28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
1/28The Making of Leopoldo LpezAcl oserl ookatthedemocrati cbonafi
desoftherockstarofVenezuel a sopposi ti on.JULY27, 2015
BYROBERTOLOVATOCARACAS In the nearly year and a half since street
protests rocked Caracas, the U.S. press has been kindto Leopoldo
Lpez, the 44-year-old jailed leader of Venezuelas radical
opposition. He has been painted asa combination of Nelson Mandela,
Gandhi, and his distant grand uncle, Simn Bolvar, for his
magneticbrand of in-your-face politics. Newsweek wrote of his
twinklingchocolate-colored eyes and highcheekbones and called Lpez
a revolutionary who has it all. The New York Times published a
photo ofhim, jaw out, fist in the air, in front of a crowd of
screaming protesters and gave him a platform on its op-ed page. In
New York, when the United Nations met last September, protestors
rallied to show support forLpez, and President Barack Obama listed
him among a group of political prisoners from repressivecountries
such as China and Egypt who deserve to be free. Lpez, who has done
interviews shirtless,came to embody freedom and democracy for
audiences across the globe, with stars from Kevin Spacey toCher
rallying to his cause, while the hashtag #freeleopoldo rocketed
across Twitter.But in Venezuela the picture is far more
complicated. Lpez has been in jail since February 2014 oncharges of
arson, public incitement, and conspiracy related to the first big
anti-government protest thatyear, on Feb. 12, 2014, which left
three protesters dead and kicked off weeks of rallies, street
blockades,vandalism, and violence. The charges against him, which
Amnesty International has called politicallymotivated, could carry
a prison sentence of 10 years. Outside the courtroom, the public
debate continuesto swirl between those who believe Lpez is a
freedom fighter facing trumped-up charges and those whobelieve he
is the violent fascista the government of President Nicols Maduro
claims.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
2/28Compared to that wave of street protests which ultimately left
a total of 43 anti-government protesters,government supporters, and
national guardsmen dead Lpezs trial has proceeded largely
withoutfanfare. The judge has been far from friendly to Lpezs
defense, rejecting all but one of the 65 witnesseshis attorneys
sought to call, while admitting 108 witnesses for the prosecution.
This isnt a trial, Lpezwrote from jail last summer. Its a firing
squad. Last September, by means of his official Twitter handle,he
claimed that Maduro and his interior minister were the ones truly
responsible for the violent acts.Still, when proceedings resumed
this February, Venezuelan media barely took note.Lpezs court dates
in Caracas have generally attracted only small groups of supporters
outside thecourthouse, led by Lilian Tintori, Lpezs wife. Other key
opposition leaders have stayed away, thoughthey routinely voice
support for Lpezs release. A recent campaign by his party, Voluntad
Popular, toconvene an assembly to rewrite the constitution and
reorganize the government attracted criticism, withthe leader of a
rival opposition party calling for responsibility and maturity and
one opposition governorcalling for an end to anarchy or guarimbas,
the street barricades that were the preferred tactic of
Lpezsyouthful followers.* * *During visits to Venezuela last year,
it was clear that Lpez remained a rock star among young
oppositionactivists, even after his arrest. Leopoldo is a person of
extremely high democratic and Catholic values,Alejandro Aguirre, a
member of JAVU (United Activist Youth of Venezuela), one of the
main studentgroups behind the February protests, told me. Hes also
an athlete, added Aguirre, who I met at a May 7opposition forum
called Thinking Differently Is Not a Crime that was hosted at El
Nacional, one of thecountrys largest newspapers. Athletes are
morally clean, unblemished, [and] more mentally sharp thanother
people. He also talked about Lpez being a good family man.
