RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Venezuela’s De­fence Min­is­ter Vladimir Padri­no López is dis­miss­ing as “fake news” re­ports cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia and in re­gion­al out­lets that two se­nior Bo­li­var­i­an Na­tion­al Armed Forces (FANB) gen­er­als had de­sert­ed.

Ap­pear­ing in a video re­leased on his of­fi­cial ac­counts on Sat­ur­day, Padri­no López stood along­side Air Force Gen­er­al Pe­dro Rafael Suárez Ca­ballero and Brigadier Gen­er­al Bit­ner Vil­le­gas to demon­strate that both of­fi­cers re­main in ac­tive ser­vice. “In Venezuela, there is no de­ser­tion, and pa­tri­ot­ic morale is abun­dant as we pre­pare to de­fend the coun­try against any ex­ter­nal threat,” Padri­no López de­clared. He said the claims were part of a “psy­cho­log­i­cal war” waged by far-right groups seek­ing to desta­bilise Venezuela’s in­sti­tu­tions and armed forces.

De­spite the ru­mours of de­ser­tion, Padri­no López in­sist­ed morale re­mains strong. “The right-wing fake news cam­paign to desta­bilise the FANB has col­lapsed. Our of­fi­cers stand firm. They did not desert; they will de­fend the home­land,” he said.

The ru­mour, which orig­i­nat­ed on Fri­day across un­ver­i­fied web­sites and so­cial me­dia, claimed that a Venezue­lan gen­er­al named “Bar­rigón” had been cap­tured in dis­guise at sea and ex­tra­dit­ed to the Unit­ed States. Some posts in­clud­ed a pho­to of a man in mil­i­tary fa­tigues with the name tag “Suárez”. Out­lets such as La Patil­la, Di­ario Las Améri­c­as, Cu­bi­taNow, and NTN24 am­pli­fied the sto­ry, but none pro­vid­ed ver­i­fi­ca­tion from Venezue­lan or in­ter­na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties. Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go Ál­varo Sánchez Cordero said he had seen the re­ports on­line but con­firmed that the in­di­vid­ual named “Bar­rigón” does not ap­pear in of­fi­cial records. An Au­gust 2025 In­fobae pro­file of Venezue­lan mil­i­tary lead­er­ship al­so did not list the name, while the of­fi­cial Aviación Mil­i­tar Bo­li­var­i­ana iden­ti­fied Suárez Ca­ballero as its cur­rent Di­rec­tor de Per­son­al.

Mean­while, Venezue­lan troops have been mo­bil­is­ing to crack down on hu­man traf­fick­ing and smug­gling be­tween T&T and Venezuela.

In a re­port car­ried on Venezuela’s TeleSUR, FANB com­man­ders re­port­ed they re­cent­ly con­clud­ed “Sov­er­eign Caribbean 200” ex­er­cis­es, say­ing they will now move in­to an eval­u­a­tion phase to ad­dress vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and con­sol­i­date strengths.

The drills in­clud­ed ar­tillery sup­port from naval units, an­ti-air­craft op­er­a­tions with portable sys­tems and de­fence plat­forms, mis­sile launch­es from mis­sile-equipped ves­sels, drone re­con­nais­sance, in­tel­li­gence flights, car­go drops, para­chute land­ings, and am­phibi­ous op­er­a­tions to se­cure coastal po­si­tions. Padri­no López con­firmed the ex­er­cis­es were com­plet­ed “suc­cess­ful­ly and with­out in­ci­dents”, high­light­ing co­or­di­na­tion be­tween the mil­i­tary, po­lice, and civil­ian vol­un­teers.