By Andy Webb-Vidal in Caracas. The Financial Times. Published: July 23 2000
Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, ordered the arrest of a Cuban man who at the weekend claimed to have defected from a group of 1,500 'intelligence agents' who had infiltrated the country and were giving ideological support to Mr Chávez.
Mr Chávez, who has openly expressed his admiration for Fidel Castro’s Cuba, dismissed the claim by Juan Rosabal as a "farce" and an attempt to scare the country ahead of next Sunday’s elections.
The Cuban embassy said Mr Rosabal was an impostor intending to damage relations between Caracas and Havana.
But according to Mr Rosabal, who has said he would appeal for asylum on Tuesday, Cuban agents began arriving in Venezuela three years ago to secretly support Mr Chávez when he was campaigning ahead of his election in December 1998.
One of their current roles is to prevent a military overthrow of Mr Chávez by infiltrating army installations, Mr Rosabal said. Despite claiming to have defected, he has so far refused to disclose the other agents’ whereabouts.
The timing of Mr Rosabal’s account is suspicious given the proximity of the July 30 poll. However, it does coincide with similar claims over the placement of Cuban agents in strategic locations made in June by the Frente Institucional Militar, a group of retired senior armed forces
officers.
Also, the case of the Cuban defector comes as Mr Chávez’s alleged sympathies with Colombia’s leftist guerrillas are coming under scrutiny following the abduction of a wealthy Venezuelan businessman.
A light aircraft belonging to airline executive Richard Boulton, who was kidnapped a week ago in the central state of Carabobo, was reportedly found in Colombia on Saturday.
Venezuelan police have arrested a band of local men suspected to be the kidnappers, but security experts suggest Mr Boulton’s abduction has all the hallmarks of having been 'outsourced' by guerrillas belonging to Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN), who have long used kidnapping
for ransom as a source of financing.
"The guerrillas have agreements with common criminals both in Colombia and Venezuela to do the kidnapping and then pass their victims on to the guerrillas," said Marcos Tarre of online security consultancy Seguridadaldia.com.
"It would not be strange for the guerrillas to be reaching out into Venezuela as measures against them are being intensified within Colombia," said Mr Tarre.
Mr Chávez has irked the Colombian government on several occasions in recent months by displaying a 'neutral' position toward Colombia’s guerrilla organizations.
Mr Chávez said that if the ELN was found to be responsible for Mr Boulton’s abduction, he would "be forced to adjust his policy towards the guerrillas".
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