Lessons Learned from Preparing to Invade Venezuela

Juan Carlos Zapata (ALnavío) – “The leadership is not divided.” Read this quote from Gómez, the master of power. A classic book that chronicles the rise to power of Cipriano Castro and Juan Vicente Gómez. A period that lasted 35 years. In this era of controversy and uncertainty in Venezuela, with Maduro and Guaidó, we must reread this book.

Suddenly there is one fact. This fact contains everything. Loose ends and versions. Some people laugh, some people cry. But the fact is that they are part of the same action. The power struggle in Venezuela. You have reached that level. The one about the invasion. The invasion with 60 people, Cipriano Castro and Juan Vicente Gomez They came to power in 1899. Then Gomez ousted Castro and ruled alone for 26 years. Between them there were 35 years. The longest dictatorship Venezuela has ever experienced. Moreover, Gomez had all the elements that constitute the archetype of a Latin American dictator, even a legend. He was inspired by his Gabriel Garcia Marquez Come write Autumn of the Patriarch.

In the book Gomez, Master of Power, Domingo Alberto Rangel, Several pages are devoted to planning the route from the Colombian border with Cúcuta into the state of Táchira, Cúcuta and Táchira, names now famous for “failed” humanitarian operations. Juan Guaidó 2019. It is also known for the Venezuelan exodus, in which the largest number of people crossed the border. But Cúcuta and Táchira are engraved in the history of the independence of Colombia and Venezuela, in the feat of Simón Bolívar, but also in the feat of Castro and Gómez, which will be called ” Restorative Liberal Revolution.

In that book, a mix of essays, reports and fiction, you get the logic. The date, May 23. Full-moon night, walking along a canyon trail. The letters were from Cipriano Castro, the leader and architect of the invasion, to the leaders who followed him in the Andean town of Táchira. The elevators are simultaneous accounts. Castro had been working the land since his exile in Cúcuta. Compadre Gómez provided the resources. Gómez was a businessman and cattle breeder, and a coffee farmer. He left most of his wealth in Venezuela but rebuilt it in Colombia. On that border.