Agu ✨

Gustavo Petro infuriated representatives of the Venezuelan government by referencing an October 6 article in Resumen Latino. The article featured an interview with a Cuban military officer who guarded Nicolas Maduro and described being abandoned by his counterparts in the Venezuelan military as he and his comrades valiantly attempted to hold off an overwhelming US assault. Venezuelan diplomats have lashed out at Petro while maintaining a monk-like silence about Trump's boastful recollections of the January 3 abduction of Maduro. Here's the Resumen Latino article, in part: Yohandris Torres was part of Nicolás Maduro's security detail when the American helicopters descended on the Venezuelan capital. During a tribute to his 32 fallen comrades, he spoke for the first time. "We inflicted more losses on them than they admit," he asserted. Yohandri Varona Torres is a Cuban military officer. On January 3rd, when the United States attacked Venezuela and kidnapped its president, he had only been with Nicolás Maduro's Personal Security for two months and six days, upholding his country's internationalist tradition championed by Fidel Castro and the revolutionary government. At midnight that January 3rd, he took up his post, tasked with a six-hour guard duty. And although everything seemed calm, Yohandri knew that the greatest danger lay in overconfidence. That's why he carried out his watch with a zeal bordering on excess. It was nearly 2:00 a.m. when he spotted the first of the American commando helicopters that would land in Caracas that night to abduct the head of state of the Bolivarian Republic. He barely had time to leave his post, take cover a few meters away, and begin firing. He owes his life to that decision, or perhaps to sheer luck. As if guided by a map of millimeter precision, the attackers directed their fire on the guard post he had occupied just seconds before. “They had far more firepower than us,” Yohandri recounts, “we who only had light weapons. Their other advantage was that they seemed to know where everything was. So they fired on the posts and dormitories where we Cubans were holding out, and they managed to kill the leaders among the first.” “We had to fire and fire. Defend and kill,” he declared. “We fought there against the planes that were strafing us. Despite our lighter weaponry, we didn’t stop fighting; we confronted them. I have my training and I know how to fight, but they were superior to us. At that moment, my only thought was to fight.” “We had to fire, and I started to do it,” he recounted. “Everything was dark,” he continued. “If a helicopter comes overhead, the only thing you can do is fire at it and defend yourself. That’s what happened. We kept firing until the very last moment.” “Despite their firepower advantage, I’m sure we inflicted losses on them. More than they admit. We fought hard. We kept firing until almost all of us were down, dead or wounded,” he described. It wasn’t a quick or easy fight, as Trump and his spokespeople initially tried to portray it. As the days passed, it became clear that only death and a lack of ammunition were able to extinguish the Cuban resistance. He will never forget the battle, he says, but especially the hours that followed, during which the group's survivors had to carry the bodies of their fallen comrades. “We loaded them up and carried them to a building that had sustained damage but still allowed us to shelter them. It was very difficult, because these were men we knew, men we had lived with until just a few hours earlier. But we carried them all; we didn't leave a single one behind.” “Our comrades are a source of pride for all of Cuba. They were my brothers. They worked with me. I saw them all fall, and I carried them all. There was no one to help me there, but not a single body was left on the battlefield. We kept them safe in our dormitory. I can't describe the pain. But at least no one remained in Venezuela. They are here, in our homeland.”