Dear Roberta,
I want to thank you.
For many years, we have been plagued by unrepresentative and unelected leadership that does not speak for us. Our nation has been condemned to unnecessary hardships by a regime that has surrendered our sovereignty to a failed communist dictatorship, while an opposition leadership is more interested in safeguarding the small crumbs they can obtain.
Your words yesterday during the Senate hearing on Venezuela were eye-opening, exposing the shady and deceptive figures of the MUD who have lobbied the U.S. State Department against sanctions aimed at punishing those responsible for human rights violations in our country. I truly hope this has consequences.
We must thank you for this. While you refrained from naming them, we know exactly who you were talking about. There is this man in DC, Leopoldo Martínez, who claims to represent the MUD. Martínez has a couple of notorious distinctions: he was the Venezuelan Minister of Finance with the shortest tenure (during the 48-hour “government” of Pedro Carmona), and he is an employee, defender, and attack dog for David Osío, a “banker” well-known to U.S. Federal Agencies.
Martínez runs a group called the Center for Democracy and Development in the Americas, where you can also find another associate of his: David Osío, Ramón José Medina, a former employee and enforcer of Víctor Vargas, another “banker” well-acquainted with U.S. regulators.
Both take their marching orders from a third person, named Ramón Guillermo Aveledo, MUD spokesperson, whose biggest skill seems to be perpetuating himself indefinitely in unelected positions where he gets to dictate who a legitimate member of the opposition to the Maduro regime is and who isn’t.
I heard you praise the televised dialogue between the MUD and chavismo. Perhaps you are unaware of the meeting that took place in Aruba before that “indefinite debate” between the MUD and government officials, where the conditions were agreed upon: not naming the victims, not pointing fingers, not attacking government-sponsored thugs, not mentioning Chávez or his legacy, not discussing the stripping of elected officials’ seats or powers, not bringing up electoral issues, not recognizing political prisoners… The regime imposed conditions, and the MUD, as always with such diligence, followed the farce, giving yet another layer of legitimacy to a regime that systematically violates human rights.
Realpolitik often happens based on costs and benefits. Venezuela, Latin America, the U.S., and the world at large stand to gain tremendously from what was done yesterday. The sooner we rid ourselves of a fully compromised leadership, the better.
I have been told that your Department withdrew the visa of Alejandro Andrade, but he is back in Miami sharing information with other federal agencies. That may also be the case for Rafael Isea. Keep it up, please. There is a wealth of information that the U.S. government could leverage at any moment from the “exiles” and “businessmen” living among you. Call them; they would sell their kids to keep their ill-gotten fortunes, most of which are in the U.S. as bank accounts, jets, mansions, yachts, horses, art collections, etc.
A recent survey showed that grassroots opposition favor is nearly evenly split between Henrique Capriles (MUD) and Leopoldo López (not aligned with the MUD). In fact, the same survey results suggest that respondents feel equally strongly against both the MUD and Maduro regarding their willingness to resolve Venezuela’s issues through dialogue, and the student movement enjoys the highest level of support among all opposition political actors. What will be hard to find is any sign of positive support for figures like Ramón Guillermo Aveledo or his cronies. Keep that in mind the next time they come knocking.
Regarding what some MUD members may have told you about sanctions against government officials, let me say that their line, of being against wholesale sanctions or an oil embargo, comes directly from Maduro and his Cuban handlers. As Senator Rubio has clearly explained, an oil embargo was never on the table; he has repeatedly stated that the proposed sanctions target individuals involved in systematic and widespread human rights violations, and not Venezuelans in general. Therefore, I would like to encourage you to call Mark Weisbrot the next time you wish to get the official stance of the MUD.
I would like to remind you that systematic violations of human rights have been occurring in Venezuela for a long time. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has listed Venezuela in Chapter IV every year since 2005, and, in case you didn’t know, I encourage you to read the IACHR’s criteria for placing countries in Chapter IV.
Dialogue with chavismo will not bear fruit unless chavismo wants it to, for example, to regain legitimacy by sitting with the MUD. At this point, chavismo needs the MUD, perhaps for the first time, as much as the MUD needs chavismo. This is not due to the actions of the MUD, but rather because the MUD flirts with the efforts, deaths, and bloodshed of common Venezuelans who feel unrepresented by the MUD. Real “meaningful” discussions are taking place behind closed doors, and what is at stake is how the MUD will serve chavismo’s purposes in the future, by requesting to have the symbolic representative in the Supreme Court, the Electoral Council, etc. Keep a mental note for the future: none of these figures will manage to turn any of those institutions into yielding even a shred of accountability to the regime.
To conclude, Roberta, thank you. I will always be grateful for you showing MUD for what they really are.
alek boyd
PS: As I told your colleagues the last time I was in DC, Venezuela is a signatory to a series of international human rights treaties that are binding and have, in most jurisdictions, supraconstitutional status. It is worth mentioning that Venezuela subjected itself to the premises of the treaties voluntarily, without coercion from any nation. Getting chavista officials to defend those treaties shouldn’t even be a topic of debate.