Venezuela Denounces US-Colombia ‘False Flag’ Plot at UN Security Council

UN Ambassador Samuel Moncada argued that US policy toward Venezuela had remained unchanged under the Biden administration.

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UN Security Council Meets on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace

Mexico City, Mexico, October 13, 2021 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela’s representative to the United Nations (UN) denounced an alleged “false flag” plot by the United States and Colombia at the Security Council (UNSC) and warned that Colombian government is seeking to involve Venezuela in the country’s long-running internal conflict.

“The Colombian State authorities are convinced that the repetition of a false warmongering narrative is sufficient argument to prepare an aggression against Venezuela, in alliance with the government of the United States of America,” wrote Venezuelan Ambassador Samuel Moncada.

In an eight-page letter to Security Council President and Kenyan Representative Martin Kimani, Moncada detailed recent “bellicose” statements by Colombian President Iván Duque alongside others by high-ranking Colombian authorities.

“The aforementioned statements show that the four (04) main spokespersons for the Colombian State and its military chain of command try to systematically involve the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the long internal war in Colombia,” wrote Moncada.

The Venezuelan diplomat also cited recent statements by US Navy Admiral Craig S. Faller, commander of United States Southern Command, where the US official praised his country’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela and alleged that Colombian organized crime groups had a “safe haven” across the border.

Moncada declared that Faller’s comments, made in October of this year during a visit to Colombia, showed that the US’ attitude toward his country remained the same as during the Trump administration, despite the arrival of a Democrat to the White House.

The letter to UNSC President Kimani also elaborated a number of pieces of evidence to back up Caracas’ concern that Washington and Bogotá were preparing a “false flag” operation to justify a military operation against Venezuela. A false flag operation is an intentional effort to obfuscate the actual party responsible in order to pin the blame on another party, often as a pretext for further military action.

Moncada urged the Security Council to invoke article 34 of the UN Charter and investigate the allegations.

The UNSC petition comes in the midst of a tense climate in the Colombo-Venezuelan border region. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ordered a fortified presence of troops at the border through the activation of the Bolivarian Shield 2021 military operation to defend the country’s territorial sovereignty following clashes with what Caracas termed as Colombian “irregular armed groups.”

The porous 2219-kilometer border between Venezuela and Colombia has created significant tensions between the two countries in recent years and the development of cross-border criminal operations including drug and fuel smuggling. The Maduro government opened the main border crossings on October 5 for the first time in more than two years.

In July, Colombian President Duque called on the US to list Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism and more recently visited with Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary-General Luis Almagro to discuss the situation in Venezuela. For its part, Venezuelan authorities have rejected the accusations and blamed their western neighbors for not upholding the 2016 Peace accords and sponsoring destabilization efforts against the country.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz from Mérida.