Operation Gideon (2020)
Two boats were launched from eastern Colombia toward the Caribbean coast of Venezuela north of Caracas, carrying approximately 60 Venezuelan dissidents and two American former Green Berets employed as mercenaries by Silvercorp.[12] Javier Corrales wrote in a Journal of Democracy article that the "questionable electoral integrity" and the "slim margin" by which Maduro won the 2013 Venezuelan presidential election brought resistance to his mandate from "opposition parties, the media, civil society, elements of the military, and international actors"."[12] Beginning with the 2014 Venezuelan protests, Popular Will leader Leopoldo López had sought to expel Maduro, calling for "direct action to remove" him, according to an article published by The Wall Street Journal.[22] A Wall Street Journal aticle stated that unnamed sources said López and his closest aides began seeking a security firm and contemplated hiring mercenaries without the knowledge of other opposition parties.[13] After the unsuccessful April 2019 uprising, some former military and police defectors who sided with Guaidó took refuge in Colombia;[4] they considered their aim was to "liberate their homeland from the socialist government of [an] autocratic" president, according to The Washington Post.[4][10][23] Alcalá was a Major General in the Venezuelan Army with close ties to the Hugo Chávez government until he defected under Maduro[5] to Colombia in 2013 and began gathering other defectors, stationing them in the La Guajira Peninsula."[33] The Wall Street Journal reported that Alcalá planned to use dissident soldiers from the Venezuelan army and national guard, hoping to involve officers in the operation prior to their purging by the Maduro government.[4] Schiller brought Goudreau to a March 2019 fundraising event focused on security in Venezuela and future investments in the nation following a potential end of the Maduro government, which took place at the University Club of Washington, DC.[13] During the two-day meeting with Toledo and Goudreau, Alcalá disclosed that he had recruited some 300 men stationed at training camps on the Guajira Peninsula near Riohacha, Colombia, ready to carry out "a 'mad plan' to push across the western border, take the oil center of Maracaibo and force their way to Caracas, the capital".[5] After reviewing all legal means of removing Maduro,[48][45] the group adopted the position that the Venezuelan Constitution, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and other treaties provided justification for pursuing a change of government.[3] Hernán Alemán, an opposition politician who initially supported the plan, while describing Goudreau as a friend, indicated in an interview following the event that he did not know any details surrounding the contract or discussions that took place in the United States.[3][4] The impounded truck was headed for Venezuela carrying 26 semi-automatic rifles, night vision goggles, radios, and 15 combat helmets produced by High-End Defense Solutions, a company owned by Venezuelan Americans.[10] Two days after the confiscation of weapons and munitions in Colombia, on 25 March, the Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information, Jorge Rodríguez, gave a televised press conference in which he published details related to the training camps.Rodríguez named former Venezuelan army captain Roberto Levid "Pantera" Colina Ibarra,[66][81][82] whom he identified as a murderer, as the leader of one of the training sites with the support of Colombian President Iván Duque.[10] By the time of the landing attempt, many of the dissidents had abandoned their camps following the arrest of Alcalá, investigations by Colombian authorities, and the growing pandemic;[4] because Goudreau's promises had failed to materialize; and due to rumors that Maduro had infiltrated the operation.[48] In November 2020, the Miami Herald published an article based on an interview with an anonymous source known by the nickname Cacique, "a Venezuelan rebel officer who operated the communications center for the failed incursion from an undisclosed city in the United States"[81] and was a CARIVE member and Nieto confidant.[50] When asked why his troops would land at one of Venezuela's most fortified coastlines, twenty miles from Caracas and next to the country's biggest airport, he cited as inspiration the Battle of Gaugamela, won by Alexander the Great, who had "struck deep into the heart of the enemy".[49][81][82][90] Opposition lawmaker Wilmer Azuaje and journalist Sebastiana Barráez said that Venezuelan authorities had advance knowledge of the landing and that they staged the firefight, at odds with the government's account[81] that the confrontation began after Colina started shooting.[6] The occupants of the second boat were reportedly destined for an area near Caracas where they would set up a camp under the supervision of Berry and Denman in preparation for an invasion force they hoped would attract disaffected Venezuelan soldiers looking to join the efforts to remove Maduro from power.[82] Most of the men on the second boat were dropped off along the shoreline to attempt escape from Venezuelan authorities, but Sequea, Denman, and Berry remained on board, possibly with the intention of seeking refuge in international waters.