Leopoldo, he said, is an examplefor youth.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
3/28Later that day, the telegenic Tintori, a former model,
kite-surfing champion, and reality show star,appeared at a rally
for political prisoners held in Chacao, the Caracas district where
her husband onceserved as mayor and which has been a center of
anti-government opposition. It also happens to be one ofthe
wealthiest localities in all of Venezuela. Vibrant in a bright
orange windbreaker, with her flawlesssmile and long blonde hair,
Tintoris strengths as standard-bearer for her jailed husbands
message wereon full display.They want to imprison our dream! she
shouted, posed next to one of the life-sized cardboard figures
ofher husband that had become ubiquitous in the opposition
strongholds of wealthy eastern Caracas. Shepraised her husbands
record as mayor, mentioning a Chacao health clinic where doctors
treat you withlove, as if you were someone special. She continued,
This is what we Venezuelans are all like, all equal,rights for all
people without distinction and without privileges! Today, the
struggle of one is the struggle ofall!The days events offered a
glimpse of the media-powered populism that has helped Lpez and his
politicalparty gain traction where Venezuelas established
opposition, led by a coalition called the MUD, orDemocratic Unity
Roundtable, has failed. The opposition lost big in 18 of the 19
national and regionalelections and referenda held since former
President Hugo Chvez was first elected in 1998. Though rarelynoted
in the U.S. media, the deep-seated rifts between the MUD and its
leader, Henrique Capriles, and theyounger, more radical flank of
the Venezuelan opposition led by Lpez are reported on with
theexcitement of a soap opera in Venezuelan media. For the
opposition parties, Lopez draws ire second onlyto Chavez, Mary
Ponte, a leading member of the center-right Primero Justicia
opposition party, once said,according to a 2009 U.S. diplomatic
cable. The only difference between the two is that Lpez is a
lotbetter looking. In a section of the same U.S. embassy cable
titled The Lopez Problem, U.S. StateDepartment officials described
Lpez as a divisive figure within the opposition who is often
describedas arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry but party
officials also concede his enduring popularity,charisma, and talent
as an organizer. Certainly no previous Venezuelan opposition leader
has succeededin projecting himself onto the international stage
like Lpez has.28/7/2015
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4/28But the international embrace of Lpez has depended heavily on
his image as a stalwart defender ofdemocracy someone at a safe
distance from the highly unpopular coup attempt of April 2002, in
whichelements of the military and business leaders ousted President
Chvez for 47 hours. A July 2014 whitepaper about his trial authored
by two attorneys who have represented him and his family Jared
Genserand Jos Antonio Maes asserts that Lpez was not a supporter of
the coup and he did not sign the ActConstituting the Government of
Democratic Transition and National Unity (Carmona Decree),
thedocument that attempted to oust Chvez and dissolve the National
Assembly and Supreme Court norwas he allied with the business
leaders who led it. Lpez himself often points to his loyalty to
theconstitution, as in the New York Times op-ed which appeared in
March 2014, in which he wrote, A changein leadership can be
accomplished entirely within a constitutional and legal
framework.But interviews with key figures in the 2002 coup, a look
at Lpezs close associates, and a review ofVenezuelan press
accounts, videotaped events, and U.S. government documents paint a
more complexpicture about these claims.* * *Leopoldo Lpez was born
in 1971 to one of Venezuelas most elite families, a direct
descendent of both19th-century revolutionary leader Simn Bolivar
and Venezuelas first president, Cristbal Mendoza. Hismother,
Antonieta Mendoza de Lpez, is a top executive at the Cisneros
Group, a global mediaconglomerate. His father, Leopoldo Lpez Gil,
is a restaurateur and businessman who sits on the editorialboard of
El Nacional.I belong to one percent of the privileged people, Lpez
said as a teenager, long before the Occupymovement popularized the
term, during an interview with a student newspaper at the Hun
School ofPrinceton, an elite private boarding school in New Jersey.
