Maduro Reveals Military Conspiracy

The Bolivarian Armed Forces high command has again publically pledged loyalty to Nicolás Maduro, reelected president on the 20 May elections, boycotted and denounced as a fraud by most of the opposition.

In a statement called “Proclama de Lealtad y Compromiso” read during the pledge ceremony by a middle ranking officer, the armed forces were defined as “Bolivarian, Zamoristas, Chavistas, anti-imperialists, and anti-oligarchic.”

“You [Maduro] can count on the loyalty and commitment of these patriotic soldiers to continue on your side on this stoic battle against imperialism. We are firmly committed to the continued construction of a great, socialist, free and sovereign fatherland, ruled by the principles of social justice, equality, common wellbeing, solidarity and peace,” read the statement.

Maduro thanked the armed forces for their loyalty and said that the Proclama should be signed by all officers and published. But he also warned of a conspiracy by the United States and Colombia. “In the last weeks we have dismantled a conspiracy financed by Colombia and encouraged by the United States to divide the Armed Forces and to stop the May 20 elections,” he said.

He also said that the leaders of the conspiracy have been arrested and that security forces are still searching for its main “financial backer” [financiasta].

Local media has reported that at least 38 military officers have been arrested in the past two weeks. Miguel Rodríguez Torres, Chavez’ ex defense minister has been under arrest since March 13 on charges of “espionage, conspiracy, and instigation to commit crimes.”

The arrested military officers “have confessed and have been convicted, they sold themselves to Colombia to betray the Bolivarian Armed Forces. ¡Be all on alert! ¡Do not drop your guard! This is a time for combat. They wanted to affect our elections and democracy: the North American empire, the Colombian oligarchy,” said Maduro.

Critical Chavistas have their own conspiracy theories

“In Venezuela’s political scene of the last 20 years, nothing has happened by chance,” claims Javier Antonio Vivas Santanta in his most recent article published by Aporrea.org.

Aporrea, a chavista Web portal has increasingly become a space for critical chavismo. The term usually applies to people who defend the “legacy” of the Comandante and claim that president Maduro has betrayed that legacy.

Conspiracy theories about Maduro’s true intentions are an important part of critical chavismo. Vivas Santana, for example, is not shy to call his own analysis a Teoría madurista de la conspiración contra Chávez.

According to Vivas Santana, Maduro´s conspiracy against Chávez, which includes Diosdado Cabello as co-conspirator, began way back in 1999 with the approval of the Bolivarian Constitution. The fact that now president Maduro has convened a new Constitutive Assembly in order to “abolish” that Constitution is evidence, for the author, of Maduro’s intentions, since that year, of stablishing a “neo-totalitarian project”.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin is the main “international connection” of Maduro’s conspiracy. “Why did not Putin invite Chávez, as Lula DaSilva did from Brazil, to treat his cancer in Moscow if he was then Russia’s prime minister?” asks suspiciously Vivas Santana. “It becomes evident that the origins of the conspiracy against Chávez had tow clear long term aims,” answers the author, “The first was the abrogation of the 1999 Constitution in order to ‘legally’ implement neo-totalitarianism. The second was to sell PDVSA [Venezuela’s oil company] and hand our oil, gas, mineral, and gold reserves to international groups, mainly Russian and Chinese, as a way to consolidate power with the help of foreign governments with unipersonal political systems and with enough power within the UN Security Council.”

Vivas Santana promises a second part to his piece. In it he will consider “if the cancer that affected the Bolivarian leader was really murder.”