Three Venezuelan soldiers, now wanted for desertion and attempting to overthrow the government, appear in a video in which they state their intentions. Story via Aporrea:
The government of Venezuela has called upon the government of Colombia to hand over three military members who deserted the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) and fled to Colombia in late March.
Venezuelan exterior relations minister Delcy Rodríguez announced on Saturday that on March 31 of this year, she made the formal request of her Colombian counterpart, María Ángela Holguín, as well as Colombian defence minister Luis Carlos Villegas.
Rodríguez announced that on Monday, April 10, the three militaries asked the Colombian government for political asylum, which does not apply for military members. Rodríguez added that such protection does not apply, either, for deserting soldiers who call openly for a coup d’état, as occurred in this case, when the soldiers called in a video for the toppling of constitutional president Nicolás Maduro.
“We demand that the Colombian authorities hand over these Venezuelan military deserters, and that they not give refuge or cover to military functionaries who are implicated in the coup d’état that they tried to launch against President Nicolás Maduro. In the name of better co-operation between our two countries, we demand that the military deserters be returned in the most expeditious manner,” Rodríguez said.
On April 19, the newspaper Últimas Noticias reported that the First Military Tribunal of Caracas had put out an order for the arrest of four uniformed members of the army, on suspicion of being involved “with conspiratory motives and the planning of terrorist actions”.
The paper also reported that there are three more army lieutenants, as yet uncaptured, who travelled to Colombia in late March to meet with Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the OAS. They were identified as José Alejandro Méndez, Ángel Mogollón, and Alfredo Rodríguez Contreras. These three appeared in a video on social networks, in which they said they did not recognize Nicolás Maduro as their president.
Translation mine.
You may recall a blog entry I wrote last week, in which I called out the hypocrisies of Luis Almagro as secretary-general of the Organization of American States. Now I’m going to add to it that he is not only a hypocrite and a bullshitter, but a putschist as well. He has actively met with and given support to these terrorists in their attempt at treason. Venezuela is currently still under siege by violent opposition “protesters” who are protesting nothing…except the fact that their country is still a progressive democracy. And Almagro, in favoring these putschists, is showing that he cares nothing for democracy at all, but on the contrary, has no problem whatsoever with military coups. Or with military members calling for coups…and then fucking off out of the country when it becomes apparent that their little putsch is going futsch, as have so many others in Venezuela since the first big one in 2002.
