On
May 9, 2004,
Venezuelan police raided a ranch in Buruta, on the outskirts of the capital
Caracas, arresting fifty-five
Colombian men. The ranch was owned by
Roberto Alonso, a Cuban exile active in the anti-
Castro and a leader of the Venezuelan opposition group Bloque Democrático Shortly thereafter, they arrested 71 more at the neighboring ranch owned by
Gustavo Cisneros, a Cuban-Venezuelan Chávez opponent. Venezuela reported that one of the detainees said they had been offered 500,000
Colombian pesos to work on the farm before being informed that they would have to prepare for an attack on a National Guard base, with the goal of stealing weapons to potentially arm a 3,000-strong
militia.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/583/583p18b.htm
According to other detainees and the Colombian families of many of them, most of those arrested were apparently unemployed poor peasants, some from the
Cúcuta area, many of whom had at some point in their lives done military service in Colombia and thus qualified as reservists. They'd have been promised to work in Venezuela but were later betrayed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_3698000/3698989.stm.
The families of 68 detainees announced to the Colombian press in
June 2004 their intention of travelling to Venezuela to argue for their relatives freedom, claiming that they fell to a setup.
http://noticias.canalrcn.com/noticia.php3?nt=12388. Another relative told the Venezuelan opposition press that the prisoners were being mistreated while in captivity
http://www.eluniversal.com/movil/13A475161.html. The official press reported a government denial of this claim.
The family of a Venezuelan National Guard Captain arrested and accused of being implicated in the supposed paramilitary plot likewise denounced in the opposition press the possibility of a political persecution against those that would not share the Venezuelan revolutionary process. He was said not to be recognized when he was presented to the Colombian detainees.
http://www.eluniversal.com/2004/07/16/pol_art_16108E.shtml.
Some women and underaged children were also included among those captured suspected paramilitaries. The latter were speedily repatriated to Colombia by Venezuelan authorities
http://www.terra.com.ve/actualidad/articulo/html/act176707.htm. The alleged paramilitaries were caught wearing Venezuelan Army uniforms and apparently had a single gun in their possession in the immediate area. At least two (other sources speak of between three and five) suspected paramilitary commanders were also reported to be in custody.
Opposition critics of the official Venezuelan government's version also mention that an attack by such a small number of fighters against a strongly defended Venezuelan military position and/or eventually the palace of President Chávez would amount to certain failure and virtual suicide on the part of those carrying out the alleged operation. Supporters of the government's version point to the claim that the captured men would only be part of a
vanguard of allegedly some 3,000 potential operatives that would have been later introduced into the country.
In
June 2004, a Cuban Miami TV channel broadcasted a program featuring the
Florida-based Comandos F4. Rodolfo Frometa, the Comandos F4 leader, said that his group was ready to carry out violent attacks against the Cuban government. Former Venezuelan army captain Eduardo García described the help he received from Comandos F4 to organize similar violent actions against the Chávez government. According to the TV program maker Randy Alonso, the US government would have recently earmarked $36 million to support such paramilitary groups.
http://www.counterpunch.org/wire06112004.html U.S. officials and opposition figures in Venezuela have dismissed this claim.
Alonso went into hiding. Many media reports, and his official website, suggested that he had fled the country.
Category:Venezuelan politics