An Aporrea TVi exclusive this month interviewed members of the Bolivarian militia who have occupied and begun community projects on the Daktari estate, El Hatillo, which was once used to train Colombian paramilitaries as part of a plan to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Incredibly, it appears that adherents of the Free Trade Agreement between the US and Colombia have commenced an effort to smear Venezuela in order to advance the prospects of the Colombia agreement by using bare statistics without elaboration or explanation to suggest that Colombia is no different. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Venezuelan government announced on Tuesday that it captured two intelligence agents from Colombia’s Security Administrative Department (DAS) who were spying within Venezuelan territory.
The
Venezuelan Attorney General's Office formally opened an investigation into an
alleged assassination plot against President Hugo Chavez, following recently
publicized declarations by a former paramilitary hitman and a former Colombian
intelligence official.
In interview footage obtained by Al Jazeera a Colombian paramilitary confirmed that a "wealthy Venezuelan politician" named Manuel Rosales, offered him $25 million to assassinate President Chávez by any means.
Rafael Garcia, ex director of information technology of Colombia's
main intelligence agency, DAS, revealed that the agency had used its links with
the paramilitary in Colombia to participate, together with Venezuelan
opposition sectors, in a plot against the current Venezuelan government.
The
vice president of the legislative council in Táchira state, Jonathan García,
denounced a campaign by Táchira Governor César Pérez Vivas (an opponent of President
Hugo Chávez), together with other rightwing sectors, to promote a separatist
movement in the Venezuelan state, which borders Colombia.
Venezuelan Minister for Justice and Internal Affairs, Tarek El-Aissami, accused the governors of opposition-controlled states along the Colombian border of permitting bands of Colombian paramilitary troops to destabilize the region and carry out a wave of "social cleansing" murders in recent months.
Argenis
Vasquez, a union leader in a Toyota plant in Cumana, Sucre state, was
assassinated yesterday morning, triggering an occupation of that factory and
quick investigations by government bodies.
