Caracas Chronicles

• On Monday, Colombia intelligence documents reported that several FARC dissidents are on Venezuelan soil, including those responsible for attacks against their military.
  • On Tuesday, the FANB said that a drone, which allegedly belongs to the Colombian Armed Forces, was flying in our airspace.
  • Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino López, assured that it was caught flying over Zulia and called it “a threat against national security” and that “this hasn’t been involuntary or casual, because it happened at the same time as Admiral Craig Faller’s presence in Colombia,” and that it’s “a strategy by the empire to damage the dialogue process in Mexico.” 

Read more about the Combat on the Venezuela-Colombia Border: What We Know

• Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal published a letter with a PS for Diosdado Cabello: “You betrayed Chávez when he was alive (few of us know) and, of course, you also betrayed him after he died.” He assured that he has shared “very valuable information” with the ICC’s prosecutor and the UN’s Human Rights Commission. 
• Hugo Chávez’s former Energy minister, Nervis Villalobos, said before the Spanish Audiencia Nacional that he didn’t meet former ambassador Raúl Morodo and denied he was responsible for the PDVSA case. Spain is investigating how Modoro charged 5.3 million dollars to PDVSA under false contracts hiring him as an advisor. 
• Using state media as if it were owned by the PSUV, Maduro broadcasted the launch of his campaign headquarters and denounced “the attacks” against public services. 
• “The attack against Banco de Venezuela seeks to block the implementation of the digital bolivar,” said Maduro without evidence, avoiding all responsibility in this problem that has gone on for six days. He accused Iván Duque of conspiring against peace and the process in Mexico. 
• César Trómpiz, the minister who intervened the Universidad Simón Bolívar violating university autonomy and imposing authorities that nobody elected, talked about going back to school, to universities that have been dismantled, have no budget, public utilities, transport, or professors. 
• María Eugenia Varela, Epidemiology director in Merida, confirmed that a woman who had contracted black fungus died of pulmonary arrest. She’s the second person to die of this disease in Venezuela. 
• Dr. Alejandro Rísquez said that the vaccination rate remains too low: “Only 24% of the population has received one dose and 15% both doses.” 
• Russian ambassador Serguéi Melik-Bagdasárov said that the last vaccine shipment would make a total of over one million doses… for a country with a population of 26 million. 
• Chavismo said that people who got the first dose of Sputnik V in Caracas, Miranda, Vargas and Aragua until June 30th, can go to their vaccination centers to get the second dose starting Wednesday. 
• The National Assembly elected in 2015 debated the second report of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission and agreed to send it to the ICC. 
  • Miguel Pizarro emphasized that the report is firm on the denial of truth, reparations and the lack of disposition to change practices of human rights violations: “It allows to prove that there’s no possibility of getting justice in Venezuela.” 
  • The families of political prisoners requested extraordinary humanitarian measures and asked to bring this request to the negotiation table in Mexico. 

• Two Venezuelans died trying to cross trochas (illegal pathways) to Colombia. 
• Maduro’s regime paid over $753.9 million to ConocoPhillips, as part of the corresponding indemnization of the arbitration award. 
• Leopoldo López had a meeting with the vice president of the European Parliament, Dita Charanzová. They expressed their concerns about the conditions under which the electoral observation mission would travel to Venezuela and that their participation would mean that the European standards for what constitutes a free election have been lowered. 
• President Iván Duque called Maduro’s regime a dictatorship in the UN, and asked for free elections. He said that Colombia faces “the worst migratory crisis hitting the planet, millions of Venezuelans fleeing a narco-dictatorship and infamy.” 
• Peruvian prime minister Guido Bellido called out deputy minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Chávez for saying Peru doesn’t recognize Venezuelan authorities. Bellido contradicted Chávez and said it’s not their official position, that they do recognize chavismo.