What is behind the attacks of the Nicolás Maduro regime against guerrillas on the border between Venezuela and Colombia

The only ones who knew with certainty the day and the almost exact time that the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) would attack a few kilometers from The victory in Hurry, were the occupants of the camp of the dissidents of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), under the command of Miguel Botache Santillana alias Gentil Duarte faced with Jesus Santrich me Ivan Marquez, the heads of the New Marquetalia.

In this third attack against the FARC dissidentsWhat is very clear is that the Venezuelan Army is only attacking a part of that group to make it leave the occupied territory.

The Armed Forces reported that several “military personnel were injured and Major Edward Ramón Corobo Segovia and First Lieutenant Yonathan Miguel Duarte died”. Once again, it will be the family and friends who mourn the murdered officer, as happened years before in Amazonas, in El Catatumbo, in Apure, in Táchira, among other places where Venezuelan soldiers have fallen.

In what could be the most perverse use of Venezuelan soldiers, the Armed Forces (FANB) would be used to eliminate internal adversaries that, within the FARC, they have Jesús Santrich and Iván Márquez, to whom Nicolás Maduro has expressed sympathy. The dissent of the FARC, since the Secretariat disappeared after the Peace Accords, is varied, they are different groups and without an ideological factor of cohesion.

The borders of Venezuela are being scourged and permeated, for years, but with greater tolerance since the arrival of the Bolivarian revolution to power, and more openly with Nicolás Maduro; the high government has allowed the National Liberation Army (ELN) function with power, armed, in uniform and using young Venezuelans as combatants in various states of the country.

So the fight of the Armed Forces, led by the minister, Vladimir Padrino López and the Strategic Operational Commander, Remigio Ceballos Ichaso, It is not fighting the guerrilla in its entirety, but only the FARC dissidence that did not want to subordinate aliases Jesus Santrich.

Among those who rebel against New Marquetalia is the group of Gentil Duarte, allied with Jorge Eliécer Jiménez Martínez alias Arthur, who together with Fabian Guevara Carrascal alias Farley they controlled territory of Apure (Venezuela) at the height of Arauquita: It is their camps who have been attacked by the FANB.

In the morning hours of Saturday, March 21, residents of La Victoria in Apure state observed the overflight of K8 aircraft, aircraft that Venezuela owns in two Air Groups, Group 15 at the Rafael Urdaneta Base in Maracaibo and Group 12 in the Vicente Landaeta Gil Air Base in Barquisimeto.

The official version

Yesterday there was silence on the part of the Military High Command and today Monday the Minister of Defense published a statement announcing that “clashes with irregular groups were held” without indicating the name of the grouping.

He added that “one of the leaders known as aliases The Nando, captured 32 subjects, destroyed six camps and seized weapons, ammunition, explosives, war supplies, vehicles and drugs ”.

On the part of Colombia, Etelivar Torres Vargas, the mayor of Arauquita, a town facing La Victoria, only separated by the Cutufí and Arauca rivers, in statements to Colombian media said that they were preparing to receive the displaced population of both nationalities, as in fact happens, because a large number of border residents from La Victoria, Arenales, Sector 8, El Ripial and Guafitas, crossed the border trying to save themselves from the consequences of the military operation.

The Secretary of Government of Arauquita, Juan Carlos Agudelo, told BluRadio Colombia that “from the early hours an operation by the Venezuelan armed forces began in their territory, and they have heard bombings and rifle bursts.”

Colombian soldiers guard the San Lorenzo de Arauquita Hospital, which was prepared to receive the wounded arriving from the Venezuelan side.

The military operation

In Venezuelan territory panic was felt among the inhabitants of the border in Apure, even in Arauquita (Colombia), they were alarmed by the explosions and shootings from helicopters, as well as the rifles that soldiers and guerrillas fired on the ground.

Several propaganda sources tried to show that the FANB’s reaction was due to the fact that on Friday night, March 20, dissident FARC groups tried to enter Venezuelan territory and some even claimed that they were an operation of the Colombian army against Venezuelan territory. The facts show that it is false, that for a week there had been a mobilization of the Venezuelan military and war equipment to the border and that it reached La Victoria. Infobae received information days before that there would be an attack on the FARC camp by alias Farley in Tres Esquinas.

The Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB), with thes Special Action Forces (FAES), among those who were hooded, it is not known from which group, they had been in La Victoria for a week, a border town in the state of Apure. “Several people on the farms alerted because officials from the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) had infiltrated as street vendors and workers”, said to Infobae a source who asked not to be identified.

Alias ​​Ferley and his most important group He withdrew on the night of March 20 from the camp that was bombed at dawn yesterday, but a number of his men were scattered in various places and attacked the Venezuelan military, several of whom were injured, mainly because the land is littered with antipersonnel mines.

“The military lost out and they are taking it out on civilians”, reveals one of the inhabitants of La Victoria. In the unofficial reports that have been circulating there is talk of wounded and confiscated weapons, but it is not mentioned that there would have been 15 rifles of the Armed Forces that were lost during Operation March 21.

In the media Border they announced that “the roads and trails are mined with explosives and have been activated as the Venezuelan troops pass by. Some vehicles have been damaged being crossed on the trails ”.

The group of Gentil Duarte has been having conversations with the ELN and other small dissident FARC groups. “There is a woman called La Catira, who comes from Caracas to San Juan de Payara to meet with the ELN, with the power to make agreements, and that upset and worried the FARC a lot.”

The excuse

A report from the Los Llanos Comprehensive Defense Region, specifically Guasdualito, with the Case number: K-21-0261-00059, by the 53rd National Military Prosecutor, First Lieutenant Edwin Arevalo, reported the crime “Against public affairs, resistance to authority”, whose victim is “the Venezuelan state, the Bolivarian Army.”

It highlights that the wounded, according to Lieutenant Colonel José Luis Villamizar, officer of the military flag staff are: Tcnel. Luis Daniel Chitty Marcano, commander of the Rural Command Detachment 355; and Captain Roberto Jesús Pérez Palma, Plaza de la 92 Brigada Caribe, Guasdualito parish, Apure.

The investigated? “Still to be identified” reads.

Place of the events: “El Ripial rural area, La Victoria population, Urdaneta parish, Páez municipality, Apure, in the early morning hours of today Sunday 03-21-2021”.

“A total of 14 people were admitted to the facilities of the San Cristóbal Military Hospital, who were injured during an alleged confrontation in La Victoria, in Apure state”, said the journalist Mayerlin Villanueva of The Táchira Press.

The names of the other soldiers wounded and who were transferred to the Cap. (Av) Guillermo Hernández Jacobsen in San Cristóbal, Táchira, are:

SM3 / Adrián Alexander Escalante Pernía.

Cape 1st. Fabricio Antonio Gómez Rangel.

Cape 1st. Francisco Javier Esqueda Sánchez.

DTG. Jesus Antonio Pérez Blanco.

DTG. Elí Armando Bernejo Hernández.

Soldier Vicente Eriberto Rojas Peña.

And Anthony Bento, who had a broken limb.

Although several publications spoke of the death of the oldest (GNB) Contreras Chávez, belonging to the group of special forces commando actions, turned out to be false and the officer denied it by voice message to some of his companions.

They have tried to make the confrontation seem fortuitous and in the reports that they let slip through social networks there is talk of “Patrol work“Who was carrying out a commission” under the command of Major General Leonardo Alfredo Bello Ortega, Commander of the Comprehensive Defense Operational Zone (ZODI) No. 31, they were surprised by subversive groups, generating a confrontation ”.

For now, there is a civilian population being persecuted, injured and there are even several deaths.

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