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Violent Destabilisation Strategy as a Possible Scenario on 7 October

Based on various declarations made by spokespeople of [opposition parties] Popular Will, Sumate, and other opposition organisations in the support material that was used in their election booth witness training workshops, a destabilising plan linked to the election process has become apparent.

guarimbas_index

Threats of violent destabilisation in this juncture

Based on various declarations made by spokespeople of [opposition parties] Popular Will, Sumate, and other opposition organisations in the support material that was used in their election booth witness training workshops, a Plan B, or a destabilising plan linked to the election process has become apparent, where some under cover counter revolutionary forces have been preparing a confrontation action with the following courses of action:

1. Not recognise the election results if they aren’t favourable

2. Scream electoral fraud (they have been preparing the land these last few months through their spokespeople, media, and social networkers)

3. Organise subversive acts that contravene public order and use a “critical mass” (professionals of diverse areas: journalists, graphic reporters, lawyers, artists, engineers, economists etc) as cannon fodder.

4. Through agitational focus points and “guarimbas” (violent destabilisation), create a picture of ungovernability.

5. Use these actions as a trigger of generalised violent conflict  to provide the framework for special undercover operations, presenting a picture of civil war.

6. In this political- military conflict, the conditions for foreign intervention would be generated.

Execution of the Guarimba Plan and the key voting booths

The progress of the above scenario is intimately associated with the deployment of committed groups in areas near the voting centres, to promote violent situations there.

Under the alibi of defending the vote of the Venezuelan Command [the opposition’s electoral campaign] has organised units of the following forces:

– 133,893 witnesses to safeguard the votes

– 82,530 progressives (in charge of mobilising voters who have difficulties arriving at their voting booths)

-40,000 logistical volunteers (authorised to support anything that is necessary within and outside the voting booths)

The actions of the referred to groups is focused on what they have called “key electoral centres”.

According to the internal documents of Capriles’ campaign, the “key electoral centres” are those that fulfil one or various of the following indicators:

1. Electoral centres where they detected irregular voting compared to nearby centres.  This means that where, for example, nearby the opposition loses 60 to 40, in the key ones we lose 90 to 10 or worse [“we” refers to the opposition]

2. Electoral centres where there have been violent incidents against opposition witnesses

3. Electoral centres in far away rural zones, or in populated high risk areas, where the opposition doesn’t have any witness presence.

4. New electoral centres, because they don’t have historical references.

In other words, they have located their actions in those electoral centres with the following characteristics:

1.  Where the Chavistas have a majority.

2. Where the MUD [opposition coalition] doesn’t have enough witnesses or machinery

3. Where there have been irregularities or conflicts in the past.

4. Where, according to the opposition, there is a possibility of vote usurpation.

5. In the new centres created by the CNE.

6.  In those places where the electoral result, abstention, and blank votes have a anomalous historical behaviour.

The Venezuelan command has established a Special Unit of Attention to Electoral Centres, based on the following indicators:

-Of the total electoral register of 18,802,648 (not including the votes outside of Venezuela), 3,290,692 people will vote in the key centres, which represents 17.5%.

-Of the 13,683 electoral centres, 5,328 are key centres, or 38.9%.

-Of the total voting booths established by the CNE of 39,018, the key centres will have 8,437 booths, which represents 21.6%.

The objective of the Special Units of Key Centres is to guarantee that in each of them, they have one centre coordinator and that each booth has at least two opposition witnesses.

Also in the guarimba document “parcelisation” and “mapping the municipalities” and “establishing points of operative support” are talked about where the units will be operating.

Organisation and function of the Special Unit of Attention to the Key Centres

In the following graphics, which were support material for the training of members of the special unites organised by the Venezuelan command for the guarimbas, we find the main operative faces of this strategy, under the disguise of defending the vote:

[Note, due to their Spanish content, Venezuenalysis.com has only included a few of the graphics, to give the reader proof that this article is based on real opposition documents]

Key voting centres

Defense of the vote and functional organisation

Intelligence networks for an early alert

At the moment, taking into consideration the threats concretised in the guarimba scenario, which we have described above, a greater effort is required to map the situations and behaviour of the opposing actors involved in the planning of implicit actions in said scenario.

In such a case, it’s necessary to work with the following lines of action, with tactical and operative purposes:

1.  A conflict map

2. A map of opposing actors and their profiles

3. A map of relationships between these actors

4.  Territorial map or geographical location (circuits, problematic or conflictive voting centres)

5. Scenarios

These requirements take on life in the course of action of 7 October, detecting actions and potential conflicts at the following times:

1. Opening of voting centres and the installation of the booths

2. Start of voting

3. Close of centres

4. Scrutiny

As a profile of what could happen, we provide an example of things that could happen at these times:

-During the opening of the centres, critical moments are possible if there are delays in opening, which could be caused by having to wait for the booth members or witnesses to arrive, or the placing of people in the queue to cover a deficit.

-At the start there could be tensions due to the managing of queues, identification, propaganda and how to votes, arguments with the Republic Plan [the soldiers watching over the booth]

-For the close of booths there could be conflicts created by the closing time when there are or aren’t queues.

Translation by Tamara Pearson for Venezuelanalysis.com