How Has Maduro Survived? With Lots of Help From Cuban Operatives
Ethan Bronner, Alex Vasquez and David Wainer, Bloomberg: How Has Maduro Survived? With Lots of Help From Cuban Operatives
The men who ripped Carlos Guillen’s toenails out and tightened a plastic bag over his face at counterintelligence headquarters in Caracas were Venezuelan. But the officers overseeing his torture were Cuban.
What immediately gave them away was how they spoke Spanish, said Guillen, a former lieutenant in the Venezuelan military who was accused of treason and, after being placed under house arrest and escaping, fled to Colombia.
Accents were a tip-off, too, for Maria Martinez Guzman. She was on the Univision team that scored an interview in February with embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and she said she was amazed by what she witnessed: Cubans in suits and earpieces telling Maduro aides, wearing jeans, what to do. The president was so angered by the journalists’ questions that he ordered the crew briefly detained and then thrown out of the country.
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WNU Editor: The involvement of Cuba's military and intelligence services in Venezuela have been known for a long time .... Wall Street Journal: A Dozen High Level Cuban Military Officers And Thousands Of Intelligence Agents Are Now In Venezuela (May 22, 2017). My one contact in Caracas told me at the beginning of the year that most of the men who were surrounding and protecting the area around the Presidential compound in Caracas are Cuban, as well as a few very "white looking" men that he assumed were Russian.
