María Corina Machado: Chavismo infiltrating migrants

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado warns in a recent video published via her party’s Twitter account (@VenteVenezuela) that the opposition must not “fall in the trap created by the Maduro regime of the so-called dialogue and farce elections.”

Machado, herself the target of accusation by the Venezuelan government of being the mastermind of a plot to assassinate Maduro, seems to however subscribe the government’s conspiratorial discourse about an “unconventional conflict.” But she claims this war has been unleashed by the government against the rest of the word. “The Venezuelan criminal State has unleashed an unconventional conflict in coalition with terrorist groups such as the ELN, the FARC, Hezbollah, Hamas, drug cartels, and the Cuban tyranny, and they will not let go of the Venezuelan territory, resources, and institutions, unless they are confronted with a stronger liberating force of those democratic actors in the region that understand what’s at stake,” says Machado.

Machado also speaks of the catastrophic consequences if Maduro were to remain in power. The main issue, according to her, is the problem created for the region by the exodus of millions of Venezuelans. Some of the consequences of this exodus, she claims, are obvious, but some are not: “...because the regime has managed to infiltrate some of these groups of migrants with what they call ‘social movements’, individuals whose objectives are to destabilize these democracies in our region.”

Venezuela expert David Smilde commented on Twitter (@dsmilde): “Brilliant. In a two-minute video aimed at international audiences, MCM manages to feed stereotypes of the Venezuelan opposition as crazy and intolerant, AND raise suspicions that Venezuelan migrants are dangerous.”

Indeed, on behalf of the millions of Venezuelan migrants around the world: thank you Maria Corina!