 |
LATIN AMERICA |
| |
Venezuela: Violence on Colombian Border Part
of a Plan
SAN ANTONIO, Venezuela – The slaying of two
Venezuelan guards near the Colombian border
is part of a “destabilization plan” linked
to the military bases that the U.S. will be
using in Colombia, Venezuela’s vice
president said on Tuesday.
Ramon Carrizalez told a press conference in
the border city of San Antonio that Monday’s
attack was perpetrated by paramilitaries who
were the “spearhead” of the threat to
Venezuela and other South American countries
represented by the “installation of Yankee
bases on Colombian territory.”
“Bases that are clearly aimed at threatening
Venezuelan territory and Venezuela’s
revolutionary process because of the effect
it has had on Latin America,” the vice
president said.
The plan for a bigger U.S. military presence
in Colombia has raised alarm in Venezuela,
where leftist President Hugo Chavez was in
2002 the target of an attempted coup that
former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says was
carried out with Washington’s foreknowledge,
if not active complicity.
As for the killing of the two National Guard
members, Carrizalez said police have
arrested a Venezuelan man and seized several
guns, including one that was used in the
fatal shootings.
Three other people are being sought in
connection with the crime, he said.
He also said that as a result of the attack,
“measures of control have been stepped up,
but we haven’t officially closed the
border.”
Carrizalez’s speech concentrated on relating
the basing agreement signed by Colombia and
the U.S. to the actions of Colombian
right-wing paramilitaries and the growing
violence on the border.
In that regard he recalled a series of
recent incidents including the killing in
that area of 11 people, mostly Colombians,
and the arrest of another 10 on charges of
paramilitary activity.
Carrizalez said that telephone messages
intercepted following the guardsmen’s murder
reveal that there is “a direct connection”
with last month’s massacre.
Restrictions on border traffic began Monday
afternoon after four individuals riding
motorcycles gunned down two Venezuelan
guardsmen at the mobile checkpoint in El
Palotal, a few meters from the border
between Venezuela and Colombia.
National Guard Gen. Franklin Marquez, the
area’s military commander, said that a
suspect has been detained in connection with
the killings, Venezuela’s official ABN news
agency reported.
For its part, the Venezuelan Attorney
General’s Office said in a communique that
suspect Johan Manuel Mora Rodriguez, 20,
would be arraigned Tuesday.
The note said that Mora was captured on
Monday, shortly after the incident occurred,
at a National Guard checkpoint in the town
of Ureña.
Marquez also said that details of the
killings are under investigation and that it
has not been ruled out that they were a
reprisal by the “mafias that control the
smuggling of gasoline and food to Colombia.”
The general suggested that measures adopted
in recent weeks to minimize smuggling are
having their effect and have significantly
cut into the smugglers’ business.
The border region is known for high levels
of violence from the operations of leftist
guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug
traffickers, smugglers, kidnappers and
killers-for-hire.
In a recent statement to Efe, political
scientist Carlos Romero warned that the
situation along the border is “explosive”
because of the lack of cooperation between
the governments of Venezuela and Colombia.
EFE
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
