Colombia’s Former President Uribe Calls for Armed Intervention in Venezuela
The former president tied to death squads and drug cartels is calling for foreign armed forces to invade Venezuela.
Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said on Friday that any foreign country should conduct a military intervention in Venezuela to overthrow the government of President Nicolas Maduro.
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“The army … the armed forces have to protect the opposition … or let’s think … just think … which country is willing to put their armed forces to protect the (Venezuelan) opposition? Be careful … tyranny does not listen … They (Venezuelan government) have to be confronted with all of our energy,” Uribe said when he was leaving the Concordia Summit at Miami Dade College, in Florida.
Uribe’s government is responsible for the the “false positives” scandal – one of the most tragic and horrific episodes in the 50-year armed conflict in Colombia – when the military executed thousands of Colombians, dressed them in guerrilla garb and reported them as guerrillas killed in combat. They did this in order to receive financial benefits and to inflate the military’s success in the battle against the insurgents.
Uribe also has long-standing ties with death squads in the country. Furthermore, according to a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document, while a senator in the 1990s uribe was “dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín [drug] cartel at high government levels” and was “close personal friend of Pablo Escobar.”
Meanwhile a dozen right-wing former presidents gathered in Miami and signed a statement denouncing what they called an “economic, social and governance deterioration” in Venezuela.
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Among the signatories are Uribe and Andres Pastrana from Colombia; Jose Maria Aznar from Spain; Jorge Quiroga from Bolivia; Fernando de la Rua from Argentina and Vicente Fox from Mexico.
The former leaders argue that the government of president Maduro is maintaining “a discourse of institutional conflict” and “developing actions of political persecution against members of the National Assembly and opposition leaders.”
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