VenEconomy: Tales of Presidential Assassinations, Tough Nuts to Crack From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune June 18, 2014
The “revolutionary administration of justice” system is digging deeper into an alleged assassination plot against President Nicolás Maduro, allegedly planned by about 20 opposition leaders and common citizens who have publicly expressed their rejection against castro-chavismo for years.
This assassination attempt is simply a tall tale of the Revolution, from which its members have been hiding behind some 30 times over the past 15 years, always without presenting credible evidence, and as an excuse to take its selective political prosecution to the next level.
This alleged assassination plot was officially made public on May 28 in Caracas by the so-called “High Political Command of the Revolutionary Process,” led by the mayor of the capital’s Libertador municipality, Jorge Rodríguez.
On that occasion, Rodríguez pointed out that this plot was part of a bigger plan, which included from a “foiled coup d’état” to street protests (referring to the student demonstrations that have been brutally repressed by the National Guard and paramilitary groups with a balance of 43 young people killed, dozens injured, 3,180 detentions, some 116 people held in highly dangerous prisons and 157 cases of torture and cruel and inhuman treatment).
According to Rodríguez, the list of alleged conspirators includes Diego Arria, María Corina Machado, Pedro Mario Burelli, Ricardo Koesling, Pablo Aure, Henrique Salas Römer, Gustavo Tarre, Gabriela Arellano (a student leader) and many others. Some emails intercepted by the Government were presented as evidence to support the charges.
Two weeks ago, the Attorney General’s Office issued subpoenas to all of them. Some have to appear before the Public Ministry in order to render their statements, while others have to drop by SEBIN (Venezuela’s political police) headquarters, although they were never told if they were going under the condition of defendants or witnesses.
Two cases are noteworthy in this judicial masquerade:
First of all, that of Arria, former president of the UN Security Council and Assistant Secretary General and creator of the “Arria Formula” that helped the extinct Yugoslavia address a crisis several years ago. According to the Attorney General, Arria (who was called as a witness) was issued an arrest warrant through Interpol, 24 hours before he had to appear before the authorities, just as Burelli and Koesling, all of them currently outside Venezuela.
And secondly is the case of Machado, who appeared before the Public Ministry on Monday also as a witness.
The appearance of Machado was preceded by multiple threats from the Government, led by the accusation of she being a “murderer” publicly made by Maduro and others via Twitter made by some lawmakers of the leftist PSUV party saying that “we are waiting for you at the INOF,” a prison for women located in Los Teques (Greater Caracas) that is well known for the cruel mistreatment against former Supreme Court justice María Lourdes Afiuni, a political prisoner of the late Hugo Chávez.
For now, the threats of imprisonment against Machado were not executed. She appeared before the Attorney General’s Office, testified for seven long hours and walked out, all in the midst of a disproportionate number of National Guard officers guarding the entrance and the surroundings of the judicial body.
Machado, who was arbitrarily and illegally removed from parliamentary office a few months ago, has managed until now to overcome the punches landed in her nose and cheekbone by her PSUV peers at the Parliament last year, as well as the accusations of terrorism for being the protagonist (together with Leopoldo López) of the transition-to-democracy movement known as “La Salida” (the exit), which sparked the peaceful demonstrations on February 12 of this year.
Even if, as Machado has said herself, these attacks seek to annihilate her morally and physically, her boldness for having faced both Chávez and Maduro and her international reputation that has made her to share a seat with George Bush at the White House and with Panama at the Permanent Council of the OAS, seem to have made her a tough nut to crack for the castro-chavismo regime.
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