Venezuela’s foreign minister Jorge Arreazahas reiterated his condemnation of the United States for seeking an intervention and supporting military conspiracies.
His September 9 comments followed a report that members of the US government have been meeting with Venezuelan military officers who were actively plottingtooust democratically elected Presidentsince mid-2017.
“Venezuela reiterates its denouncement and condemns the continuing aggressions that the US government has directly promoted against the constitutional President @NicolasMaduro, democratically elected and re-elected by a wide electoral margin in May this year,” Jorge Arreaza on September 9, a day after the NYT report came out.
A day earlier, Arreaza directly addressed the report and slammed the US for meeting with coup plotters against Maduro.“We denounce the intervention plans and support for military conspirators by the government of the United States againstVenezuela,” he said. “Even in US media, the crass evidence is coming to light.”
NYT writers ErnestoLondoño and Nicholas Casey published aon September 8 detailing the exchanges between US officials and Venezuela coup plotters.Accordingtotheir account, the “secret” meetings were compiled from interviews with 11 “current and former” US officials and a former Venezuelan commander, speaking under condition of anonymity.
The writers were abletogather that conversations began after Trump declared in August last year that the US had a “military option” for Venezuela. This “encouraged rebellious Venezuelan military officerstoreach outtoWashington”, they said.
During the first meetings, one of the attendees allegedly told US officials they could convince small groups within the Venezuelan military to plot against the Maduro government.
Aside from confirming what the Venezuelan government has repeatedlywarned against, namely the active plotting against the Maduro governmentby thepolitical opposition and US participation, Londoño and Casey also revealed that the US designated a career diplomattoattend the conversations, listen andreporton them.
A senior US administration official who also spoketothereporters anonymously said the Trump administration had considered dispatching a veteran Central Intelligence Agency official, Juan Cruz. It later decided “it would be more prudenttosend a career diplomat instead”.
The NYTarticleclaims that “in the fall of 2017, the diplomatreported that the Venezuelans didn’t appeartohave a detailed plan and had shown up at the encounter hoping the Americans would offer guidance or ideas”.
However, the officers had explicitly “asked the UStosupply them with encrypted radios, citing the needtocommunicate securely, as they developed a plantoinstall a transitional governmenttorun the country until elections could be held.”
Londoño and CaseyreportUS officials did not provide material support, and “the plans unravelled after a recentthat ledtothe arrest of dozens of the plotters”.
On August 4, during theBolivarian National Armed Forces 81st anniversary celebrations,twodrones packed with C4 exploded in an attempttoassassinate Maduro, several other government officials and guests. More than 40 people, including opposition legislator Julio Borges and retired colonelOswaldo Garcia, have been.
The current state of the collaboration between US and Venezuelan officialstotopple Maduro is unknown.
[Reprinted from .]