“El Aviador” Mastermind of the protests

President Maduro announced yesterday the arrest of “El Aviador” [The airplane pilot], “the mastermind behind the guarimbas [barricades]”

“We captured, 48 hours ago, one of the masterminds of the armed insurrection against Venezuela. He is called “el aviador”. (…) [He was arrested] with arms, a lot of money, a lot of information. There he is, smearing everyone, all the guarimberos [protesters]. He was hiding [escondidito]. [He says] he receives money from the North, which he distributes, that he planned the closing [of streets], that he paid for snipers that killed National Guards,” declared Maduro.

He also expressed surprise at the extent of the plot revealed by El Aviador, “I have to say it: more people than I thought are implicated in these plans to fill our country with violence, death and sicariato.”

This last word, sicariato, also links the plot to the murder of Eliézer Otaiza last week. Maduro believes the death of the revolutionary leader could be part of an armed insurgency that has bought into the country “Colombian paramilitaries” and sicarios to kill government officials. Referring to Otaiza’s death, Maduro explained that there is “no such a thing a haphazard facts. We should not lose sight of the frame that circumscribes the events of the last months. (...) We are not dealing with normal people here, we are not dealing with people who want to engage in politics. So we should not under estimate our security measures. I have told you [government officials] that we have to be careful. In Venezuela we are facing an armed insurrection that we have neutralized with intelligence, with preventive measures.”

The objective of the Aviador’s plan would be, according to Maduro, to “destroy Venezuelan democracy and impose a model of extreme capitalism which would put an end to the social accomplishments of the Revolution, but most of all [what they want] is to get ahold of [Venezuela’s] oil.”