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The explosion of a grenade left two soldiers dead on Saturday during an operation that the Armed Forces of Venezuela carried out on the border with Colombia, adding six soldiers killed, according to an official report and military sources.
A second corporal died after the “detonation of a grenade” inside a mortar that was aimed “at targets of the FARC dissidents – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – in the El Ripial sector, near La Victoria, Edo. Apure ”(west, border with Colombia), indicates the minute to which the AFP had access.
Moments later, a first lieutenant who was among the dozen soldiers who were injured in the incident died at the San Cristóbal military hospital, in the state of Táchira, military sources told AFP.
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Thus, there are six soldiers killed in operations by the Venezuelan Armed Forces on the border with Colombia against “Colombian irregular armed groups”, according to the official balance, since last March 21, when there were heavy clashes in the area, reported by the authorities of both countries.
In Apure there were also nine deceased “terrorists”, accumulating 15 deaths in total, as well as more than thirty detainees, according to the socialist government.
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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro acknowledged on Sunday the possibility that dissidents from the dissolved FARC guerrilla could be responsible for clashes with the military and attacks on civilian targets on the Colombian-Venezuelan border.
Maduro himself and other senior Venezuelan officials had avoided identifying the irregulars as dissidents from the demobilized leftist guerrilla.
For their part, the Colombian authorities indicated that the operation was a coup against a wing of dissident FARC members.
Both countries, with a common porous 2,200-kilometer border, broke relations after the government of Iván Duque recognized the opposition Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela in January 2019.
Although Guaidó is recognized as an interim president by fifty countries, with the United States at the helm, Maduro maintains control of power with the support of the Armed Forces.
Accusations against the Venezuelan government
Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano accused the Venezuelan government on Saturday of acting as an “accomplice” of Colombian drug trafficking groups in the heavy fighting that has pushed thousands of people to cross the border to take refuge in Colombia.
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“What is happening in Venezuela is that drug trafficking is slowly taking over that country (…) in collusion with the Bolivarian forces and the regime of (Venezuelan President Nicolás) Maduro,” said Molano in an interview with the newspaper. Colombian El Tiempo.
In the last week, some 5,000 people have crossed the border to the Colombian municipality of Arauquita to take refuge from the heavy fighting between the Venezuelan public forces and a Colombian armed group. Some denounce extrajudicial executions of civilians at the hands of Venezuelan soldiers.
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The fighting has left nine “terrorists” dead, 39 detained and four soldiers dead, according to the official balance of the Venezuelan authorities. Maduro acknowledged the possibility that dissidents from the FARC guerrilla, dissolved after a peace signing in 2016, were involved in the clashes.
But, according to Molano, the Venezuelan military attacked “in an complicit and selective way only the dissidents” led by a former FARC combatant known as Iván Mordisco, seeking to favor another group led by the former leader of that guerrilla, Iván Márquez, who withdrew in August 2019 from the historic peace agreement that ended more than half a century of armed conflict
The person in charge of the Defense portfolio accused the Venezuelan government of allying with Márquez’s group and the last recognized guerrilla in Colombia, the National Liberation Army (ELN), to have “unity of command” in drug trafficking routes across the border. 2,200 kilometers between the two countries.
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Colombia is the world’s leading cocaine exporter, according to the UN. “The objective of the operations there is not the protection of the border, it is the protection of the drug trafficking business,” declared Molano.
Colombia and Venezuela have not maintained diplomatic relations since Bogotá recognized opposition Juan Guaidó as interim president in January 2019.
The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, accuses Maduro of protecting these armed groups in his territory. Caracas denies the accusations and blames Bogotá for the violence for leaving the border.
