‘They want to kill us’
Venezuelan rebel sends final video to Instagram
In frenzied videos posted to thousands on Instagram, Oscar Perez said his gang of Venezuelan rebels wanted to give themselves up. But security forces who had tracked the rebels to mountains outside Caracas on Monday had other ideas, he said.
“We’re going to turn ourselves in!” a panicked and bloodied Perez shouted as a fire burned in a corner of a ramshackle room in his mountain hideout. Gunshots could be heard on the video.
“They are firing at us with grenade launchers, we said we were going to surrender and they don’t want to let us surrender, they want to kill us.”
Perhaps knowing that his fate was sealed, the anti-government, ex- policeman who once roused people to protest after dropping grenades onto Venezuela’s Supreme Court from a stolen helicopter, had one last message.
“I want to ask Venezuela not to lose heart — fight, take to the streets,” he told the camera amid the chaos. “It is time for us to be free, and only you have the power now.”
Then his Instagram account — with 140,000 followers — went quiet. Mystery surrounded the fate of the man known as Venezuela’s James Bond for nearly 24 hours.
On Tuesday, the official announcement came on state television that Perez, who had labelled the government of President Nicolas Maduro as tyrannical, was dead, along with six other rebels.
Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said two police officers were killed and eight others gravely injured in the operation.
“Despite all the attempts to achieve a peaceful and negotiated surrender, this heavily armed terrorist group started a sly and malicious showdown with security forces,” Reverol told reporters.
The 36- year- old Perez had been a member of Venezuela’ s forensic police( known as the CICPC, its Spanish acronym) for 15 years. His colourful past combined work as a highly trained officer, a pilot and a dog trainer. He had also had an action-movie role. In June his fame went to another level when he flew the chopper, stolen from the CICPC, over Caracas and attacked the Supreme Court during anti-government protests.
Some Venezuelans hailed Perez as a hero, others condemned him as a criminal.
The government described Perez as a“fanatic, extremist terrorist ,” but some wondered if his actions might be a ruse to support Maduro’s assertion that the nation was under attack by opposition conspirators.
“I’m not at all convinced by the helicopter incident,” Miguel Rodriguez, a former i ntelligence chief under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez, said at the time of Perez’s attack. “Conclusion: a cheap show.”
Venezuela is suffering an unprecedented economic crisis that has left its onceprosperous citizens suffering from a rise in malnutrition and preventable diseases. Near- daily demonstrations against Maduro’s rule over a four- month span last year left at least 120 people dead.
Maduro says the country is the victim of an “economic war” led by political adversaries and fuelled by economic sanctions levied by the government of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Days after the helicopter attack, Perez had ridden into Caracas on a motorcycle and appeared at an anti- government protest.
“It’s the zero hour,” he had said in a post last July as several masked youths looked on from behind. “The true way to pay respects to those who’ve died is for this dictatorship to fall.”
In December, Perez posted videos showing him and a small armed band taking over a military outpost and smashing a portrait of Maduro with his foot.
Maduro responded in the following days, vowing to meet Perez with bullets. On Monday, the president’s promise appears to have been kept.
In an address Monday night, Maduro c l ai med Perez’s group was preparing a car bomb to use against an embassy.
“In the face of an attack that put the lives of security officials at risk, the attacking group was neutralized using established protocols, with the unfortunate result of seven dead terrorists,” Reverol said in a televised broadcast.
Reverol said troops arrested another six people identified as members, collaborators and financiers of t he group. They also confiscated rifles, military uniforms, ammunition and smoke grenades.
The Venezuelan Program of Education and Action on Human Rights has called for the government to provide a full report on the attack. The opposition- controlled National Assembly early Tuesday formed a special commission to conduct its own investigation.
“How is it possible that while surrendering, they riddled him with bullets?” said Delsa Solorzano, National Assembly deputy assigned to head the commission.
THEY ARE FIRING AT US WITH GRENADE LAUNCHERS.