SECRET/NO FORN DISSEM/CONTROLLED DISSEM/NO DISSEM ABROAD
(Classification)
P.M.
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DEPARTMENT OF STATE
INR BRIEFING NOTE
TO: The Director, INR
GIST: VENEZUELA: Five Soldiers Killed in Guerrilla Ambush; Recent Guerrilla Initiatives Attributed to Renewed Cuban Support for Luben Petkoff's Band in Western Venezuela
DATE: June 11, 1968
TIME: 02:15 P.M.
COMMENTS CONTAINED IN INR BRIEFING NOTES ARE INITIAL AND TENTATIVE.
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SOURCE(S)
Caracas 6186
6/10/68
TDCS DB-315/02027-68
6/10/68
CLASS./CONTROL(S)
Conf,
S/NFD/CD/NDA
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On June 8 in Falcon State in Western Venezuela guerrilla group ambushed moving convoy placing more than fifty machine-gun rounds in one jeep according to press reports. Five soldiers killed, seven wounded. Presumably there were no guerrilla losses. This was first incident in immediate vicinity in four years, though area was once an active insurgent area.
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EMBASSY COMMENT: Previous engagements in Falcon-Yaracuy area during past several months were the result of government initiatives which resulted in significant loss to insurgent FALN forces. Present guerrilla initiative proves that though battered, insurgents still active and continue to pose a threat in the west.
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A member of the MIR guerrilla group who said that he was a member of the MIR delegation which made the first contact with FALN leader Luben Petkoff to arrange unification of Petkoff's forces with the MIR said that the meeting site was guarded by some seventy well-uniformed and equipped guerrillas. Among the Petkoff group were various Cubans who had joined the group shortly before the start of the series of encounters between the Venezuelan military and the guerrillas in the west, which began on April 17. Morale in Petkoff's group appeared high and supplies to sustain combat for four months were reported to be on hand. The MIR member also said that FALN leader Douglas Bravo has recently lost a great deal of power and now spends most of his time in Caracas.
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FIELD COMMENT: The figure of seventy men comes very close to recent estimates of the total number of guerrillas in the FALN.
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INR/RAR COMMENT: Several points of previous speculation regarding the guerrilla situation in Venezuela appear to be clarifying themselves. A long interview with Luben Petkoff over Radio Havana in late March of this year appears now to have signaled his new status as Castro's chosen leader of the guerrillas in western Venezuela in place of Douglas Bravo, who apparently is at odds with the Cuban leader. The interview followed closely a reported visit by a Cuban Army major to Venezuela to inspect the guerrilla movement. There are also unconfirmed reports of as many as two landings off the western coast of Venezuela in mid-April which could account for Petkoff's new provisions. Despite the above reported guerrilla success, government forces have had the best of the increased number of encounters with the guerrillas in recent months.
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R OFFICE
RAR
BRIEFER
HOROWITZ
EXTENSION
5408
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SECRET/NO FORN DISSEM/CONT. DISSEM/NO DISSEM ABROAD
(Classification)
FORM MW-81097 DocID:33061196 Page 24