Jaua: Capriles will travel to meet the international ultra-right wing

The Minister for the Communes, Elias Jaua, claims that the Governor of Miranda and opposition Henrique Capriles will travel this month to Spain and to Miami in order “receive instructions and financial oxygen to continue the destabilization campaign against Venezuela’s democracy.”

Jaua mentioned Roger Noriega as one of the “ultra-rightists” Capriles will meet during his trip.

“It’s a lie that Capriles is one of the more moderates of the opposition,” said the Minister, “he is part of the game being played to interrupt democracy, part of the plan of destabilization against our Fatherland.”

Jaua is especially concerned that Capriles could be using Miranda State’s public resources to finance his travels and conspiracies against the government: “We have decided, the National Government, the Parliament, the Regional Parliament [of Miranda], the regional deputies, the city mayors of Miranda, and the Popular Power, to begin a process of debate on the use of resources that have been constitutionally transferred to the State of Miranda, and we will ask Carpiles for an explanations of his travels,” warned he, and added, “we will battle to stop Capriles from using his post of Governor to further his personal interests and his ambition and obsession to become the president.”

(The Agencia Venezolana de Noticias exceptionally publishes images of opposition leaders to illustrate negative comments. This is a rare case of an image of Capriles taken from AVN.) 

Diosdado Cabello: opposition leaders should be put on trial for Treason to the Fatherland

During his TV show on public television, Con el Mazo Dando, the president of the National Assembly and vice-president of the PSUV, Diosdado Cabello, said that he will ask the General Attorney to investigate Ramón Muchacho, Mayor of Chacao municipality, and Julio Borges, National Assembly deputy for Primero Justicia, for the crimes of Treason to the Fatherland (Traición a la Patria).

Muchacho and Borges recently participated in the summer forum of the conservative Fundación para el Análisis de Estudios Sociales (FAES) in Spain, where they made harsh criticisms of the Maduro government.

In his TV show, Cabello showed videos of both opposition leaders claiming that the opposition is the victim of persecution and harassment by government officials.

For Cabello these claims, made in an international forum, amount to a “smear campaign against Venezuela directed from abroad.” The final aim of the campaign would be, according to Cabello, “to distort the internal situation [of Venezuela] in order to justify of a foreign intervention.”

Cabello claims that the declarations by Muchacho and Borges are tantamount to the crime of Treason to the Fatherland. He compared the declarations of the opposition leaders to those made by Maria Corina Machado at the Organization of American States in March this year. Machado failed to intervene at the OAS as temporal representative of Panamá, but her attempt was used by Cabello to justify her dismissal from the National Assembly.

(Image from Venezolana de Televisión)

Maduro: Mariano Rajoy funds Venezuela’s fascist right

In a speech delivered during a military ceremony yesterday, Nicolás Maduro publically called Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy “very corrupt.” He also accused him of being “the political patron and financial arm of the Venezuelan fascist right.” 

The Spanish daily El País today reminds its readers that “the government of Caracas has been denouncing, through its media network of information and propaganda, that the businessman from Galicia, Manuel Jove Capellán – identified by Venezuelan state media as “the great financial backer of the Partido Popular – and the company Veta, constitute a source of funding for destabilizing actions against the [Venezuelan] regime.” 

During the same ceremony Maduro accused opposition leader Henrique Capriles of traveling to Chile in order to meet pinochetistas and seek support for a military coup in Venezuela. Maduro also announced that the he is terminating the Venezuela-United States approach as a response to the recent declarations by Samantha Powers. 

El País ends its note with this assessment: “Official media in Venezuela has immediately given wide circulation to the threats by Maduro, which would indicate that they represent a deliberate turn in foreign policy and not a momentary outburst by President.”