Published at: 14/05/2025 09:00 PM

(El Nacional and Latest News, May 9, 2004)

• At 2:30 in the morning, Sunday, May 9, 2004, State security officials raided Finca Daktari, located between the municipalities of El Hatillo and Baruta del Edo. Miranda , to capture 153 Colombian paramilitaries who invaded Venezuela, with the purpose of assassinating President Hugo Chávez Frías.
• The farm, owned by Robert Alonso, brother of actress María Conchita Alonso, was the place agreed as a reception center to fulfill the objective of assassinating the Head of State.
• The attack, which they had to carry out at any cost, was planned since 2003. The summit meeting was held on April 23 at a farm of the Caracas Country Club, with the participation of former Air Force and National Guard officers. The agreed decision was to bomb the place where the Aló Presidente program would take place. This plan was aborted.
• Later, it was decided to carry out the attack through the paramilitaries concentrated on that farm. An elite group would assassinate Chávez in La Casona, other paramilitaries would storm El Palacio de Miraflores and the rest would steal the weapons depot located in Regional Command No. 5 and La Carlota Air Base.
• The ultimate goal of Operation Orion was to re-establish the white-collar dictatorship of Pedro Carmona Estanga “El Breve”.
• The paramilitaries captured by the DISIP included three Colombian terrorists with records of numerous murders in peasant areas. Its history and atrocities committed include the practice of mutilation, castration and “tie cutting” (this consists of murder by cutting the throat of a knife and the tongue extracted through the opening of the wound). This unspeakable torture has been applied in Colombia since 1940 to peasant leaders and left-wing leaders.
• Operation Orion was also known as “Los Paracachitos”, because during their stay in Daktari the paramilitaries were fed hundreds of trays of cacti and refreshments from the Danubio Pastry Shop.
• Among those involved in the frustrated assassination were:
  • Ovidio Poggioli
  • Liliana Hernandez (CEO)
  • Rafael Marin (AD)
  • GNB Colonel Jaél Contreras Rangel
  • Businessman Gustavo Zining Machado
  • Pedro Carmona Estanga
  • Maria Luisa Chiossone (Yuyita)
  • Alfredo Peña
  • Jorge Díaz of DAS Colombia, who established contact with the owner of the farm, Robert Alonso, to house the paramilitaries.
  • José Ernesto Ayala alias “Lucas”.
  • Rafael Antonio Omaña, alias “Richard”.
  • Jefferson Gutierrez.
  • Carlos Andrés Pérez, “El Capo”.
  • Carlos Ortega.
• Regarding this serious assassination attempt, President Hugo Chávez declared on radio and television: “Venezuela has been invaded (...) The National Executive has ordered Ambassador Charles Shapiro to immediately leave the American soldiers and officers who are in Venezuelan military bases...”.

“Among those captured is Commander Cabezas, accused of being the second leader of the irregular group and a professional soldier of the Colombian army... he is credited with the slaughter of one of his companions...”.

“... This new outrage planned and prepared inside and outside the country, by sectors of the Venezuelan political opposition, in a network of international connections, threatens republican sovereignty and integrity...”.

“... at least for now a bloodbath has been avoided...”, “... we have enough elements to doubt the good faith of Colombia's intelligence agencies...”, “... my logic as a soldier tells me: the Chief of the Southern Command is involved in this invasion of Venezuela...”.

Mazo News Team