It was at Hun, whose alumni roster includesSaudi princes, the child
of a U.S. president, and the child of a Fortune 500 CEO, that Lpez
said heexperienced an awakening of the responsibility I have
towards the people of my country.28/7/2015
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5/28Lpez went on from Hun to Kenyon College, a liberal arts college
in Ohio, where he developedrelationships that would serve him to
this day. It was a former classmate and political consultant,
RobGluck, who led the effort to set up Friends of a Free Venezuela,
the media-centered advocacy group behinda high-profile U.S.
campaign for Lpezs release. As a testament to the powerful impact
[Lpez] has hadon people, Gluck, a spokesperson for the group, told
me, within days of the arrest, really within hours,friends from
Kenyon in influential positions in journalism, communications,
advocacy, and governmentwere emailing, connecting, volunteering,
[and] asking what could we do.Some of these classmates went on to
found the Free Leopoldo campaign, a well-connected advocacy
groupthat has run a vibrant PR and social media campaign on Lpezs
behalf. Among the Kenyon classmateshelping to power Free Leopoldo
in the United States is Republican Party operative Leonardo
Alcivar, whoran communications strategies for the Romney campaign
and the 2004 Republican National Conventionand now works at a
communications firm that advises companies on their online
strategy. No otherelement of the Venezuelan opposition has anything
resembling the U.S. media operation that Lpez hasthrough Free
Leopoldo.Gluck is himself also a former Republican strategist who
worked on Lamar Alexanders presidentialcampaign and the successful
campaign to recall California Governor Gray Davis, which resulted
in theelection of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is currently a managing
partner at High Lantern Group, aPasadena-based communications
strategy firm. He said Lpez has always been progressive, and
ifmeasured on the U.S. political spectrum, hed be left of center.
Gluck runs Friends of a Free Venezuelapro bono personal time,
passion, and connections drive the work, he said but his
communicationsfirm has also been retained by Lpezs family, he said,
to get the message out about [Lpezs] situation.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
6/28After Kenyon, Lpez went to Harvards John F. Kennedy School of
Government, where he met anotherinfluential figure who would become
a key supporter Venezuelan national Pedro Burelli, a former
JPMorgan executive and pre-Chvez-era member of the board of
directors of PDVSA, Venezuelas nationalpetroleum firm, which
controls the worlds largest crude reserves. The two first met,
Burelli said, during arecruiting trip at Harvard while Burelli was
still at JP Morgan. Someone called my attention to this
youngVenezuelan who was at the Kennedy School where I had graduated
many years before, said Burelli, whois now a corporate consultant
with B+V Advisors, and I connected him. Lpez went to work at PDVSA
in1996 and stayed there as an analyst for three years during
Burellis tenure on PDVSAs board. In 1998,Lpezs mother joined PDVSA
as well, as vice president of corporate affairs.Burelli considers
himself a very good friend of Lpez, and said he has provided
informal advice to theopposition leader through his many
contentious political transitions, from Lpezs time at PDVSA to
themost recent clashes with the Maduro government. Burelli
explained that while he was at PDVSA, Lpezhelped found a group
called Primero Justicia which led, in 2000, to the formation of an
oppositionparty of the same name. In 1998, a comptroller general
investigation found that Lpezs mother hadchanneled $120,000 in
corporate donations from PDVSA to Primero Justicia while she and
Lpez were atthe firm, in violation of anti-corruption laws. Lpezs
attorneys point out that Primero Justicia was anonprofit at the
time, not yet a party, and Lpez never stood trial on the charges.
