He calls González a “war criminal”: “He is carrying out a coup against the powers that be because he does not recognise them”
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has assured this Wednesday that the people linked to violent acts in the anti-government protests, which have resulted in more than twenty deaths and hundreds of arrests, were “trained” in the United States, Colombia, Peru and Chile.
“It was not the Venezuelan youth. It was a group of hired criminals, trained, 80 percent, in camps in Texas, Colombia, Peru and Chile,” he declared in reference to the “comanditos”, opposition campaign units that “led the destruction of schools, hospitals and have threatened socialist youth,” reads a statement from the Presidential Press.
Maduro has blamed the former opposition presidential candidate, Edmundo González, whom he has called a “war criminal” and accused of carrying out “a coup against the powers that be because he does not recognise them”, and the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, for the violent actions recorded since the day of the elections, held on 28 July.
“The extreme right, the war criminal Edmundo González Urrutia, has captured the commanders with the savage demon of Machado (…) We have seen young people operating, paid, trained, burning and killing,” he said. “I have said it 20 times and they have not contradicted me. Because they know that when they contradict me, I will show them the proof,” he added.
He also said that the youth were ordered to go “burn” hospitals and schools, knock down statues of Bolívar and Hugo Chávez, attack neighbours, members of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the socialist youth. “Some (young people) were filled with fear. And hatred. And fascism,” he said.
For his part, Machado, who yesterday called on the Armed Forces to stand “on the side of the people” after the elections, although they ratified their “absolute loyalty” to the president, said that “it is a moment in which the world begins to understand that Maduro has become increasingly isolated” and “he has a circle left, mainly from the high military leadership, which is not many.”
“Everyone knows that the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) is simply an executive arm of the regime and also a repressor; and today we are seeing how they also intend to usurp the powers of the National Electoral Council (CNE). This is nonsense. The one who has to produce the result and proclaim Edmundo González as president-elect, immediately, is the CNE,” he said in an interview with the media reported by the portal Efecto Cocuyo.
González, who does not recognize the official results and claims his victory in the elections, did not appear before the Venezuelan Supreme Court to testify on the case of the elections, as requested in advance by the president of the court, Caryslia Rodríguez, to the ten candidates who ran for the elections. The former candidate denounced that “due process” was being violated and that, if he went to the Supreme Court, he would do so in conditions of “absolute defenselessness.”
