CAP soap opera continues; usual suspect blamed for everything

Hey, y’all…remember the kerfuffle over the dead body of a certain awful ex-president of Venezuela, and how the same could not be buried? Legal proceedings got underway today, and boy are they a doozer:

The judge hearing the case over the burial place of Venezuelan ex-president Carlos Andrés Pérez said that he could not come to a decision today and that the judgment could take up to three months. For that reason, he proposed, as a provisional solution, that the remains be placed in a crypt.

Pérez’s family members who live in Venezuela are opposed to that.

The proposal by judge Arthur Rothenberg came today at the beginning hearings to decide whether Pérez will be buried in the US, as is the wish of his companion Cecilia Matos and their two children, or in Venezuela, as is the wish of Blanca Rodríguez de Pérez, his widow in the eyes of the law, and their children.

The latter part of the family tried without success today to get the judge to exclude Cecilia Matos from the case. Matos was with Carlos Andrés Pérez for nearly three decades and lives in Miami, where the ex-president died last December 25.

Family members representing Pérez’s widow opposed the provisional measure, believing that in many similar cases, it became a permanent one.

The hearings began with the statements of several employees of the funeral home where Pérez’s body remains. Attorneys representing the wife of the ex-president objected to the questions as to how long it takes for a body to decompose.

Carolina and Martha Pérez Rodríguez, daughters of the ex-president by his wife Blanca, and one of his granddaughters, María Andreina González, were present in court.

Representing the Miami contingent of the family were  Cecilia Matos and her daughters, Cecilia Victoria and María Francia.

Blanca Rodríguez, who married Pérez in 1948, wants to bury the two-time ex-president (whose terms in office ran from 1974-1979 and 1989-1993) in a Caracas cemetery alongside their daughter Thais, who died 15 years ago.

But Cecilia Matos and her daughters oppose the repatriation, arguing that the ex-president did not want to be buried in Venezuela until the end of the government of Hugo Chávez,, who had tried to overthrow him in a military uprising in 1992.

Cecilia Victoria Matos said that her father had told her that “he could not and did not want to return to Venezuela because of the political agitation in the country”, and for this reason he sought permanent residency in the US in 2005, obtaining it in 2008.

The divorce proceedings of the ex-president from his wife, Blanca Rodríguez, were blocked for ten years by president Hugo Chávez, claimed an attorney today.

Rebecca H. Fischer, who represents Cecilia Matos, said “Carlos Andrés Pérez could not get a divorce because Hugo Chávez blocked it”.

According to Fischer, the Venezuelan attorney who handled the divorce proceedings in Caracas would testify today in order to explain the ex-president’s wishes.

Lawyers representing Cecilia Matos also indicated that Carlos Andrés Pérez had expressed a fear of “being tortured, incarcerated and killed” if he returned to Venezuela.

Translation mine.

I should qualify this by saying that the article in question comes from an opposition paper, El Mundo, and therefore the journalism is accordingly stinky and bears the usual, obvious (and hilarious) political taint. Once more, Chavecito is being blamed for everything. In this case, halting a divorce proceeding that was already taking way too long even before he got into office!

Okay, now for the reality check, people. Take a look at the timeline: CAP and his mistress, Cecilia Matos, were together “for nearly thirty years”, and yet Chavecito has been “blocking” CAP’s divorce for only the last ten, when he was in power? What motives could he possibly have had for blocking a personal matter that had nothing to do with him? To trap CAP? Pffft. If Chavecito had wanted CAP’s ass that badly, he could have sent agents to Miami to fetch it at any time. Isn’t Venezuela the land of the “express kidnapping”? It is in all the scare stories I’ve ever read about it. And to hear the scaremongers tell it, the kidnappers are always and inevitably “Chavista thugs”. If there were any truth to THAT urban legend, then I’m sure Chávez would have had no problem sending in the loyal thuggies. Which, as we can see, never happened.

Let’s face it: if CAP had really wanted that divorce, he could have gotten it. It would have been a fairly straight-forward matter of hiring a Venezuelan attorney and keeping him on the case until the aggrieved party, Blanca Rodríguez, finally signed the papers. I think he just didn’t want to dip into his vast supply of stolen cash to hire the requisite lawyers to do it for him. Lawyers cost, after all.

Speaking of that vast supply of stolen cash, I bet he didn’t want to give Blanca half of it, either. Which would probably have happened had that divorce ever been finalized. And that would have defeated the whole purpose of CAP’s stealthy pilfering and mad dash for Miami, no? One doesn’t rob a nation blind only to leave half of one’s ill-gotten fortune behind. In the hands of one’s spurned spouse, no less. Blanca might even have paid taxes on it, to make matters worse. (And we all know how corruptos feel about taxes, don’t we, kiddies?)

Long story made short: CAP must not have wanted that divorce badly enough to pursue it. Money probably mattered more to him than any woman. Or any children he had (and he had plenty.) Says something rather sad about how he must really have felt about Cecilia, the mother of his last two children, eh? He didn’t apparently care enough to lawfully give them his name…

Meanwhile, the soap opera churns on. Tune in tomorrow, same time, same channel. And bring extra hankies, you’re gonna need ’em.

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