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It was only a matter of time, really. For those that haven't been following the latest chavista announcement about a "plot to kill" Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, here's a video of the proceedings (there are many more):
Only a bunch a desperate, deranged imbeciles could have agreed to participate in such a pathetic charade. Trouble for Venezuela is, that the 10 desperate, deranged imbeciles who took part are precisely Venezuela's 10-most-powerful officials:
Numbers have been added to better identify each official.
1) Jorge Arreaza, Venezuela's Vice President, married to Rosa Virginia Chavez, Hugo Chavez's daughter.
2) Cilia Flores, Venezuela's First Lady.
3) Jorge Rodriguez, former head of National Electoral Council, former Vice President of Venezuela, current Mayor of Libertador (Caracas).
4) Diosdado Cabello, President of Venezuela's Congress.
5) Rafael Ramirez, CEO of PDVSA, Minister of Energy and Mines, Chief Economy Minister.
6) Delcy Rodriguez (Jorge's little sis), Venezuela's Minister of Information and Communications.
7) Carlos Osorio, President of CVG, Minister for Guayana State's Development, and Minister of Presidential Affairs.
8) Tareck el Aissami, Governor of Aragua state.
9) Francisco Ameliach, Governor of Carabobo state.
10) Miguel Rodriguez Torres, Minister of Interior.
Venezuela's Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Diaz, is not in the picture. She had a stellar participation in the farce nonetheless, by justifying Jorge Rodriguez's (a Mayor) possession of "evidence" (fabricated emails), that was part of an "ongoing investigation" led by intelligence police (SEBIN) and her office, that none of the accused had been made aware of. Ortega Diaz also issued an international warrant, sent to INTERPOL, to arrest Pedro Burelli. And not content with having been exposed as a mere instrument of illegal political persecution, Ortega Diaz decided that the best strategy was to double down, announcing further arrests. Kangaroo justice...
It is difficult, in all honesty, to find a plausible, reasonable, and logical explanation for this. For we are not talking about some plot, concocted by a couple of nobodies. No. What we have here is a group of people that control Venezuela. In absolute terms. Congress, judiciary, economy, finances, army, police forces, paramilitaries, diplomacy, elections, international trade, taxes, media, international relations... every aspect of the Venezuelan State is under this lot's thumbs. Maduro was not there (he was consulting with a bearded bird), but his wife was, and she is the one who runs the show.
So after inventing and fabricating the whole thing, they thought it'd be best for ALL OF THEM to sit in a forced nationwide broadcast, to level spurious accusations against individuals that oppose chavismo. Summons were issued, and arrest warrants. The entire force of the State was mobilized against a handful of opposition folks, whose only crime is to have refused to toe the line imposed from Havana.
But they should have known what was coming their way. Even such deranged people could have foreseen that it would take little to expose "this farcical ploy", in the words of Pedro Burelli, one of the accused. As it turns, Google quickly replied to a subpoena, and it has now been demonstrated that the emails that the alleged accused sent to one another do not exist, i.e. the whole ploy is a fabrication.
The difference between the 10 pariahs above and any person aware of democratic precepts, such as separation of powers and independence of courts, is that while to the latter is rather easy to demonstrate innocence, to the former it is unconceivable that a private company would assist a private individual in exposing a farce like this. We could argue that the Google equivalent in Venezuela is CANTV, a State-owned telecom giant that provides telephone, cellular, internet, and email services, among other things. Can anyone even picture a judge, in Venezuela, forcing CANTV to hand over evidence that exposes chavismo's entirely made up plans to destroy the opposition?
What Pedro did is to be commended. I, for one, am extremely grateful to him. Any person at the receiving end of government abuse, anywhere, ought to be grateful towards Pedro. For what he did, was to expose the sheer brazenness of a bunch of deranged thugs prepared to invent and do anything, and use the full power and resources of the State along the way, to destroy its perceived enemies. This is no democracy we are talking about here. This is a criminal gang using a State to persecute people on false pretences.
TV presenter Luis Chataing (above) was fired from an "independent" channel for ridiculing chavismo's plot.
But to be clear, what Pedro did was only possible because he lives in a democracy. The millions of Venezuelans residing in Venezuela are at the total mercy of the thugs in the picture, and their collaborators, and their Cuban masters. No Venezuelan could have done in Venezuela what Pedro did, and that's the real tragedy: millions of people without even the slightest chance of getting redress.
