[ad_1]
The Maduro regime has reported reports of an attempted infiltration of the Caribbean coast since Sunday. The involvement of former American soldiers has now been confirmed.
The Venezuelan regime presents documents of the captured Americans at a press conference.
The landing of a large group of armed forces on the Venezuelan Caribbean coast on Sunday and Monday, according to the Maduro government, aimed to provoke a coup d’etat and remove the president from power. On Sunday, eight “mercenaries” were killed by security forces and two more captured. In a second incident on Monday, eight other “mercenaries,” including two Americans, were arrested, authorities said. Maduro accused Colombia, the United States, and Juan Guaidó’s Venezuelan counter-government of being behind the attack. All three denied the allegations.
Confirmation from the United States
Reports of this type of plot are nothing out of the ordinary in President Maduro’s war rhetoric. In the past, most of them turned out to be purely imaginary structures to justify repressive measures, or as actions of smaller opposition groups without much support. However, in the latter case, the Venezuelan government’s statements have been partially confirmed by statements by a US security specialist.
Jordan Goudreau, a former member of the Green Berets, the US Army Special Forces. The US, along with a former Venezuelan National Guard officer named Javier Nieto Quintero, said in a YouTube video Sunday that a bold amphibious assault was taking place on the Venezuelan border. be Armed forces were mobilized in the south, west and east of the country.
Locked on the high seas
Goudreau, owner of Silvercorp for “strategic security services” in Florida, later confirmed this information in a conversation with the “Washington Post”, admitting that he had exaggerated the video for tactical reasons. He now claimed that around 60 men should have landed in boats on the Caribbean coast near Caracas, and confirmed the arrest of the two Americans Airan Berry and Luke Denman. According to Goudreau, the two are also former green berets. I had known them both for a long time. There were three of them in Iraq in 2010. In the current operation, they both had a supervisory role. After the explosion, the two Americans along with six Venezuelans were blocked in their boat on the high seas. They ran out of gas Sunday night and then fell into the hands of Venezuelan government forces on Monday. Apparently, they are the second group the government reported on.
Goudreau’s statements confirm important parts of the official Caracas account, particularly the participation of Americans in the operation. However, a number of questions remain unanswered. Most of the Venezuelan participants in the operation appear to be soldiers who had previously fled to Colombia. It is still not possible to explain why they landed in one of the most controlled areas of the coast, instead of infiltrating, much easier, through the difficult to control land border between Colombia and Venezuela.
Surprising absence from the army
In any case, the government’s presentation of the danger appears to be greatly exaggerated. Venezuelan military specialist Rocío San Miguel points out that it is surprising that the army has hardly played a role in Sunday’s events. The government in Venezuela should have played the leading role in fighting a “dangerous invasion”. The army was strangely absent. The Defense Department statement came eight hours after the government’s first announcement, and Defense Minister Godfather did not appear at all to counter the invasion.
Even in the eyes of Venezuelan journalist Sebastiana Barraez, who specializes in security policy, the recent events cannot have been a military invasion to topple the government, as President Maduro describes. Barraez sees it more as an attempt to infiltrate a small group of renegade soldiers. According to the journalist, the security forces were waiting for them when they disembarked because the spies informed them in due time.
Who is behind the operation?
The question remains whether the US government played a role in the operation. In principle, such an operation can be safely carried out by Venezuelan opponents on their own. Goudreau told the Washington Post that the “invasion” was originally planned to be much larger, but clients of the Venezuelan opposition would have lacked the necessary support.
So far there has been no evidence of US government involvement, even though Secretary of State Pompeo ominously stated that there was no “direct” involvement of the US government. However, it is no secret that the Trump administration has worked with words and deeds to overthrow Maduro in recent years. The accumulation of President Guaidó would not have been possible without US support. A covert military intervention by the United States against a Latin American government would also be nothing new. It is worth mentioning the fall of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, the landing in the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961 or the Contra war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s.
But it would be surprising if US intelligence agencies were behind such a stupidly organized infiltration attempt. At best, it would be possible that Sunday’s failed landing was part of a much larger operation that attempted to smuggle cells of renegade military personnel into the country in various locations. They could then try to remove the soldiers from their side and carry out armed actions against the regime. Or it is a failed command operation, for example, kidnapping Nicolás Maduro, as the American captive Luke Denman explained in a video published by the regime.
Venezuela reports arrest of more than 20 mercenaries
(dpa) According to government officials, 23 suspected mercenaries have been arrested in various attempts to invade Venezuela. The Venezuelan opposition and Colombian drug traffickers were behind the actions, Communications Minister Jorge Rodríguez said Thursday.
