The Cagalinde

By: Luis Gonzales Posada - 26/12/2024

The word used to title this article is old-fashioned and means coward.

This is how we describe Maduro because we received 2025 with the deplorable and bitter news that our compatriots Renzo Huamanchumo, Nelson Cubas and Ricardo Meléndez have been kidnapped by the Military Counterintelligence Directorate of Venezuela, and, to date, more than 30 days after their capture, the authorities have not responded to the request for information made by the Foreign Ministry through the diplomatic representation of Brazil.

Our compatriots have been accused, without any evidence, in a mafia-style way, of belonging to the CIA and the Spanish intelligence service, a psychopathic hoax typical of political criminals.

This incident occurred in circumstances in which an Argentine gendarme who was visiting his Venezuelan wife and daughter was arrested and six members of María Corina Machado's campaign command remain sheltered in the Argentine embassy residence and the government has not granted them safe conduct to leave the country, violating various international agreements.

Instead, they cowardly torture them because they have restricted the entry of food and cut off the electricity and water to the residence. They also surround the premises with police officers and tanks, while occupying nearby houses and placing snipers in the area to terrorize their victims.

Let us remember that 20 people of Colombian, Spanish, Uruguayan, American, Bolivian and Ecuadorian nationality have been kidnapped.

According to statistics from the Penal Forum, there are 1,877 political prisoners and 22 of these have died from beatings by their guards.

Maduro's strategy is, without a doubt, to use hostages to exchange them.

This is what they did with 10 US citizens detained at different times and for different reasons, who were exchanged for Alex Saab, a Colombian businessman allied with Chavismo, who was imprisoned in Florida accused of corruption, drug trafficking and money laundering in nine countries; a blackmailing agreement that was finalized on December 20, 2023. Saab was received with applause at the Miraflores Palace and later named Minister of Industries.

This extortion plan is a common practice of the guerrillas. The FARC of Colombia has recorded thousands of kidnappings, as have other subversive groups such as the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front of El Salvador, which even kidnapped the daughter of the president of that country, José Napoleón Duarte.

All these events are taking place less than 15 days before the change of command in Venezuela, where Ambassador Eduardo González Urrutia, who overwhelmingly won the presidential elections, is due to be sworn in.

The government, however, refuses to show the minutes and maintains that Nicolas Maduro was the winner, a version rejected by all Western democracies.

However, some governments recognize Maduro's "victory," including China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Honduras, which has the distinction of being recognized satrapies. Also Colombia and Mexico, headed by Gustavo Petro and Claudia Sheinbaum respectively, who will send a diplomatic delegation to the farcical ceremony.

In this context, our compatriots are being kidnapped, while the dictatorship intensifies its repression by killing, imprisoning and torturing opponents, to the point that María Corina Machado, the well-known social democratic leader, is in hiding to avoid arrest and that the president-elect with 70% of the votes, the diplomat González Urrutia, has been threatened with arrest if he comes to Caracas.

January 10, therefore, is a key date to identify governments allied to a corrupt and genocidal autocracy from those governments committed to freedom, human rights and democracy.

In this scenario there are no middle terms, neutral or two-headed politicians.

In 1527, Francisco Pizarro drew his sword and drew a line on the ground when he was on Isla del Gallo, in the bay of Tucumo, south of Colombia, inviting his soldiers to cross it and together conquer Peru. Only thirteen followed him and thus changed the history of the continent. It was a defining moment and today, as yesterday, there is no room for ambiguity when the destiny of peoples who must choose to be servants of dictatorships or citizens of free societies is at stake.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».