Dear Reuters: Is this enough proof for you?

Dear Reuters: You fail so hard at journalism…

Venezuela has detained an American citizen it says was financing opposition student demonstrations after this month’s disputed presidential election, the latest in a flurry of accusations over last week’s post-vote violence.

Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez said Timothy Hallet Tracy had been seeking to destabilize the country on behalf of an unnamed U.S. intelligence agency after President Nicolas Maduro’s narrow presidential victory.

“We detected the presence of an American who began developing close relations with these (students),” said Rodriguez in a press conference. “His actions clearly show training as an intelligence agent, there can be no doubt about it. He knows how to work in clandestine operations.”

Rodriguez said Tracy, 35, from Michigan, had received financing from a foreign non-profit organization and had redirected those funds toward student organizations. The ultimate aim was to provoke “civil war,” he said.

A U.S. embassy official had no immediate comment.

The government has given scant evidence for a flurry of headline-grabbing accusations ranging from an assassination plot against Maduro to alleged sabotage of the electricity grid.

…because this is the real story, and your version is laughable even on the surface of it:

The minister for Interior Relations, Justice and Peace, Miguel Rodríguez Torres, informed on Thursday of the capture of a US citizen, Timothy Hallett Tracy, linked to a conspiracy of the far-right against Venezuelan democracy.

The actions of Timothy Hallett Tracy are related to groups of the far right who are attempting to destabilize the country with attacks in the street following the presidential elections of April 14.

The minister stated that the objective of the plan is to generate chaos throughout the country with the creation of a violent post-election scenario in order to make it ungovernable.

“it is important to inform the people over situations which are occurring; we will show the motivations and connections they have in order to develop a series of events which we have been living through ever since the night after the elections of April 14,” said Rodríguez Torres, in a press conference.

The minister stated that as of October, November and December of 2012, the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) had been conducting investigations into an operation called “April Connection”.

“All the indicators we have been gathering indicated that we would arrive at election day with complete normality, but following the release of the results by the National Electoral Council (CNE), there was to be a non-recognition on the part of the right-wing candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski,” Rodríguez Torres explained.

He added that during the investigations they managed to detect a person of US origin, who had formed close relations with right-wing youth who were members of the so-called “Operation Sovereignty”.

“When we detected this relationship, we began to conduct surveillance and stakeouts, and we saw how this man was able to infiltrate revolutionary groups to gain their protection, but had intimate relations with the extreme right wing,” Rodríguez Torres said. He commented that it is presumed that this US citizen belonged to an intelligence organization, and had received financing from various foreign NGOs.

Rodríguez Torres explained that the objective of Operation April Connection was to generate mobilizations following the release of the results of the presidential vote, and to conduct a civil war.

“Their objective was that, to lead us into a civil war, and we have the documents proving that they exchanged [information] amongst themselves by way of some [computer] chips, which a messenger brought from the Plaza La Castellana to the home of the ‘gringo’,” Rodríguez Torres said.

He informed that, according to this right-wing sector, the idea was to launch a civil war in Venezuela and thus immediately provoke intervention from a foreign power.

“These were their desired ends, and they continue to be. We have more than 500 videos which we seized during a raid. We asked ourselves: Do the ordinary householders who voted for the opposition want a civil war, or do the Venezuelan taxi drivers want that? We are sure that nobody in this land, independent of their position, wants that, except these extremist groups, directed by extremists of the parties of the right who do want civil war,” he added.

During his press conference, the minister showed a video in which it is evident that retired general Antonio Rivero is passing instructions to guarimberos [insurrectionary right-wing demonstrators, presumably “students”] in the upper class district of Altamira, telling them how to create disturbances.

All the proofs seized during the raid, which took place on Wednesday night, were brought to the appropriate authorities.

Rodríguez Torres said that, thanks to the work of intelligence agents, the national government was able to act in time to continue to guarantee peace for the people of Venezuela.

“The President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, has emphasized that in this country, we will always go the way of peace and coexistence. That has to be an effort made by all Venezuelans, independent of their ideological and political posture. We must reject and isolate these fascist factors who live among us, and who are trying to get us Venezuelans to hate and kill one another. We cannot allow that,” he insisted.

Translation mine.

BTW, O Reuters gurus, I have your “scant evidence” right here. And, spoiler alert, it ain’t so “scant”:

You’ll have to wait till the 6:50 mark or thereabouts, but yeah, the proof is there, and yeah, it’s substantial. Video evidence that Tim Tracy has been meeting with the druggy, drinky, dollar-hungry JAVU punks (whose terrorist manifesto I’ve already translated and discussed here.) That’s one of 500 videos shot by the perps themselves, all taken into custody by the SEBIN agents as evidence of their plot. JAVU and Tracy are, in short, thoroughly fucked. As is a certain ex-general who also appears in the video, advising the punks on how to organize:

Ah yes, the peaceful, democratic Venezuelan opposition. So credible. And their gringo spook candy-man. So innocent. Meanwhile, there’s about 500 videos, all shot by themselves, to attest the opposite.

Yeah, that’s “scant” evidence, all right.

Hey, Reuters? Maybe you should learn some Spanish. And maybe learn journalism too, while you’re at it. At the very least, try learning how not to sleep through a fucking press conference. Okay?

Note: This entry has been amended following release of a longer, better version of last night’s Aporrea story.