Strange statements from Vice-President Rangel today which to me imply that there is something more than meets the eye in the whole border incident in which five military and one PDVSA worker were killed. It also appears to confirm that the reason Chavze did not travel has something to do with the border incident.
While the Minister of Defense keeps saying that either paramilitary or drug smugglers are responsible for the killings, besides the Colombian Government saying the other day that it was the guerilla, now the Venezuelan investigative police said the same thing, even naming the front of the FARC guerrillas that they suspected (the seventh front). But now the Vice-President comes out and says that the Cabinet backs all of the actions Chavez ahs taken on the issue, as if someone expected them to do otherwise, so why clarify it?
Rangel claims that the statements by the CIPC representative were manipulated, but I heard them and it is exactly what the press has reported. Rangel says that the whole thing is being investigated, but it was his own Minister of Defense who from minute one has been saying that it was not the guerrilla, so he should have waited before making such a strong statement too. Rangel also denied that there was unhappiness within the Armed Forces about the incident, which eh did not have to deny, but is certainly confirming with his statements.
The truth is that Chávez has had a lax policy towards the FARC that may come back to haunt him in the FARC decides that he is trying to contain them at the border and restrict their movement. It is also true that the military finds this contradictory with what they have been taught for decades in their military training. Thus, many officers can’t be too happy about the deaths of young soldiers or the attempts to say, right off the bat, that the guerilla were not involved, even before any investigations are carried out.
The Devil's Excrement 
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