But the comptrollergeneral nevertheless barred Lpez from holding
office from 2008 until 2014.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
7/28Lpez left Primero Justicia in 2007 over disputes with other
party members and then leapt from onepolitical party to another,
leading up to his quixotic run for president in 2012 on the ticket
of his currentparty, Voluntad Popular. He was also, during these
years, playing a pivotal role in Venezuelas risingstudent
opposition movement. A leaked State Department cable from 2007
reads, in part, the young,dynamic opposition mayor of Chacao
Municipality in Caracas, Leopoldo Lopez, addressed students
duringearly demonstrations in his jurisdiction, and he is actively
advising them behind-the-scenes; anotherdescribes Lpez as the best
channel to the student movement. Some JAVU leaders, including
onementioned in the cables, went on to become active in Voluntad
Popular, the party that fueled Lpezs riseto national
prominence.While Lpez was honing his political skills and building
his base, he stayed in the shadow of his formerally in the
Venezuelan opposition, Henrique Capriles, who remained the leader
of Primero Justicia,running for president twice. But Capriles lost
badly to Chvez, by more than 1 million votes, in 2012,contributing
to catastrophic losses by the opposition coalition in governors
races later that year. In 2013,Capriles lost again to Maduro,
albeit in a tighter race. These losses created new divisions among
theopposition and combined with Venezuelas economic downturn and
the long wait until Maduros termexpires in 2019 sparked Lpez and
his student allies to take to the streets in February of last year,
wherethey clamored for Libertad! and Democracia! They also began to
call for the salida, or exit, ofMaduro, a cry that was used widely
against Chvez in 2002.* * *Democracy is at the heart of the new,
more radical movements claim to legitimacy. And central to
thatclaim is the ability of their charismatic leader to distance
himself from Venezuelas brief 2002 coupattempt, which remains an
open political wound.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
8/28In mid-April 2002, in the midst of an opposition-led general
strike against PDVSA and mass protestsagainst (and in support of)
President Hugo Chvez, a group of military and business leaders took
Chvezinto custody and appointed an interim president, Pedro
Carmona, then-president of VenezuelasFederation of Chambers of
Commerce. The key document in which the plotters announced their
newgovernment was signed at Miraflores, the presidential palace, on
April 12, 2002, the day Chvez wasarrested and Carmona assumed
power. Known as the Carmona Decree, the document dissolved
theNational Assembly and the Supreme Court, effectively nullifying
the countrys 1999 constitution. The fateof the coup attempt hinged
on the events that unfolded over the surrounding days, as the
oppositionmovement mounted a general strike, mass protests, and a
media campaign to bolster the legitimacy of theCarmona government
at home and abroad. While the attempt was denounced by governments
across theglobe, former U.S. President George W. Bushs
administration declined to do so, putting wind inCarmonas sails.
For days, military leaders had been pressuring Chvez to willingly
step down, and coupleaders then claimed, falsely, that he had done
so. Meanwhile, pro-Chvez forces organized massdemonstrations of
their own; riding that wave, pro-Chvez military officers threatened
to removeCarmona, at which point he resigned, and Chvez was
airlifted back to the presidential palace.The attempted coup
remains very unpopular in Venezuela, in no small part because of
Carmonas decisionto throw out the constitution, a document that
just three years earlier had been approved by anoverwhelming
majority of Venezuelans, including many opposition sympathizers. A
September 2003 pollby Datanlisis, one of Venezuelas most prominent
polling firms, found that more than 90 percent ofrespondents
preferred that the countrys political crisis be resolved by legal,
democratic, and peacefulmeans. The unpopularity of the coup was
further confirmed by Chvezs resounding victory in a 2004recall
election. And those two days in 2002 remain a delicate subject
among the opposition, according toDatanlisiss president, Luis
Vicente Len. They did something theyve tried to forget, he said,
and theywant to keep it that way.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
9/28Lpez and his allies on the radical flank of the opposition have
long tried to distance themselves from itsmemory. Over the years,
Lpez has emphasized that he did not sign Carmonas decree no
evidenceindicates that he did and that he had no role in organizing
the coup attempt. At no point was Lpezever a proponent of the coup,
nor was he allied with the business leaders who led it, the white
paper byhis attorneys reads. The paper was released on July 21,
