That sonic boom you just heard was the other shoe dropping. One of the suspects in the brutal murder and dismemberment of Liana Hergueta sang like a nightingale for the Venezuelan federal police, and in the video above, he names a veritable rogues’ gallery of right-wing politicians, not only from Venezuela, but from neighboring Colombia, and even from the US. And none other than the president of Venezuela himself was on hand to make the information public to all the TV viewers of the land:
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, presented a video in which one of the men accused of dismembering a woman in Caracas, and who has ties to the opposition, states that he received, via intermediaries, money from US Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, in order to finance the “protests” of 2014.
José Rafael Pérez Venta, who says in the video that he belonged to the opposition parties Voluntad Popular (VP) and Alianza Bravo Pueblo, states that Rubio, as well as fellow Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen sent money to him via a person named Betty Grossi, though he did not specify the amount nor explain how he knew it came from the US politicians.
After naming the US congress members he maintains that “[Ros-Lehtinen] earmarked a certain amount in dollars which she or they sent, sending it in an envelope, or directly to [Grossi’s] account, and [Grossi] made the conversion and handed over the money herself,” Pérez Venta explains in the interrogation video.
Pérez Venta also says he received “a contribution of $1,000” from Phil Laidlaw, whom he identified as a chargé d’affaires from the US embassy in Venezuela, and who, according to Pérez Venta, used Gaby Arellano, a known student leader and VP party member, as intermediary.
He does not explain either, in this case, how he knows that the dollars Arellano gave him come from this supposed functionary.
Maduro said on tuesday, on his weekly TV/radio program, that Pérez Venta, as well as other prisoners, “have served as bodyguards to the principal leaders of the Venezuelan opposition”, and stated that “like this group, we have detected 30 groups trained and financed from Colombia, by the paramilitaries of [Álvaro] Uribe.”
“This group, which was connected to the highest level of right-wing leaders in Colombia, and of the Venezuelan right, had plans to assassinate well-known political leaders, of the opposition right wing, and of the Revolution,” he added.
In the video, Pérez Venta says that, on an unspecified date, he was in the western Venezuelan state of Táchira, where he received “money from Colombia implemented by some people who handled the fabrication of explosives and the location of this type of artefacts.”
He also states that in the neighboring country, he met with Colombian ex-president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), as well as Oscar Iván Zuloaga, one of his ministers.
He indicated that the attack on the Public Ministry in Caracas, following the anti-government march of February 12, a date marking the beginning of a six-month wave of anti-government protests throughout the land, was prepared by the VP leader, Leopoldo López, currently in jail for crimes related to the same.
Also implicated are parliamentary ex-deputy María Corina Machado and the metropolitan mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, who is under house arrest following accusations of conspiring.
He also accuses the president and editor of the daily newspaper, El Nacional, Miguel Henrique Otero, of “complete and perpetual financing for the confrontations” which took place in the upper-class Caracas suburb of Chacao.
Translation mine.
Of course, the opposition are all up in arms, as usual, and claiming the government is trying to “smear” them. Hardly! As you can see in the video, the prisoner has not been tortured and is making all his statements freely, without needing to be prompted in any way. (The interrogator’s voice is disguised for security reasons, hence the subtitles.) It’s not the government smearing the opposition; it’s one of their own henchmen pointing the finger back at his bosses.
And those bosses are, as my entry from the other day says, not native to Venezuela. At least two of them are Colombian; three from the US, two of them members of Congress, and the other an embassy official; and lower on the food chain, all the usual suspects of the Venezuelan opposition: Prettyboy Leo, Maricori, Majunche Capriles, Grandpa Monster, and Miguel Henrique Otero, the crappiest newspaper proprietor in all the land. Plus Gaby Arellano, the opposition student leader, as bag-girl and messenger for the gringo financiers and the terror-cell killers.
Bolivarian socialists — a majority of Venezuelans — call their opposition leaders “sinvergüenzas”, meaning shameless people. As you can see, they come by the term honestly…well, as honestly as one can, if one is of the Venezuelan opposition. And honesty is not one of their policies, to be quite honest.