[22][49][97][b] Maduro's Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced that 25,000 national troops were mobilized[99] in a Venezuelan military mission named "Bolivarian Shield" (Spanish: Escudo Bolivariano) to protect the country from similar attempts.Óscar Pérez had denounced in 2017 that both Rayder Alexander Russo (alias "Pico") and Osman Alejandro Tabosky, both arrested by Colombian officials and the latter also accused as intellectual author of the 2018 Caracas drone attack, were "infiltrated agents" in the resistance movement against Maduro.[2] On 16 May 2020, according to a press release published by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela, several trial courts dedicated to terrorism-related crimes ordered that some 40 individuals alleged to have participated in the raid be remanded to preventive detention.[88][81] Barráez and Azuaje – the latter of which investigated the incident in connection with a human rights complaint submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) – accused Venezuelan authorities of torturing and executing the six men in the first boat, including Colina.[31] Azuaje argued the deaths were "extrajudicial executions", said that "everything was rigged" and referred to the event as the "Macuto massacre" comparing it to the 2018 El Junquito raid, in which Óscar Pérez and his men were killed after reportedly offering to surrender.[129] The report identifies the six former military[136] dead as Colina along with César Andrés Perales Sequea, Anderson Smith Araque Portilla, Jean Carlo Castro Gutiérrez, Fabián Rodríguez Salazar, and José Roberto Abreu Facúndez.[145] Julio Borges, Guaidó's foreign minister, called for the dismissal of all officials related to the plot, stating "we worry that energies are put into the creation of a bureaucratic caste and not into political change."[13] The human rights NGO PROVEA asked about the well-being of the people arrested in Macuto and in Chuao and indicated that Tarek William Saab, and the Ombudsman appointed by Maduro, Alfredo Ruiz, would be responsible for possible forced disappearances or torture of the detainees, while stressing that it would only support and promote peaceful and constitutional means that lead to the "restoration of democracy in the country".[148] Human Rights Watch criticized Maduro for alleging that PROVEA had connections to the United States Central Intelligence Agency after the organization called for due process of the captured individuals.[13] Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote that the plot "sounds crazy and joins a series of other alleged coup attempts and assassinations whose backgrounds were so contradictory that they were dismissed as inventions for the purpose of propaganda", though notes that the efforts overall "were real", citing the interviews regarding the operation.
El Junquito raidOperation GideonSpanish naming customssurnamecrisis in VenezuelaVenezuelan presidential crisisNicolás MaduroUS passportsGreen BeretsVenezuelaMacutoVargasAraguaJ. J. RendónSergio VergaraNational Bolivarian Armed Forces of VenezuelaBolivarian Intelligence ServiceSilvercorp USADiosdado CabelloVladimir Padrino LópezNéstor ReverolJordan Goudreau Clíver Antonio Alcalá CordonesSpanishVenezuelandissidentsprivate security firmJordan GoudreauColombiaCaribbeanmercenariescapturedinterrogationsstate televisionintelligenceAssociated Presssuicide missionterroristsfalse flagfreedom fightersBolivarian RevolutionChavismoEconomic policy under Hugo ChávezEconomic policy under Nicolás MaduroRefugee crisisEnergy crisis2019 blackouts2024 blackoutsZulia energy collapseDefectionsInternational sanctionsU.S. sanctionsInterventions of political partiesPiracyShortagesVenezuela–Colombia migrant crisisHyperinflationCatatumbo campaignXenophobic incidentsPemon conflictSiege of the Argentine Embassy in VenezuelaDakazoLa SalidaArrest of Antonio Ledezma2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisisLima Group2018 re-election campaign of Nicolás Maduro2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to VenezuelaVenezuela Aid LiveCOVID-19 pandemic2022 recall movement2023 Unitary Platform presidential primaries2024 Venezuelan political crisis2013 presidential election2015 parliamentary election2017 referendum2017 Constituent Assembly election2018 presidential election2020 parliamentary election2023 referendum2024 presidential electionProtestsCaracas helicopter incident2017 National Assembly attackAttack on Fort ParamacayCaracas drone attack2019 uprising attempt2020 Barquisimeto shooting2021 Apure clashes2022 Arauca clashespresident of VenezuelaHugo ChávezJournal of Democracy2013 Venezuelan presidential election2014 Venezuelan protestsPopular WillLeopoldo LópezThe Wall Street Journal2017 Constituent National AssemblyNational Assemblypresidential crisisJuan GuaidóThe Washington Postrecognized by more than 50 countriesinterim president of VenezuelaDonald Trump2019 Venezuelan uprising attemptClíver Alcalá CordonesMajor GeneralVenezuelan Armyother defectorsLa Guajira PeninsulaCartel of the SunsCanadian Armed ForcesWashington, D.C.United States ArmySergeant First Class10th Special Forces GroupnaturalizedCharlotte, North CarolinaVenezuelan crisis defectionKeith SchillerUniversity Club of Washington, DCJW Marriott BogotáGuajira PeninsulaRiohacha