New Anti-Terrorist Police Force

Nicolas Maduro has announced the creation of a new police force tasked with “defense of the country against destabilizations plans.”

The new police force will be presided by Major General Hernán Gil Barrios and, according to Maduro, “will be in charge of the complete operational defense of the country and the dismemberment of all the terrorist groups that may disturb peace and security.”

Maduro also warned that these terrorist groups “are sent from Colombia and the United States to sow discord in Venezuelan society.” He also linked Juan Guaido, appointed President by the National Assembly in January last year, to these terrorist groups who have “activated their articulation mechanisms, using US dollars, in order to use organized crime for destruction, from the inside, so they serve as instrument for new guarimbas [street protests] and terrorist violence,” Maduro explained.

Similar security agencies have been created by Maduro before, usually preceding the arrest of opposition activists. For example, in January 8, 2017 the government announced the creation of a new Anti-Coup Command, coordinated by Vice-president Tareck El Aissami. The new force would “take preventive, legal, and corrective measures against coupist sectors,” said Maduro. Two days later El Aissami announced the arrest of Gilbert Caro, opposition National Assembly representative, on charges of planning “terrorist actions in the country.” The Anti-Coup Command was shot lived as it seems not to have generated any formal institutional structure. Since Gilbert Caro’s arrest the Command has not been mentioned again by the government.

Maduro: Coronavirus is a Biological Weapon

Venezuela is fully prepared for the new coronavirus, only but if it is a biological weapon. The government “has announced a prevention plan against the coronavirus as a possible biological weapon” says the government channel VTV Venezolana de Television.

Nicolas Maduro declared yesterday that he had created a Commission against Coronavirus presided by Vice-president Delcy Rodriguez. She will be in charge of, according to Maduro, “facing and containing this threat of a possible biological weapon created to attack China.”

Because, he added, “There are plenty of analyses around the world showing that the coronavirus could be a strain created for biological warfare against China. There are many elements supporting this [claim] and we have to raise our voice and sound the alarm. Venezuela has its own voice and can alert about these issues”

Maduro then compared the situation with the coronavirus to the extermination of the America’s native population by diseases carried by the European conquerors. “They killed the whole of the American indigenous population, we cannot forget the extermination [they caused] with the diseases they brought. Now we are faced with the coronavirus.”

Teorías de la Conspiración en Cinco8

Gracias a una de mis páginas favoritas, Cinco8, por publicar mi ensayo “Nada mejor para desmovilizarnos que una teoría conspiratoria”. Ahí exploro una de las premisas de este blog: no es tan importante que las teorías de la conspiración sean falsas o no (de hecho la “verdad” no puede ser lo que define a una teoría como “de la conspiración”), sino las consecuencias que tiene creer o no que tales teorías sean verdad.

The Parliament Coup was a Maduro-Guaidó Show

On January 5 the National Assembly was to meet for its first 2020 session. The assembly was to vote for its President. Juan Guaidó was believed to have secured the votes of most opposition fractions for his re-election, although the small radical block of the Maria Corina Machado’s Vente Venezuela party (Fracción 16 de Julio) had declared it would abstain.

Guaidó, and most opposition lawmakers, were not allowed to enter the Legislative Palace by the Bolivarian National Guard. Inside congress, the minority PSUV block, together with 13 opposition representatives, and without even assessing if they had the legal quorum needed, hastily elected Luis Parra, an opposition parliamentarian accused of corruption and formally expelled from his party Primero Justicia, as the new President of the National Assembly. Guaidó, and the parliamentarians who support him, met at the nearby headquarters of the El Nacional newspaper, and held a parallel vote re-electing Guaidó as president.

One positive aspect of this parliamentary coup by the Maduro government is that it again –briefly –united most of the opposition parties behind one leadership: instead of abstaining, the radical 16 de Julio fraction voted for Guaidó.

Twitter influencer Ángel García Banchs (@garciabanchs) disagrees with the 16 de Julio fraction and its decision to back Guaidó. He claims he still believes these radical opposition representatives are “honest”, but that they have been fooled by a show staged by the Maduro government, and by Guaidó and this “collaborationist” opposition.

García Banchs is convinced that the only solution to the Venezuelan crisis is an international military intervention, followed by a purifying civil war, which would “clean” Venezuela not only of chavismo, but of the “collaborationist” and “socialist” opposition. The conflict would end with a “republican Dictatorship” which would ensure the Rule of Law, sweep “socialism” from Venezuelan politics, and produce the “first economic miracle of the Twenty-first Century.” García Banchs claims to be a republican in the classical European term, not a democrat, as democracy leads to a fundamental lack of individual and economic freedom.

