Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Venezuela: Criminalizing dissent


As the Communist dictatorship in Venezuela sinks the economy into further chaos, it resorts to criminalizing dissent.

The latest victim is Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma, who yesterday was arrested and dragged out of office ‘like a dog’ by the police.

Read my article at Da Tech Guy blog.

UPDATE
In other Venezuela news,
Head of the Defense and Security Committee of the National Assembly (AN) deputy William Fariñas said that pro-government deputies would request the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) to remove the parliamentary immunity of opposition deputy Julio Borges.

Liliana Tintori, Leopoldo Lopez’s wife, states that there was an attempt to remove Lopez from Ramo Verde prison to place(s) unknown.

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Venezuela: The Cuban perp?

After Tuesday’s shameful assault at the National Assembly, people are trying to identify the man who punched Julio Borges.


Opposition assemblymen Maria Corina Machado and Julio Borges

Nancy Asencio broke Maria Corina Machado’s nose in four places; that much is clear.

What’s not totally clear is the identity of the man who punched out Borges. Two men have been identified:
Michel Milán Reyes, Cuban who is currently a junior assemblyman in Venezuela while apparently also being president of a municipal assembly in Cuba,
or another man, a Venezuelan named Michael Leeroy Reyes Argote, who was identified in this photo,

Jaime Bayly named Milán Reyes as the perpetrator in his Tuesday show; the man who assaulted Borges stood behind a Chavista spokesman during the press conference following the altercation (4:05 into the video):

Milán Reyes is the favored suspect on Twitter.

Here’s the interesting part:
Nicolás Maduro is president now thanks to the intervention and support of the Cuban Communist regime. His praetorian guard, so to speak, is Cuban.

National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello, who according to the Venezuelan Constitution should have been interim president, has plans. He won’t be content with the status quo forever.

If Milán Reyes actually is the perp, Cabello is telegraphing a message to Maduro: “I can get the Cubans on my side, too.”

Most observers predict that Maduro’s regime will not last long. So here’s the question: Who will succeed him, Capriles . . . or Cabello?

UPDATE,
Linked by Babalu. Thank you!


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Fascist Venezuela: The end of the National Assembly

National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello is not content with not allowing the opposition assemblymen to speak (unless they recognize Maduro as “legitimate”, or so he says). Now Cabello unleashes thugs to assault and punch the assemblymen:


Exclusivo: Video muestra la golpiza que ocurrió… by Globovision

Female chavista representatives had the courtesy of being the ones beating up opposition female representatives like Maria Corina Machado.

More photos at Noticias24. One of the assemblymen even put on his motorcycle helmet.

As far as I could ascertain, the man in the jogging suit is not an assemblyman and has not been detained.


Opposition assemblymen Maria Corina Machado and Julio Borges

The opposition said at least 17 of its allies and five pro-government deputies were injured. One was hospitalized.

Cabello watched and laughed. The assemblyman who was speaking went on talking.

All of this was timed to coincide with a cadena, so the radio and TV media were tied up and wouldn’t have been able to report live, had they dared.

Workers later had to show their phones to see if they had photos or videos of the incident.

This is the outright fascism that Diosdado Cabello has been promoting in the National Assembly since Chavez died.

Two days ago, the Washington Post was foretelling,

The real danger in Venezuela is not that an Obama administration unwilling to provide leadership in Syria would make any serious attempt to prevent Mr. Maduro’s consolidation of power. It is that Mr. Maduro will follow up on his jailing of an innocent American with a full-scale crackdown on the opposition.

Venezuela’s democratic movement is being violently shoved into the kind of underground resistance it never envisioned for itself, never sought, isn’t well prepared to take on, and never actually wanted.

Today many May Day demonstrations are scheduled, with Henrique Capriles encouraging the people to participate. The melee at the National Assembly is only a warning.


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