‘No evidence’ of Colombia paramilitary involvement in Venezuela

Colombia’s Interior minister on Monday stated that there is “no evidence” that the US government and paramilitaries from Colombia have incited violence in Venezuela. Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has accused the United States, Colombia’s extreme right, former President Alvaro Uribe and illegal paramilitary groups of orchestrating a plan to encourage social unrest in order to over throw the government. Maduro made these claims last week when he said that authorities are “on maximum alert” over alleged US-approved plans to send paramilitary deaths squads from Colombia to carry out violent attacks in the joint border region. “They want to infiltrate armed groups trained by Colombian paramilitaries because from the north has come the order to, in whichever way, destroy the homeland of [Simon] Bolivar,” the general who liberated Colombia and Venezuela from Spanish rule in the 19th century, Maduro said. More…