2014, at a National Press Club press conference thatfeatured an
emotional appeal by Tintori for solidarity and for her husbands
release from jail. It breaksmy heart, she told the gathering of
journalists and supporters, having to explain to my daughter
afterevery visit why her daddy cant come home.But news reports,
parliamentary records, U.S. government documents, video recordings,
and interviewsshow that Lpez was not quite as remote from the coup
attempt and its plotters as he and hisrepresentatives claim. Coup
leaders and Carmona signatories included figures who were at the
time, or arenow, members of Lpezs inner circle. Harvard-educated
Leopoldo Martnez, for several years anopposition leader in
parliament, led Primero Justicia with Lpez; he was designated
finance minister ofthe short-lived Carmona government. Maria Corina
Machado, Lpezs closest ally, who joined him incalling for last
Februarys protests, was a signatory; as was Manuel Rosales, a
former leader of Un NuevoTiempo, a party that Lpez joined and
helped build in 2007 (and was expelled from in 2009). Also amongthe
roughly 400 business, military, media, and political figures to
sign the decree during a raucousceremony in April 2002 at
Miraflores while Chvez was being held, not far away, at a
militaryinstallation was Leopoldo Lpez Gil, Lpezs father.28/7/2015
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10/28Last May, at the rally for political prisoners in Caracas, I
approached Lpez Sr. to ask about his decision tosign. I didnt, none
of us who were there, signed any decree, he said. What they passed
around was anattendance sheet that later was misrepresented. How
were we going to sign something we hadnt evenseen? But video of the
Carmona signing on April 12, which only came to light in recent
years, speaks to adifferent reality: A crowded room of men in suits
cheer as the parts of the decree dissolving all branches
ofgovernment are read to thundering applause by Daniel Romero,
Carmonas attorney general designate.The video also shows Carmona
being sworn in as president, and Romero inviting the attendees to
sign thedecree that was just read, in support of the process.At the
time of the coup attempt, the younger Lpez, then 30, was mayor of
Chacao, a Caracas subdivision.He supported both the general strike
of April 9-10 and the massive opposition march on April 11
thatimmediately preceded Chvezs removal. Both events were pivotal
to the coups brief success, and Lpezand Primero Justicia offered
its leaders both legitimacy and a crucial base of popular
support.At parliamentary hearings on the coup, convened in June of
that year, video from a broadcast of 24 Horas,a news show on
Venevision, was shown, in which the younger Lpez seems to be
celebrating Chvezsremoval. (Venevision said that it could not
locate any footage from 2002.) That day, for me, from thebeginning
was a day of not turning back, he says, according to the official
parliamentary transcript. Thatwas a day where we said, here is
where the mask of the dictatorship fell, and we bet it all. (A
member ofLpezs legal team, asked to respond to these lines, said by
email, There is nothing in what Leopoldo saidthat indicates his
support for a coup. He never called for the removal or overthrow of
President Chavez.He added, And you definitely cannot rely on what
the Government of Venezuela has said he said.)28/7/2015
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11/28Other contemporaneous video evidence seems to indicate
enormous enthusiasm by Lpez for Chvezsouster. In one news broadcast
of the pivotal PDVSA protest rally in Caracas on April 9, 2002, a
baseball-capped Lpez steps onto the stage to lead the crowd of tens
of thousands in a chorus of Not one stepbackwards! At the top of
his voice, he yells: Well be here all night and tomorrow all day
until thepresident leaves! (The protests and march, said Lpezs
attorney, were not an attempted coup theyonly were transformed into
that later, and not by him.) In a video communiqu from Primero
Justiciareleased as the coup was unfolding on April 11, Lpez and
other party leaders flank their spokesperson,opposition parliament
member Julio Borges, who says he and other MPs are ready to resign
their positionsand demand that Supreme Court, the president, and
his cabinet resign their posts as well, a tactic tolegitimize the
dissolution of the Chvez government. Lpez repeatedly uses the same
word, renuncia, orresignation, as well as salida, the favored terms
of the coup leaders, during an April 11 interview onVenevisions
popular Napoleon Bravo morning talk show. According to available
video excerpts from thatinterview, Lpez also briefly describes what
a transition government might look like and proposes onlytwo ways
out of the political crisis: a coup or the dissolution of the
government. What are the possibilitieswe have in Venezuela? he asks
