It was only a matter of time, truly. For those who haven’t been following the latest chavista announcement about a “plot to kill” President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, here’s a video of the proceedings (there are many more).
Only a group of desperate and deranged fools could have agreed to participate in such a pathetic charade. The issue in Venezuela is that the 10 desperate and disturbed fools involved are precisely the 10 most powerful officials in the country:
Numbers have been added to better identify each official.
1) Jorge Arreaza, Vice President of Venezuela, married to Rosa Virginia Chavez, daughter of Hugo Chavez.
2) Cilia Flores, First Lady of Venezuela.
3) Jorge Rodríguez, former head of the National Electoral Council, former Vice President of Venezuela, current mayor of Libertador (Caracas).
4) Diosdado Cabello, President of the Congress of Venezuela.
5) Rafael Ramírez, General Manager of PDVSA, Minister of Energy and Mines, Chief Minister of Economics.
6) Delcy Rodríguez (sister of Jorge), Minister of Information and Communications of Venezuela.
7) Carlos Osorio, President of CVG, Minister of Development of the State of Guayana, and Minister of the Presidency.
8) Tareck el Aissami, Governor of the state of Aragua.
9) Francisco Ameliach, Governor of the state of Carabobo.
10) Miguel Rodríguez Torres, Minister of the Interior.
The Attorney General of Venezuela, Luisa Ortega Díaz, is not in the picture. However, she played a starring role in the farce by justifying the possession of “evidence” (fabricated emails) by Jorge Rodríguez (a mayor), which was part of an “ongoing investigation” led by SEBIN and her office, which none of the accused had been informed about. Ortega Díaz also issued an international warrant, sent to INTERPOL, to arrest Pedro Burelli. And not satisfied with being exposed as a mere tool of illegal political persecution, Ortega Díaz decided that the best strategy was to double down, announcing new arrests. Kangaroo justice…
Honestly, it is difficult to find a plausible, reasonable, and logical explanation for this. Because we are not talking about a plot invented by a couple of nobodies. No. What we have here is a group of people controlling Venezuela. In absolute terms. Congress, judiciary, economy, finance, military, police forces, paramilitaries, diplomacy, elections, international trade, taxes, media, international relations… all aspects of the Venezuelan state are under the thumb of this group. Maduro wasn’t present (he was consulting with a bearded bird), but his wife was there, and she is the one running the show.
So, after inventing and fabricating everything, they thought it best for ALL OF THEM to sit in a forced nationwide broadcast to launch spurious accusations against those opposing chavismo. Subpoenas and arrest warrants were issued. All the might of the state was mobilized against a handful of opponents, whose only crime was refusing to adhere to the line imposed from Havana.
But they should have known what was coming. Even those deranged individuals could have foreseen that it would cost little to unveil “this farce,” in the words of Pedro Burelli, one of the accused. It turns out that Google responded swiftly to a subpoena and it is now proven that the emails the alleged defendants supposedly exchanged do not exist; in other words, the entire scheme is a fabrication.
The difference between the 10 pariahs mentioned before and anyone aware of democratic principles, such as the separation of powers and judicial independence, is that while it is pretty easy for the latter to prove their innocence, it is inconceivable for the former that a private company would assist an individual in exposing a farce like this. We could argue that Google’s equivalent in Venezuela is CANTV, a state telecommunications giant providing phone, cellular, internet, and email services, among others. Can anyone imagine a judge in Venezuela forcing CANTV to provide evidence exposing the completely fabricated plans of chavismo to destroy the opposition?
What Pedro did is worthy of praise. I, for one, am very grateful to him. Anyone who endures government abuse anywhere should be thankful to Pedro. Because what he did was expose the sheer audacity of a group of disturbed thugs ready to fabricate and do anything, using all the power and resources of the state along the way, to destroy their supposed enemies. This isn’t democracy we are talking about here. This is a criminal gang using a state to persecute people on false pretenses.
However, to be clear, what Pedro accomplished was only possible because he lives in a democracy. The millions of Venezuelans residing in Venezuela are at the complete mercy of the thugs in the picture, their collaborators, and their Cuban masters. No Venezuelan could have done what Pedro did, and that’s the true tragedy: millions of people with no chance of redress.