Manuel Rosales, in the striped shirt, is led off a plane to face arrest upon arrival in Venezuela.
Well, looky-looky. What have we here? Looks like one of Chavecito’s old enemies (and losing would-be rivals for the presidency) is finally daring to show his cowardly face in Venezuela again. Of course, he’s probably going to be showing it mainly from behind bars for some time, as he’s been wanted on various outstanding arrest warrants for the last six years. Here’s the story, via Aporrea:
The former mayor of Maracaibo, Manuel Rosales, who has had outstanding warrants with Venezuelan justice for six years, arrived on Thursday afternoon at La Chinita International Airport, from Aruba, and was immediately detained by SEBIN officers, according to Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) party director Diego Scharifker, via his Twitter account, @DiegoScharifker.
The UNT party president arrived on Laser Airlines flight QL 1981, accompanied by parliamentary deputies Enrique Márquez and William Barrientos. The flight was to depart at 3:00 pm, but Queen Beatrix International Airport informed that the flight was delayed. Military police were located around the terminal from the wee hours of the morning.
Among the persons awaiting Rosales’s arrival were his wife, Eveling Trejo, and former governor Pablo Pérez; the UNT directorate were also on site. Pérez stated: “I’m not going to create false hopes. The Prosecutor’s office indicated that he will be detained on arrival. But what we would like is if they let him go to Calle 72.”
“There is an arrest warrant out for him; if he arrives, he will be taken into custody,” said Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega Díaz to the private TV channel Televen. The head of the Public Ministry maintained that Rosales, 62 years old, “will be guaranteed his rights”, but emphasized that “he will be apprehended immediately when he arrives in country.”
Last Friday, from an undisclosed location, Rosales, the former mayor of Maracaibo (in the western Venezuelan state of Zulia), announced that he would return to Venezuela after an exile of six years.
“We will arrive in La Chinita Airport next Thursday, October 15. I will be setting foot on Venezuelan soil come hell or high water, in the face of threats, in the face of everything, because the struggle is for the people and for history and for the Venezuelan homeland,” Rosales stated.
His speech was projected on a giant screen in Calle 72, and watched by a few dozen people gathered by UNT, which Rosales founded.
Translation mine.
Of course, we have to read between the lines a little here. When Burusas — that’s his nickname — talks about a “struggle”, he’s not actually talking about THE struggle in Venezuela, by Bolivarian socialists against poverty and dependency and the menaces of the empire to the north. No, he’s talking about putschism and illegal attempts to halt said struggle. Because, you see, these guys can never seem to get themselves elected. They have a problem with a little concept called Popularity. Like all of the Venezuelan opposition, he’s speaking with a lot of unintended irony, and mainly from his ass.
But hey! At least this time, he managed to do it without mangling any common folk sayings, as he’s normally wont to do. Maybe his time off from active politicking has improved his speechifying skills? Let us pray.
