Communication
Minister Jorge Rodríguez announced
yesterday that the government has “more than 59 hours” of videos and taped
conversations between plotters of a coup attempt that would have included the assassination
of more than 60 government leaders. President Nicolás Maduro, the government sponsored
Constituent Assembly president Diosdado Cabello, and the president of the
Supreme Justice Tribunal (TSJ), Maikel Moreno, were mentioned as targets. The
coup was planned to take place on June 23 and 24, but was dismantled by the government.
Excerpts
from the videos were shown by Rodríguez.
Retired General Ramón
Antonio Lozada and active General Miguel Sisco Mora, were mentioned by
Rodríguez as taking parts in the recorded conversations in which they plotted
to, according to the Minister, “assassinate Nicolás Maduro, to permanently follow
him, his wife, his children; to assassinate the president of the Constituent
Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, the president of the TSJ, Maikel Moreno.”
Rodriguez was quick
to link the military conspirator to the opposition leadership and its foreign
backers: “These are no hypothesis, no speculations, this is evidence and
testimonies obtained after months of intelligence gathering and they involve
Juan Guaidó and Ivan Duque in these violent events.”
In a twist to the plot,
Rodríguez also claimed that the conspirators would not have named Guaido as
president after the coup, but instead would have freed General Raúl Baduel from
his house arrest and named him as president, “an unequivocal sign that they
hate each other,” said Rodríguez of the opposition leadership. Other
parts of the plot included stealing military tanks from the La Carlota Air
Force base in Caracas, stealing “146 assault rifles” form the vaults of the Venezuelan
Central Bank (?), and placing snipers in buildings in downtown Caracas to shoot
the people who would come out in support of the government during the coup.
Diosdado Cabello has insisted that “Israeli agents” were to be involved in these
last parts of the plan.
The Communication
Minister said the government would be revealing the full evidence of the plot
in the next few days, but also asked “the people” to be on the alert and come
to the authorities if they knew anything about this plot.
(Update June 30, 2019)
One of the active officers,
navy captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo, detained in relation to the plot, died yesterday
under custody of the military counterintelligence police (DGCIM). Relatives who
saw him yesterday say he had been severely beaten, could barely talk, and was
only able to ask his lawyer for help. Following
complains by the lawyer a judge ordered that Acosta Arévalo be taken to a
military hospital where he died at 1:00am.
In short statement
the Venezuelan government says:
The Bolivarian Government informs the Venezuelan
people that, faced with the continuous and sneaky [artera] intention of the
enemies of the Constitution and peace, of perpetrating coup d’état attempts,
terrorist acts, massacres against the civilian population, arms robbery, and
the assassination of the President of the Republic, as well as his near
relatives and [other] leaders of the Bolivarian Revolution, State security
agencies began months ago the investigation which lead to the dismantling of
these criminal plans and the arrest of these self-confessed terrorists. All the
investigation was done with absolute respect to due process and to human
rights, as is the indispensable condition under our Constitutional State of
Justice and Law.
Considering the events which resulted in the death of the
citizen Rafael Acosta Arévalo, accused of serious terrorist acts, sedition, and
frustrated attempt to assassinate the head of State [magnicidio], [events which
took place] during the presentation [of Acosta Arévalo] to the court, the Head of
State, President Nicolás Maduro, has asked the Attorney General, Tarek William
Saab, for a full and comprehensive investigation to clear [the circumstance of]
this regrettable event.
