Colombian Terrorist Conspiracy

Communications, Tourism and Culture Vice-president Jorge Rodríguez said yesterday that the government’s “intelligence apparatus” has revealed a terrorist plot to blow up the Miraflores presidential palace and the headquarters in Cotiza of the FAES (police Special Forces), with C-4 explosives.

“Members of the Popular Power noticed the existence of suspicious looking bags which had been left at the Cotiza headquarters of the FAES and in the area of 23 de Enero [building complex]. They contacted the Explosives Division and realized they [the bags] were filled with C-4 ready to explode,” declared Rodríguez.

The bags were found on August 17, but curiously the Vice-president said the explosives were set to go off sometime “during the next 15 days.”

The terrorist plot, according to Rodríguez, includes Luis Ricardo Gomes Peñaranda –a Colombian national arrested on August 29 and charged with possession of explosives-. Interrogated, Peñaranda said that opposition leader Julio Borges (Residing in Colombia and recently appointed as Foreign Minister by National Assembly appointed president of Venezuela, Juan Guidó) is the mastermind of the plot. Cliver Alcalá Crodones (“alias César, chief of Colombian terrorist unit,” according to AVN,) and Rayder Ruso (alias Pico”, implicated in the attempt against Maduro of August 4, 2018,) and two ex-police officers, are also part of the plot.

Peñaranda also revealed the “exact coordinates” in Colombia of three paramilitary camps where terrorist are being trained “to assassinate Venezuelans and generate chaos [zozobra].”

“Colombia is required to act against these paramilitaries (…): more than 200 armed men are being trained in Colombian territory,” concluded Rodríguez his press conference.

Later during the day, Executive Vice-president Delcy Rodríguez later declared that “Venezuela will present the United Nations with overwhelming evidence of the protection and shelter by Iván Duque of terrorist groups, trained and armed in Colombia to, with his [Duque’s] consent, attack our constitutional order, in violation of Resolution 1,373 of the Security Council.”

Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino López, also weighted in: “I reiterate that Iván Duque and Guillermo Botero [Defense Minister of Colombia], apart from their cynical politicking, suffer from astounding blindness: they refuse to see the conspiracy permanently plotting in Colombia, under their sponsorship and concealment, against the fatherland of the Liberators.”

The accusations against Colombia come in the wake of the announcement by a dissident faction of the Colombian FARC to again take up arms. Maduro had previously announced that Iván Márquez and Jesús Santrich, leaders of this FARC faction, would be welcomed in Venezuela. Foreign Minister of Colombia, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, said his government believes the two leaders are in Venezuelan territory and has asked for them to be handed to Colombian authorities.