Ex-US soldier fails in putsch bid
A former Green Beret has taken responsibility for what he claimed was a failed attack yesterday aimed at overthrowing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and that the socialist government said ended with eight dead.
Jordan Goudreau’s comments in an interview with an exiled Venezuelan journalist capped a bizarre day that started with reports of a predawn amphibious raid near the South American country’s heavily guarded capital.
An AP investigation published on Saturday found that Goudreau had been working with a retired Venezuelan army general now facing US narcotics charges to train dozens of deserters from Venezuela’s security forces at secret camps inside neighbouring Colombia. The goal was to mount a cross-border raid that would end in Maduro’s arrest.
But from the outset the ragtag army lacked funding and US government support, all but guaranteeing defeat against Maduro’s sizeable-if-demoralised military.
It also appears to have been penetrated by Maduro’s extensive Cuban-backed intelligence network.
Both Goudreau and retired Venezuelan Captain Javier Nieto declined to speak to the AP yesterday when contacted after posting a video from an undisclosed location saying they had launched an anti-Maduro putsch called ‘‘Operation Gideon.’’ Both men live in Florida.
‘‘A daring amphibious raid was launched from the border of Colombia deep into the heart of Caracas,’’ Goudreau, in a New York Yankees ball cap, said in the video standing next to Nieto who was dressed in armoured vest with a rolled-up Venezuelan flag pinned to his shoulder.
‘‘Our units have been activated in the south, west and east of Venezuela.’’
Goudreau said 60 of his men were still on the ground and calls were being activated inside Venezuela, some of them fighting under the command of Venezuelan National Guardsman Captain Antonio Sequea, who participated in a barracks revolt against Maduro a year ago.
None of their claims of an ongoing operation could be independently verified.
But Goudreau said he hoped to join the rebels soon and invited Venezuelans and Maduro’s troops to join the would-be insurgency although there was no sign of any fighting in the capital or elsewhere as night fell.
In an interview later with Miami-based journalist Patricia Poleo, he provided a contradictory account of his activities and the support he claims to have once had – and then lost – from Juan Guaido, the opposition leader recognised as Venezuela’s interim president by the US and some 60 countries.
He provided to Poleo what he said was an 8-page contract signed by Guaido and two political advisers in Miami in October for US$213 million (NZ$353m). The alleged ‘‘general services’’ contract doesn’t specify what work his company, Silvercorp USA, was to undertake.