rhetorically. Either we will have a coup, quick and dry, or another
kind, orthe proposal were making [for the Chvez government to step
down]. Theres no other way to get past thedeadlock being played out
here in Venezuela. Of course, Chvez never did resign. He was
arrestedinstead.In his book chronicling the events of April 2002,
My Testimony Before History, Carmona indicates that theApril 11
march was originally headed to PDVSA headquarters but was rerouted
to the presidential palace,where pro-Chvez protesters had already
gathered. When the two sides met near the palace, the
conflictturned deadly, with 19 protesters from both sides shot and
killed. Carmona writes that he consultedwith Lpez and that the
protests fatal route change was authorized by Mayor Leopoldo
Lpez.28/7/2015
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12/28Yet a month and a half after that violent confrontation,
during testimony before the parliamentarycommission investigating
the overthrow attempt, Lpez insisted that at no moment did we have
anycontact with spokespeople of the transition government the
decisions we made were totally andabsolutely autonomous.Lpezs most
controversial episode remains the April 12 arrest and detention of
then-Interior MinisterRamn Rodrguez Chacn. Lpez, mayor of Chacao at
the time, and Capriles, then-mayor of Baruta(another Caracas
municipality), saying they had been tipped off by neighbors, showed
up at a house whereChacn was staying, unguarded, to personally
charge him with responsibility for the 19 shooting deathsthat had
taken place the previous day. As opposition supporters and media
gathered outside the house inBaruta, the two mayors took him into
custody. (The deaths remain unresolved; both sides maintain
theother was responsible.) Lpez told reporters at the time that he
and Capriles had obtained a search warrantof the house and had
coordinated with the Baruta police on Chacns arrest. Moments after
Chacn wastaken away, news video captures Lpez telling a reporter
that President Carmona knows of the arrest,another possible
indication of coordination with the coups leader, something that
Lpez has denied ingeneral terms many times since. (After Chvez was
returned to power, Capriles and Lpez were indictedfor illegal
detention in conjunction with the incident, but they were later
pardoned as part of a far-reaching and controversial amnesty.
Questioned on a pro-government talk show in 2012, Lpez concededthat
the arrest had been an error.)In March 2014, I sat down with Chacn,
now governor of the state of Gurico, to discuss that days events.I
had recently met with Carmona in his home, trying to negotiate with
him to figure out how to reach anagreement to bring peace to the
country, he said. The arrest, just a week later, took him by
surprise.28/7/2015
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13/28Leopoldo Lpez began rallying the neighbors with his megaphone,
saying I was a murderer, that I wasresponsible for the killings,
said Chacn. He was gathering them in, telling them I would be
brought tojustice for the murders of the past few days. A news clip
of the incident shows Chacn being beaten by thecrowd. But according
to the transcript of those June 2002 parliamentary hearings about
the coup, othernews video from that day quotes Lpez claiming that
the Chvez government is in hiding, but here,justice will be
imposed, because what Venezuela is calling for right now is
justice.Chacn continued, They said they were going to detain me and
that they were going to do it anywaybecause this is a coup dtat,
and Chvez had resigned. I told them, No. Chvez did not resign.* *
*Lpez has never been formally charged with plotting a coup. But the
fact that he played some role in thecontentious events of 2002 is
widely known in his home country and has likely colored how
manyVenezuelans view his role in the protests that erupted in
Caracas last February. Last March, with theguarimbas, or street
barricades, still in place in the citys elite opposition
strongholds, I spoke withHermann Escarr, a constitutional attorney
and former opposition activist, who was one of the
principalarchitects of the 1999 Venezuelan constitution. Though
Escarr is reviled by some Chavistas for hisopposition to President
Chvez and his supporters over their plan in 2009 to extend the
presidents termindefinitely, Escarr calls the events of 2002 a
rupture of the constitutional order.Escarr said he respects Lpez
personally but does not share what he calls Lpezs disregard for
theconstitution. He sat next to Lpez at an opposition gathering in
February 2004, an event captured onvideotape, as the young
politician declared, We should feel proud of April 11, when we
toppled Chvezwith a march! The man resigned on the 11th, he put his
tail between his legs and he left a strikingassertion, nearly two
years after the coup, when it was no longer plausible to claim that
Chvez had everresigned.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
