Joe Biden declared this Thursday Venezuela Day in the United States, aunprecedented event in an obvious nod to one of the most suffered countries in the Americas. To celebrate his great diaspora’s contributions to the nation he also invited 80 exemplary citizens to the White House. Activists, journalists, athletes, artists, businessmen and fighters for the democratic cause represented the almost 600,000 Venezuelans arrived in the US, the majority during the collapse of Chavismo.
“We are looking to the future and talking about the next steps,” Cecilia González, a human rights defender, told Voice of America.
At the same time, other Venezuelans, not at all exemplary, were rushing in Caracas the deadline imposed by the Biden administration for the fulfillment of what was agreed in Barbados between the government and the opposition, with American sponsorship. A month and a half after the signing, Chavismo has barely released five of the 275 political prisoners existing in the country. And none of them American, as Washington demanded.
Maduro has also not made progress on the other major thorny issue, the qualification of opposition leader María Corina Machado, which would allow her to participate in next year’s presidential elections. The polls confirm today that the great winner of last month’s opposition primaries would crush the “people’s president” at the polls, since he has a popular support of 80% of Venezuelans, compared to the 15% that Maduro has. And all this without counting the large diaspora abroad, massively anti-Chavista.
“They threatened us that there was an ultimatum. Eat some candy, you scrawny (opponents). Those who are disqualified do not go (to the elections), they do not go and they do not go. Don’t be filled with hope. They don’t deserve it, they have done a lot damage to this country. They also have crimes to face,” Diosdado Cabello strutted on television, number two of the revolutionafter the statements of Gerardo Blyde, head of the opposition commission in Barbados.