“We said Apure (border state with Colombia) is ours and we did it!” Nicolás Maduro has met with the senior staff of his generalate to sing victory in the “border war” and celebrate the results of Operation Bolivarian Shield 2022, which would have defeated a military intervention plan designed by the Colombian government of Iván Duque, with the protection of the US administration.
In this Bolivarian story, the “spearhead” of the enemies of Chavismo are the Armed Drug Traffickers of Colombia (Tancol), a euphemism invented by Caracas under which it hides the Colombian guerrillas who fight among themselves in Venezuelan territory to seize with control of one of the most important drug corridors in the continent. “All these drug-trafficking groups, the Tancols, respond to the oligarchy that governs Bogotá, protected from Washington,” accused the “people’s president.”
Maduro included in his script alleged conspiracies to sabotage the economic recovery and to attack police stations, military barracks and oil refineries, after the new accident in Cardón, the second largest in the country.
After five months of the immense Bolivarian military deployment, the largest since Chavismo came to power at the end of the last century, Maduro congratulated himself for having destroyed 257 camps, 46 clandestine runways, 3,400 Colombian army uniforms, 26 boats and, he assured, even two submarines.
Maduro’s announcement comes days after the dissidents of the Tenth Front of the FARC recognized the death of their great leader, Gentil Duarte, who died during an attack with explosives against his camp near a municipality in Venezuelan Zulia. According to the guerrillas, those who attacked them were the Colombian army in combination with the US Embassy, but Colombian intelligence sources previously assured that their enemies from the National Liberation Army (ELN) were the protagonists of that attack.
The reality is that for more than a year now, in the border area, especially in Apure, a clean-shot confrontation has been taking place between the triple alliance (Chavista army, ELN and Second Marquetalia of the FARC) against the dissidents of Duarte and Iván Mordisco. , combats in which even Chavismo has had the help of its mercenaries and Russian drones.
The presence of the Colombian guerrillas allied with Maduro in his sanctuary goes even beyond drug trafficking, including protection in the gold mines and social control in the border states. A combat that has claimed the lives of historical leaders of the different guerrillas beyond Duarte. At the head, Jesús Santrich, eliminated by an unknown commando. This former representative of the FARC in Parliament and one of the heads of the negotiating team in Havana shared with Iván Márquez the leadership of the group that opposed Timochenko, now leading the Comunes Party, which supports the leftist Gustavo Petro in his presidential ambitions. . El Paisa and Romaña were also discharged in these months.
“Terrorism and violence will not take over Venezuela. FANB (Bolivarian National Armed Forces) and the people, tough hands against the mafias!” Maduro concluded after harshly criticizing that “Washington spends its time giving awards, medals and recognition to Iván Duque, to all Colombian drug traffickers. They consider them their allies. We have an intense battle.”
Conforms to The Trust Project criteria
