Venezuela said 58 foreigners, and one American had been arrested on suspicion of inciting anti-government protests and violence that has rocked the country for the last three months, according to the Associated Press.
Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres told a news conference that Colombians, an American, a Spaniard and an Arab were among the scores of "mercenaries" rounded up before and during demonstrations against the socialist government, the AP reported.
Rodriguez accused right-wing politicians and former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe of being involved in a meticulous plan to spark the unrest and bring down Maduro with the involvement of the U.S. government, the AP reported.
"The protests were not spontaneous," he said, according to the AP. "Venezuela is, without doubt, living through a plan of insurrectional conspiracy with clear aims of toppling the legitimately-established government, and that plan is part of a permanent strategic objective of the U.S. State Department."
Opposition protesters hotly deny accusations of coup intentions or foreign interference, saying the protests were born out of frustration with authoritarian practices by the state and Venezuela's severe economic problems, the AP reported.
At least 41 people have died, and nearly 800 injured, in violence around the protests that brought the South American OPEC nation's worst unrest in a decade, according to the AP.
"Up to now, there are 58 detainees of other nationalities, almost all implicated in the use of arms," Torres said, the AP reported.
President Nicolas Maduro, who seems to have faced down the worst of the protests, alleges his opponents were planning a coup against him, with the connivance of the United States, like the brief toppling of his predecessor Hugo Chavez in 2002, according to the AP.
All of those named by Venezuela have denied involvement and say Maduro is trying to create a smokescreen to cover domestic problems, the AP reported.
According to the government's most recent figures, 197 people remain behind bars, of more than 2,000 arrested since protests began in early February, according to the AP. Rodriguez did not clarify if all the 58 foreigners he mentioned were still in prison.
For weeks during the crisis, hooded protesters battled security forces daily in Caracas and other cities, but marches and roadblocks are sporadically dropping across the country, the AP reported.
