Carlos Pino, the Venezuelan embassy worker who was expelled from Colombia yesterday for posing “a threat to national security”, spoke today on the situation and denied being a spy. Pino made the comments to Blu Radio, a Colombian radio station.
While the Colombian government did not elaborate on its reason for expelling Pino, the wording of its announcement suggests that he might have been carrying out clandestine activities in Colombia on behalf of Caracas. Pino said:
If I was a danger to the national security of Colombia, the most obvious thing the Colombian authorities could have done is detain me and show their evidence.
Pino said that he was arrested shortly after leaving a restaurant where he dined “with a friends from a union” and “talked about national and political” matters, but that nothing that he discussed could be construed as “political interference”.
Pino was expelled from Colombia yesterday after being detained in Bogota on Wednesday. He had been living in Colombia for 18 years.
Rodriguez Tells Governors to “Get Creative”
Vice president Delcy Rodriguez spoke today during a televised government meeting on the financial challenges affecting governorships across the country, given the collapse of the Venezuelan economy.
During the meeting, Rodriguez said that governorships were feeling the effects of “an authentic economic blockade”, and called on governors to “activate an anti-blockade system”. Rodriguez did not explain what she meant.
Rodriguez also said that governors should “get creative to defeat the economic sabotage” that she claims is impacting the country.
While the Maduro regime has long blamed the country’s economic woes on a nebulous set of attacks it calls “the economic war”, the country’s collapse was in fact precipitated by nearly two decades of poor policy, including the imposition of strict currency exchange control in 2003.
Questions/Comments? E-mail me: invenezuelablog@gmail.com
In Venezuela 