Venezuela's Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace announced today the arrest, in several operations, of 19 people, including several Spaniards and Americans, allegedly involved in a plan to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro.
“All these foreign citizens will be guaranteed their rights, but their governments must assume that they are coming to Venezuela to plot against a country, to attack civil and military objectives, public services, to harm our country,” he said.
The announcement was made at a press conference, broadcast on state television, during which Diosdado Cabello accused Spain's National Intelligence Center (CNI) of hiring mercenaries to remove Chavismo from power in Venezuela, with the support of the US agencies DEA and CIA.
“I ask for the cooperation of the Venezuelan population. So far, the information we have received from people who have seen strange movements has been extremely important,” said the minister, who showed 71 confiscated weapons, from a batch of 500, and said he had received an alert from the US about arms smuggling from that country to Venezuela by sea.
As well as Spaniards and Americans, Diosdado Cabello said that citizens of Czechoslovakian, Mexican, Ecuadorian, Bolivian and Colombian nationality had also been arrested.
“This is an operation in which the CNI is bringing weapons and mercenaries into Venezuela, establishing contacts with criminal groups [Tren de agua and Tren del Llano] to attack strategic points in the country, to assassinate leaders of the revolution, to harm our people and, ultimately, to overthrow the revolutionary government,” said the minister.
Diosdado Cabello insisted on accusing the former commissioner and former Secretary of Citizen Security of the Venezuelan Capital District Iván Simonovis [a former political prisoner, currently living in asylum in Spain] of being the mastermind behind the armed assault, reiterating that he was following orders from opposition leader María Corina Machado.
On September 14, Venezuela's Minister of the Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello, announced the arrest of three US citizens, two Spaniards and one Czechoslovakian for allegedly being involved in destabilizing activities in the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment