth attempt to kick the Chavista government out of his disputed re-election of May 30, 2018, unknown by almost the entire international community and by the opposition. They have all been disrupted with surprising ease by the increasingly effective Bolivarian counterintelligence apparatus. Three weeks ago, several National Guard captains were captured at their command posts on charges of conspiracy.
This Sunday, Diosdado Cabello, the number two of Chavismo, and the ruling governors of the coastal states of the country had spread the alarm to “the party’s social intelligence” and to the “cooperating patriots” present in the towns of the country, to collaborate with the authorities in case of detecting a suspicious circumstance. The network of informants organized by Chavismo was warmly congratulated after the capture of the leaders of this operation was announced.
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