The hit-style shooting of two Venezuelan activists in Colombia’s capital is fueling fears among Venezuela’s diaspora that a crackdown on dissent by the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is seeping beyond the South American nation’s borders.
On Monday afternoon, Venezuelan human rights activist Yendri Velásquez and political consultant Luis Peche Arteaga were shot leaving a building in the north of Bogota by two unidentified people waiting for them in a car.
Around 15 shots were fired at the activists, who fled widening government repression last year, and Peche Arteaga was hit six times, said Laura Dib, a colleague of Velásquez and Venezuela Program Director for the Washington Office on Latin America. Both went through surgery and were in stable condition.
It was not immediately clear who was behind their shooting and Colombian authorities said they were investigating the attack. Dib and other civil society leaders said they were waiting for the results of the investigation, but that the attack appeared to be targeted based on their political profiles.
Posted by John3262005
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Lord, grant me the strength to oppose another justifiable intervention to topple an evil regime because it will be run by a moronic Republican administration that will undoubtedly fuck it up beyond all belief.