Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced on public television this Saturday the arrest of two Spanish citizens, allegedly “spies for the CNI,” the Spanish intelligence service, who were planning to buy weapons and commit murders, according to Cabello, the number two in the Venezuelan regime, a representative of the hardline sector. According to sources in Moncloa, they are not secret agents and have no links to the CNI.

In a very confusing speech, the minister recounted in a disorganized and difficult-to-follow manner what seemed to be three different plots, although he did not differentiate or specify them, nor is it known when one begins and another ends, but in any case he links the United States to this supposed coup d'état. The television showed the two detainees while Cabello was speaking. “Two Spanish citizens were arrested in Puerto Ayacucho. José María Basoa Valdovinos and Andrés Martínez Adasme, near the airport in Puerto Ayacucho, in an irregular situation, taking photos. We found on their phones links to a woman named María Teresa Clavijo, from Aragua, leader of Vente Venezuela, linked to the so-called commanders (volunteer groups of the opposition of Maria Corina Machado, the anti-Chavez leader). Jorman Enrique Varillas and Jhexica Isabel APonte Figueras (two more names that Cabello mentioned without further details). She participated in the acts of violence, there is a photo of her, even hooded, at a demonstration. The Spaniards ask on the phone where to buy explosives, to contact if they want to do a special job. And on their phone they plan the assassination of a mayor of Upata, a revolutionary mayor,” Cabello said. “The United States is not alien to this operation,” he added.

The minister, without providing evidence, accuses the opposition of bringing weapons into Venezuela. “400 rifles and pistols linked to the opposition entered from the United States. This is just a sample of what was recovered, what was captured in intelligence operations. They tried to bring it in through regular channels. The Venezuelan government guarantees peace. There is no cause for alarm. We are doing what is necessary to maintain peace,” he continued.

Relations between Spain and Venezuela are tense, despite the fact that a week ago they negotiated and agreed that the presidential candidate who seems more than likely to win the elections against Chavismo, Edmundo González, would go into exile in Madrid. The Spanish government has assured that they have tried to consider Edmundo González a politically persecuted person, to whom they give coverage like any other who had requested it. Maduro, however, has assured that it was a political operation that had his supervision. González has met with President Pedro Sánchez in Madrid. The Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of declaring him the winner, but the Spanish government said that it will not do so and that it aligns itself with the policy of the European Union, which insists that Chavismo show the minutes that reflect the true result of the presidential elections of July 28. Maduro and his people have refused to show anything publicly.

In light of the approval in Congress of the claim to the Government of Pedro Sánchez, which is not binding, another of the heavyweights of Chavismo, Jorge Rodríguez, president of the Assembly of Venezuela, but above all Maduro's number one political operator, urged Venezuela to break off trade and diplomatic relations with Spain. The mood calmed down in the following days, but statements by the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, in which she called the way of governing of Chavismo a dictatorship, caused the foreign minister to call his ambassador in Madrid for consultations and to summon the Spanish ambassador in Caracas, Ramón Santos. Santos and Yván Gil seem to have understood each other, since in the following hours there were no high-calibre statements. Even the vice president Delcy Rodríguez, sister of Jorge and also a top representative of the Chavista leadership, met with the director of Repsol in Venezuela. This announcement of the arrest of two alleged Spanish spies – something that the Sánchez government denies – opens a new chapter of discord.