14/28I asked him to reflect on the protests that were then still
roiling the city and on the governmentsallegations that Lpez was
responsible for some of the violence. Escarr wouldnt comment on the
currentcharges against Lpez, saying he wasnt familiar enough with
the details of the case, and he defended theoppositions right to
peaceful protest. But he expressed grave concern about the recent
opposition proteststhat had turned lawless and violent. In the
United States, whats happening now in Venezuela would nothave
happened and wont happen. No one would think to burn cars or tires,
set fire to a street leading upto the White House, because the
punishment would be truly serious, Escarr said. Here, there
arebarricades called guarimbas where theyve found armaments for
war, where theyve found Molotovcocktails.Over the past year, a
series of fresh government allegations have begun to take the shine
off 2014s wave ofprotests. It began with a thinly sourced
government report, issued in May of last year. Called Coup dtatand
Assassination Plan Unveiled in Venezuela, the report places the
U.S. ambassador to Colombia, KevinWhitaker, and two close Lpez
allies Mara Corina Machado, now leader of the Vente Venezuela
party,and Lpezs old friend and mentor from Harvard, Pedro Burelli
as part of a conspiracy to annihilateMaduro and overthrow the
government. The plot, according to then-Justice Minister Miguel
RodrguezTorres, included political, business, and military leaders,
who, he claimed, were the true forces behind theFebruary 2014
street protests. Burelli, who currently lives in McLean, Virginia,
is now considered a fugitivefrom justice by Venezuelan
authorities.To back its claims, the government released emails
between the alleged plotters, as well as recordedconversations
involving Burelli. Burelli denies all charges and hired forensic
investigators who say thatthe emails were forged and that Google
has no record of some of them having been sent. A U.S.
StateDepartment spokesperson called the allegations against
Whitaker false accusations in a long line ofbaseless allegations
against U.S. diplomats by the Venezuelan government. Machado has
dismissed thecharges as a fantasy.28/7/2015
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15/28But Burelli has not denied the authenticity of the voice
recordings of his conversations released by twolocal elected
officials,who say they took place between Feb. 20 and March 14 of
last year, in the middle ofthe wave of protests that launched Lpez
onto the international stage.Whats happened? I keep seeing lots of
protests, lots of people in the streets. Whats happening insideyour
colectivo? Burelli asks in one conversation with an unidentified
military officer, using a term oftenused to refer to a political
cell. (Burelli says the officer is retired and wont name him.) I
think the world isextremely activated, Burelli tells the officer in
a voicemail. All thats missing is for this part of themilitary to
make the decisions it needs to make.I think that theres another
Leopoldo Lpez in the armed forces who understands that the time has
cometo clean the scum of Chavismo, the scum of complicity, the scum
of corruption, Burelli continues. Anygroup that stands up and says
this now will generate a crisis, I guarantee it. But it must be
linked to thestruggle of the people, to Leos struggle and in
solidarity with Leo. This is the moment. Theres no risk ifits done
right.When I asked Burelli about the recordings, he said, Those are
my recordings, but those recordings do notprove anything. People
whove read the whole thing say this is a conversation one could
have withanybody.By September 2014, Lorent Saleh, a founder of
JAVU, one of the student groups most closely identifiedwith last
years protests, was also facing charges. Venezuelas Ministry of
Justice arrested Saleh, accusinghim of terrorism, and released
videos in which Saleh can be seen talking about bombing discos and
liquorstores, burning buildings, and bringing in snipers to kill
grassroots leaders. Though barely reported in theU.S. media, last
years protests were marked by several such incidents, including the
firebombing ofgovernment ministries, child care centers, city
buses, and television stations and the fatal shootings ofsecurity
forces and Chavista sympathizers.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
16/28Finally, in February of this year, Caracas Mayor Antonio
Ledezma, who was, along with Lpez andMachado, one of the three
leading figures behind the previous Februarys upheavals, was
arrested oncharges of sedition and conspiracy as part of yet
another alleged coup attempt. Both Saleh and Ledezmadeny all of the
charges; the latters attorney said the charges against Ledezma are
based on falsifications[and] evidence tampering. (The two figures
are linked by Saleh, who says, in one of the videos, Ledezmais key.
