The Ungrateful Victims of Conspiracy Theories

The Agencia Venezolana de Noticias (AVN) has published an opinion piece by Hermán Mena Cifuentes titled “Lilian, la desagradecida.” Lilian Tintori is the wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo López.

According to Mena Cifuentes, Tintori and López are not the victims of a judicial process marred by irregularities, but instead are the conspiring victims of the “demon of ingratitude.” Tintori, says Mena Cifuentes, “has forgotten the favor Nicolas Maduro did to her by saving the life of her husband, and has become the protagonist of a smear campaign, which in the name of the Empire and its lackeys, has been put forth as part of a Fourth Generation War unleashed against the Bolivarian Revolution.”

In August 2015, president Maduro himself first proposed the idea that he had really saved Leopoldo López’s life by imprisoning him, because other opposition leaders such as Maria Corina Machado, Antonio Ledezma, and Henrique Capirles, were plotting with Colombian ex-president Álvaro Uribe to bring into the country “paramilitary operatives” to murder López. The aim of that conspiracy, according to Maduro, was to “stir chaos in the country.”

“Why did they want to kill Leopoldo López? To blame the Bolivarian Revolution,” Maduro said.

Tintori, for her part, recently declared that the government has been using drones to spy on her. “Last night a drone overflew my home and filmed through my windows. Violating my intimacy and my family’s,” wrote Tintori on Twitter on February 8.