Havana now in charge of Venezuela intelligence service. Cross-hairs on Diosdado Cabello

[GatoGordo]

Cuba snatches control of SEBIN to Diosdado Cabello after dismissal of Chavez general
BY ANTONIO MARIA DELGADO
November 16, 2018 05:51 PM

translated from Spanish

The dismissal of the former head of the secret police (SEBIN) Gustavo González López, who according to the Venezuelan press was detained on Friday, is a blow to the number two of the Chavez, Diosdado Cabello, whose control over the feared intelligence agency now at the hands of Havana.



González López is a close ally of Cabello, who for years has served as a support pillar of the Nicolás Maduro regime despite the rivalry between them and the tensions between the military-nationalist sector and the pro-Castro government led by the president himself.

At the close of this edition the whereabouts of González López was unknown, but according to local press reports the major general was arrested shortly after being dismissed on October 31 and is in the hands of the rival General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM).

Experts consulted said that the dismissal and possible arrest of González López sends a clear message to the militarist clan of Chavismo headed by Cabello.

"The signal it gives is: no one here is untouchable," Antonio De La Cruz, executive director of InterAmerican Trends, commented from Washington. "This is a strong blow against Diosdado. It is very hard. "

It is also a blow that ends up placing the Venezuelan intelligence apparatus in the hands of Havana, the experts said.

The DGCIM had already been operated by the advisers that the Castro regime has strained in Venezuela, and the same could now happen in the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) with the appointment of its new CEO, Christopher Figuera. "He [Christopher Figuera] is almost Cuban," Venezuelan Army Major General Herbert García Plaza, who was Maduro's minister, also said from Washington. "It's a man he was trained in Cuba and he traveled a lot to the island. He was always very close to the Cuban advisors and was the one who opened the doors to the Cubans in the DGCIM. "

The Cuban intelligence service, which is now the central pillar of Maduro's support in power, has been exercising power and influence within the DGCIM for some time, but had not managed to have it in the same proportion within the SEBIN, which had been controlling the Nationalist sector of Cabello.

-snip-

https://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article221788590.html

So, the close friend and ally of Diosdado Cabello (Cabello, head of the hand picked Chavismo ANC, #1 in the PSUV) has been fired and then was "disappeared" after SEBIN agents on motorcycles and high powered weapons attempted to intervene with a Maduro caravan last week.

Get out quick, Diosdado... the Cubans aren't very forgiving when it comes to this sort of treachery.