The international media are still shaken by the accusation by the US Department of Justice of President Nicolás Maduro and his government team for allegedly allowing cocaine to enter the United States.
This maneuver was formalized hours after the discovery and failure of the mercenary plan coordinated by the fugitive Clíver Alcalá Cordones from Colombia, who also pointed out Juan Guaidó and US officials to have participated in the plot.
But, what’s the origin of the accusations against personalities of the Venezuelan State? The research site La Tabla followed up on some keys.
President Hugo Chávez expelled the DEA from Venezuelan territory in 2005. The State Department, in response, began the classic maneuver to accuse drug trafficking.
At that time, they accused Chávez of collaborating with the FARC, alleging that this affected the stability of the region.
In late 2015, the Reuters agency reported that prosecutors from the Brooklyn Office in New York would file charges for the alleged involvement of Néstor Reverol and Edylberto Molina in cocaine trafficking.
Thus, as La Tabla points out, by August 2016 they had formalized the accusation, linking these officials with Vassyly Villaroel Ramírez and Robert Pinto Gil, part of criminal organizations that had been captured by the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) when Reverol was Commander General of that institution, within the framework of the Operation for the Liberation of the People (PLO).
It should be noted that Villarroel Ramírez, once a member of the GNB, had been in demand since October 2008 and was related, like Pinto Gil, to the Colombian drug trafficker Frank Tello, a member of the Los Zetas criminal organization, linked to Mexican cartels.
At the time, Major General Reverol explained that this duo “organized gangs dedicated to illicit drug trafficking that operated between the Carabobo state and the Anzoátegui state.”
Tello had previously been extradited to the United States following Interpol’s request in 2010 when Tareck el Aissami was Minister of the Interior and Justice.
Subsequently, The Wall Street Journal cited Tello’s allegations, without any evidence, against Diosdado Cabello and other high officials of the Venezuelan government for an alleged drug trafficking network, the ghostly “Cartel de los Soles”.
Both Villarroel and Pinto were former GNB officers when their apprehension was carried out. Such link has been forced by the US Department of Justice to cling and force the narrative about the links of the illicit drug trafficking with the Venezuelan State, in addition to Tello’s statements, says La Tabla.
In other words, the United States is clinging to the Venezuelan fight against drug trafficking … to accuse Chavismo of drug trafficking? Prosecutor Barr’s accusation falls short of maturity.
Based on this account of recent history, it is evident how the alleged implications of the Venezuelan government authorities with drug trafficking, by US prosecutors in conjunction with the media, served as key elements within the strategy of “power smart ”of the Obama administration in the context of US foreign policy against Venezuela.
Well, they prepared the ground and left the path outlined for the era of Donald Trump’s iron unilateralism, with the aim of recovering the influence and preponderance on the regional board, while heightening the actions against the Venezuelan State with the application of the Noriega formula (remember Panama 1989).
The mercenarization of the US agenda against President Maduro and other leaders of Chavismo is based on a narrative that shows the precariousness and lack of support for judicial action by the Justice Department. And so the United States says to fight drug trafficking
You know where the US should go looking for drugs? Not in Venezuela. If they don’t want to go to neighbouring Colombia, then go to Afghanistan, where 90% of the world’s opium comes from—and where US troops have been for almost 20 years!