Guaidó has been, according to García Banchs, unwilling to grasp this simple truth and has not unequivocally asked President Trump to militarily intervene in Venezuela. His conclusion is that Guaidó is not really an opposition leader but a government agent, funded through Bolivarian corruption schemes.

García Banchs therefore seems to agree to an extent with the government’s version of the January 5 events: Guaidó staged a show by pretending to enter the Legislative Palace, but he really didn’t want to get in. The government claims it is because Guaidó did not have enough votes for his re-election, García Banchs thinks it’s because he is in cahoots with the government. The influencer is upset that the 16 de Julio fraction fell for this “obvious” trick and voted for Guaidó.

As events unfolded on January 5 and Guiadó was still “trying” to enter Congress, García Banchs posted on Twitter:

The bobolongo [the fool, Guaidó] has no idea of the regime he is facing. Or is it that he is not really facing it? It is not a dictatorship. It is a narco-tyranny with an international criminal gang.

What a farce [payasada]! What a shame with Venezuelans and with the whole planet. What do these shows have to do with the lack of determination by “politicians” to ask for international military aid to remove the narco-regime?

As other Twitter users claimed that events in the Legislative Palace where the actions of a dictatorship, García Banchs felt the need to make some important terminological distinctions:

Dictatorship is the reestablishment of the Republic (Rule of Law). Therefore this [the Maduro government] is not a Dictatorship. It is a tyranny of narcos, led by an international criminal gang.

I strongly condemn the show by Luis Parra, the National Assembly, Guaidó, Maduro, and the rest of the delinquent Venezuelan politicians. They are all crooks and this is all a show.

Later, as The National Assembly convened at the El Nacional and re-elected Guaidó as its President, García Banchs commented on the 16 de Julio block:

The @fraccionAN16J, which is formed by honest representatives, has today made a grave mistake by supporting Guaidó, who is known to collaborate with the narco-regime. They still are honest deputies, but they are honest and mistaken.

The @fraccionAN16J should have taken the opportunity and explained to the world the impossibility of having a National Power today in Venezuela because of the existence of a narco-tyranny and, from exile, explained the need for a foreign military intervention in favour of the Venezuelan nation.

Terrorist Opposition Plot Revealed by Rodríguez and Maduro

In a confusing incident on the night December 13, agents of the Military Counterintelligence General Division (Dgcim) showed up at the Caracas residence of the National Assembly opposition representative Yanet Fermin. Fermin said the officers had told her they had a “search and citation” order, but refused to show it to her. Opposition leader and Interim President named by the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, and several other opposition deputies rushed to Fermin’s residence made declarations and filmed videos of the procedure. The Dgcim agents left after lawyers insisted they could not take Fermin without showing the alleged citation order.

On the 14^th Communication and Information Minister, Jorge Rodríguez, declared in a press conference that the botched attempt to arrest deputy Fermin was part of the government’s efforts to “disarticulate” a terrorist cell formed by two opposition party Voluntad Popular militants (Yanet Fermín and Fernando Orozco) and lead by opposition leaders Leopoldo López and Juan Guaidó, all under the command of Colombian President Iván Duque.

According to Rodríguez, the terrorist cell would try to “take over” two National Guard headquarters in the city of Cumaná, Sucre state, and generate a “blood bath”. The government’s source, said Rodriguez, is a police officer named Sixto José Salamanca Jiménez, who is under arrest and “collaborating with the investigations”. Salamanca, according to Rodríguez, was recruited by Fernando Orozco (like Fermín, a National Assembly representative of the opposition Voluntad Popular party) to bring, “in a secret operation”, 30 assault rifles from Bogotá and to distribute them in the states of Sucre, Zulia, Táchira, Barinas, Aragua and the Federal District (Caracas).

The aim of this plot would not be to directly topple the government however, said Rodríguez, but to divert public opinion from recent corruption cases in the National Assembly and thus restore Guidós popularity.

Later, Nicolás Maduro also spoke of the plot. However, instead of the Colombian government as revealed by Rodríguez, Maduro claimed the “United States” is the real mastermind behind the conspiracy: “We have initiated the dismantling and the capture of a group led by the United States which attempted to generate violence in Venezuela, so they can tell the world that Venezuela is at war. Fortunately, thanks to the work of patriots, we have completely dismantled this conspiracy.”