Paramilitaries in Venezuela

On 20 November 2007, the Venezuelan government announced it has discovered a house in - Urbanización Miranda -Eastern Caracas with 78 mobile phones,  US military uniforms, guns and ammunition. Another house was searched in Hatillo municipality.This news came out as four people were arrested and detained this morning: José Angulo Guayabal, Iván Álvarez Pina, Miguel Antonio Dávila Pereiray Luber Jacinto Atencio González; their nationality is yet to be confirmed.  It later emerged, they are presumably paramilitaries intending to attack and create havoc during the Constitutional Reform campaigns or promote a coup. This has been used by the government to promote the idea of foreign intervention in domestic affairs and denouce the rightist opposition to President Chavez. 

 

This event resembles the detention of 120 Colombian Paramilitaries at Hatillo Municipality, Caracas, in 2004.   In 2006, President Chavez freed the 120 Colombian paramilitaries on humanitarian grounds as the itelectual planner of their plot was discovered. Robert Alonso, brother of Cuban American (ex Venezuelan) Actress Maria Conchita Alonso owns the farm where the paramilitaries were living and training. While she has been critical of the visit of famous American actors like Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey and Noami Campbell to Caracas,  he is currently on the run. Colombian Security agencies were also blame in the paramilitary affair.   

 

Sources: Telesur, Globovision, ABN, IPS, BBC