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LatinNews Daily - 20 March 2018

Venezuelan military chief condemns coup-mongering

Development: On 19 March, Venezuela’s defence minister, General-in-chief Vladimir Padrino López, called on dissident figures within the Bolivarian armed forces (FANB) to stop agitating for a military coup.

Significance: Padrino López insisted that “nobody will divide” the FANB, but the fact that he was compelled to make the comment at all is a sure sign of uneasiness within the institution. Calculating the extent of any divisions within the FANB is very difficult, but a series of recent purges is testament to the government’s intent to snuff out any dissent.

  • Padrino López praised the FANB’s “strength, moral cohesion, patriotic, national, and democratic conscience”. And he warned “desperados” to “back off” as they will “never succeed” in fomenting a coup.
  • In recent weeks, the government led by President Nicolás Maduro has moved to stamp out what it has denounced as conspiracies being orchestrated within the FANB. Retired Major General Miguel Rodríguez Torres was arrested on 13 March for seeking to destabilise the FANB in a plot against the Maduro administration. Rodríguez Torres served as interior minister under Maduro. He was also head of Venezuela's intelligence service under Hugo Chávez, the founder of the Bolivarian movement and late president (1999-2013), taking part in his failed coup attempt in 1992.
  • Rodríguez Torres might have been the most high-profile arrest, but a dozen FANB officers, including four lieutenant colonels, were expelled at the tail end of last month, accused of treason and belonging to a clandestine movement known as Transición a la Dignidad del Pueblo.
  • Several senior officers in the FANB, including retired generals critical of the government, have also been stripped of their rank. This prompted one, Clíver Alcalá Cordones, to speak out. In a letter published on social media at the weekend (17-18 March), Alcalá Cordones blamed Maduro for unrest in the FANB, saying his “arbitrary actions” encouraged it.

Looking Ahead: President Maduro is looking to crush rival factions within the Bolivarian movement. He started with the state-run oil company Pdvsa and has moved on to the military. In both cases former members of Chávez’s inner circle have been taken out: the former oil czar Rafael Ramírez and now Rodríguez Torres.

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