“Insurrectional Conspiracy”: Rodríguez Torres provides more theories but no evidence

President Maduro had announced two days ago that today Interior, Justice and Peace Minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres, would reveal the evidence of coup d’état plans by the opposition against the Venezuelan government.

Moments ago, in a press conference Minister Rodríguez Torres gave details of “a plan of insurrectional conspiracy with the clear aim of overthrowing the legitimate government of the country, [a plan] that adheres to the permanent strategic objective of the State Department of the United States.”

Rodríguez Torres did not provide any evidence to sustain his claims. However he did give new details of the plot by the United States already denounced by President Maduro. According to him Venezuela is under attack on at least two fronts: drug trafficking and Human Rights. These two fronts are used to create an environment that would make acceptable a military intervention in the country.

On the Human Rights front, Rodríguez Torres explained that unspecified “US institutions” and NGOs “compile manipulated information in order to try to make the world believe that in Venezuela human rights are permanently violated.” On the other, “drug trafficking” front, “they name high Venezuelan government officials as implicated in financing terrorism and drug smuggling activities with the aim of making Venezuela appear as a rogue State.”

Short of evidence, Rodríguez Torres reminded the audience of the several times he has alerted of this plot, for example he again accused student and opposition leaders of having met last year in México to plan the recent protests in Venezuela. He also again recalled the arrest of the US national Timothy Allen on charges of being a CIA agent in April 2013. A long list of the usual suspects of conspiring against the country was also provided: Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Vilca Fernández, Lorent Saleh, Julio Rivas (JAVU), Carlos Vecchio, María Corina Machado, David smolansky, Gustavo Tovar Arroyo, Leopoldo López, Eligio Cedeño, José Antonio Colina, Gene Sharp, Pedro Burelli, Gustavo Tovar Arroyo, Daniel Ceballos, Lester Toledo, and Freddy Guevara. He also said that there are 58 foreign nationals detained so far accused of being mercenaries. He warned that the murder of chavista leader Eliézer Otaiza "was not casual," just as Maduro had suggested two days ago.

Rodríguez Torres finally explained the aims of these attacks on the country: “In the first place, a political-strategic objective is to halt the continental propagation of the Bolivarian Ideal, this is something fundamental for the United States and [in the second place] to gain control of the Orinoco Petro-belt, the biggest in the planet.”

Image by El Universal