Cuban Soldier Details Attack on Maduro in Venezuela

Cuban combatant Yohandris Varona Torres, a survivor of the lethal U.S. attack against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on January 3, aimed at kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, spoke with journalist and writer Ignacio Ramonet. "I am prepared and I know how to fight, but they were superior to us. We kept firing until almost all of us were falling, dead or injured." It was not a fast or easy battle, as Trump and his henchmen initially tried to make it seem. Despite their firepower advantage, I am sure we inflicted casualties on them. This pain, he says while pounding his chest, I have to avenge myself on the enemy. It was very tough because they were men we knew, with whom we had lived until just a few hours before. We were there for that, and that's what we did. He cries with rage. He will never be able to forget the confrontation, but especially the hours afterwards, when the survivors of the group had to move the bodies of their fallen countrymen. "We loaded them and took them to a building, which had been damaged but allowed us to shelter them. But we took all of them, we left none behind." "When the bombs start to fall, the only thing on your mind is to fight. You have to fire, and I started to do it." "Despite their firepower advantage, he added, I am sure we inflicted casualties on them. All that's left is the pain that we couldn't stop them. The other thing in their favor was that they seemed to know where everything was. We fought hard. We fought hard. That's how they fired at the posts and the dormitories where we Cubans were and managed to kill, among the first, the commanders." This first sergeant has 23 years of experience in Personal Security, he had never experienced anything like it. More than they admit. As the days have passed, it has been confirmed that only death and lack of ammunition managed to quell the Cubans' resistance. Yohandris remembers everything with terrible lucidity. And although everything looked calm, Yohandris knew that the greatest danger was in letting your guard down. His eyes seem to review the images one by one. That is why he performed his guard with a zeal bordering on excess. It was almost two in the morning when he saw the first helicopter of the U.S. commando group that would land in Caracas that night to kidnap President Nicolás Maduro. He barely had time to leave the post where he was on guard duty to take cover a few meters away and start shooting. As if guided by a plan of millimeter precision, the attackers directed their fire at the booth he had occupied just seconds before. "They had much more firepower than we did, Yohandris narrates, we only had light weapons. But they had trained him well and that night he emptied magazine after magazine firing at the enemies. "You had to shoot and shoot. At that moment my only thought was to battle. Even though our weapons were smaller, we didn't stop fighting, we faced them." Yohandris Varona Torres. "We fought there against the planes that were strafing us." The interview was published on the Facebook platform, through which he recounted the details of what happened that night when the missiles and shrapnel woke up the population. During the imperialist aggression on Venezuelan territory, there were 32 Cubans, 47 Venezuelan military personnel, and four civilians killed. Yohandris Varona Torres had been two months and six days as a member of the Personal Security in Venezuela when the attack occurred, the most intense experience in 23 years of military service, precisely during his first internationalist mission. But that Saturday, January 3, turned fatal. At midnight, he took his position, he had six hours of guard duty. He owes his life to that decision, or to fate. "To defend and to kill," he sentenced. He cries.