The Argentine Ministry of Defense launched an internal investigation of a military exercise allegedly carried out during the previous government, which headed Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), and that according to a journalistic publication contemplated an invasion of Venezuela.
As sources from the portfolio confirmed to Efe on Thursday, Minister Jorge Taiana requested a detailed report of all actions related to that exercisecalled “Puma”, to verify whether current regulations were complied with, both the Law of Intelligence, Defense, Internal Security, as well as its nature and objectives.
This situation occurs after last february 13 the journalist Horacio Verbitsky will publish an article in the information portal he directs, “The rocket to the moon”, in which he affirms that “between April and July 2019, The Army carried out the Puma exercise, which contemplated the invasion of Venezuela”.
This exercise, according to the text, “was executed in seven sessions” in a Buenos Aires military garrison and by videoconference with various brigades and commandos and included “coordination with Navy and Air Force units.”
He was driven, it is added, by General Juan Martín Paleo, who was commander of the Rapid Deployment Force and since March 2020 he is head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, appointed by the current president, Alberto Fernández.
“In the planning of the Puma, the rapid deployment force is part of a multinational forcecreated by a figurative resolution of the United Nations (which never happened in reality)” specifies the newspaper article.
