Otaiza’s murder was planned in Miami

The police investigation of chavista leader Eliézer Otaiza’s murder is still in progress and results are pending. President Maduro, however, says he already knows the truth about the case: The assassination was plotted in Miami by “sectors that once had media and economic power in Venezuela.”

Maduro made the revelations during his May First commemoration speech broadcast live on national cadena. “Otaiza’s murder was planned and executed as a false positive so it could be presented to public opinion as only another crime event, just as they do it in Colombia,” he explained.

The conspiracy theory has found echo in several articles published by the chavista web page Aporrea.org. For example, the author of Otaiza Odiar a los gringos (Otaiza hate gringos), argues that “we have terrorists deployed in the nation that are acting with impunity in the name of human rights. This counter-revolutionary program will not cease even with dialogue. The phase of elimination of [revolutionary] leaders has increased. (…) the interesting thing is that we don’t have to wait for the gringos to invade, they are already in the country. They are terrorist groups that have been trained during six years by NGO’s and financed by the NED [National Endowment for Democracy], they are paramilitaries and some of the opposition militants. The gringos are playing their game with dummies made for USA in Venezuela [in English in the original].” 

Another article, Los conspiradores escogen muy bien a sus víctimas [Conspirators chose their victims well], criticizes the government for being too complacent with conspiracies. The author believes Otaiza was chosen as a target because the opposition knew that, in the event of a coup d’état, Otaiza would lead the resistance in the Libertador Municipality.