Briefing

‘La Vega Is Ours’

On Monday morning, hours of gunfire terrorized the La Vega sector in Caracas. The conflict in Apure has been going on for over two months and has a negative balance: murdered and displaced civilians and eight military officers kidnapped by FARC.

Naky Soto

Photo: AP

  • On Monday morning, hours of gunfire terrorized the La Vega sector in Caracas. There are two versions as to what happened: 
    • In the first version, criminals who are trying to control the sector and expand the territories controlled by El Coqui, Garbis y Vampi (from La Cota 905), opened fire against the police. Because of the shots fired, three civilians in adjacent areas and four gang members were injured. Their current situation is unknown because other members of their gang provided their medical care.
    • The second version says that these gangs wanted to show their arsenal off and fired to prove they control the territory, while they yelled their mottos like “La Vega is ours” or “we are crime” or “we’re taking over this place”. The shooting went for over four hours and the area collapsed because of it. 
  • The National Electoral Council (CNE) installed the logistics committee for the December 21st election. One of the ad hoc boards of COPEI, the former opposition party, announced its list of candidates that would be running to this election. 
  • Former chief of counterintelligence Hugo “el Pollo” Carvajal, who has been in hiding after the Audiencia Nacional’s hearing to authorize his extradition to the U.S. from Spain, published a memo condemning the “irregularities” of the Spanish judicial system. Carvajal, who has been accused of drug trafficking, says that there have been several irregularities in his case. 
  • Former Colonel José Manuel Suárez Maldonado is the constitutional successor to deceased Vargas governor Jorge Luis García Carneiro. However, his appointment would apparently require PSUV approval. 
  • Maduro’s Foreign minister Jorge Arreaza and Russian ambassador Sergey Mélik Bagdasárov inaugurated on live television, the photography exposition celebrating the 25th anniversary of the treaty of Friendship between Russia and Venezuela. 

  • The conflict in Apure has been going on for over two months and has a negative balance: murdered and displaced civilians and eight military officers kidnapped by FARC. 
    • The Venezuelan Armed Forces have no control over the area of conflict, FundaRedes reported that four officers were kidnapped and robbed over the weekend in Apure. 
  • FundaRedes also said that the 36th Front of FARC harrasses the population in Cobre, in the José María Vargas municipality  in Táchira.
  • The SNTP said that journalists Madelein Palmar and Edwin Prieto Rosales were threatened by GNB officers while they were covering a protest in Maracaibo.
  • Adán Celis, president of CONINDUSTRIA, condemned that the diesel fuel shortage had gotten worse, because “diesel fuel is fundamental to move the country”, calling it “more important than gas because all the transportation of food, medicine, produce and cattle depends and is done thanks to diesel fuel”. During all these months, authorities have prevented private companies from importing it. 
  • The TSJ ruled in favor of the extradition of Venezuelan citizen Xavier Rivero Pérez, a.k.a. Chakato to Peru, in a murder case from 2008. 
  • Transport and commerce workers’ rejection of the 50,000 bolivar bill unleashed protests and raids in El Callao, Guasipati, and El Manteco, in southern Bolívar. They don’t want to accept that banknote, which is equivalent to 1.6 cents. 

 

Naky Soto

Naky gets called Naibet at home and at the bank. She coordinates training programs for an NGO. She collects moments and turns them into words. She has more stories than freckles.

Related