The politician who has most supported the resistance has always
been Ledezma.)The allegations against Saleh and Ledezma rattled the
opposition. Both its moderate and radical wingsclosed ranks in
defending Ledezma, whose arrest drew international attention and
renewed calls forLpezs release. But Salehs case was more divisive,
with some of Lpezs closest allies in Voluntad Popularexpressing
concerns about the violation of [Salehs] human rights and others
rapidly distancingthemselves, saying Saleh owes the country an
explanation. (When asked about Lpezs links to Burelli,Saleh, and
Ledezma, the Lpez attorney said, There is every reason to have
serious questions about theauthenticity of these claims.)The arrest
of Ledezma took place just a week after he, Lpez, and Machado had
joined forces to release on the anniversary of last years upheavals
a Call on Venezuelans for a National Accord for theTransition. It
calls for a peaceful transition of the Maduro government, which,
the document says, is inits terminal phase.President Maduro
responded by releasing, on March 4, what he claims is another
opposition document;this one lays out a detailed 100-day transition
plan whose blueprint contains echoes of 2002. He claimed,obliquely,
that the document had been authored by the violent ones who are in
prison.* * *28/7/2015
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17/28Conspiracy and counter-conspiracy may be a constant in
Venezuela today, but these left-right politicaldramas have been
overshadowed by Venezuelas mounting economic crisis and its
pressure cooker effectson Venezuelan politics. On March 9, the
Obama administration piled on, declaring the situation inVenezuela
an extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy
of the United States. (Theadministration has since backed away from
this statement.)These winds would seem to favor the Venezuelan
opposition. Luis Vicente Len, the Datanlisis pollster,told me that
recent polls show that the figure paying the biggest political
price for the current crisis isMaduro, whose popularity dropped in
January to 23 percent, his lowest ever, while, as of March,
approvalof Lpez and Capriles had each risen to 40 percent. (Maduros
approval rebounded to 28 percent inMarch.) The governing United
Socialist Party of Venezuela remains the best organized, and its
supportremains strong in Venezuelas poor communities, a segment
that will be key in the upcomingparliamentary elections, scheduled
for later this year. But Maduros personal unpopularity has eroded
thepartys base, which now claims the loyalty of only 17 percent of
the electorate (from a high of 42 percentunder Chvez), the same as
the combined total of those who identify with one of Venezuelas
manyopposition parties.The figure who gained the most from last
years upheavals, says Len, is, without a doubt, LeopoldoLpez.Jail
has boosted Lpezs public image, Len says, with some seeing a
valiant martyr who wasunjustly imprisoned, without a doubt unjustly
and without a doubt a political prisoner who generatessingular
solidarity.His rising star, however, may also contribute to a
further fracturing of the opposition, Len says, asLpez now shares
the stage and popular support on an equal level with Capriles.
Opposition standard-bearer Capriles finds himself struggling to
keep his more moderate opposition coalition, the MUD,
fromfracturing further in the face of the growing influence of Lpez
and his radical flank.28/7/2015
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18/28Just this past May, these schisms were on full display,
following a hunger strike by Lpez and his call for amass protest. A
year and three months on from our call [to protest], the situation
is worse than last year,said Lpez on May 23 in a video recording
released from Ramo Verde prison. Brother and sisterVenezuelans, we
want to call on you for a protest, a resounding protest, massive,
pacific, without any kind[of] violence, on the streets of Venezuela
this Saturday. The hunger strike, joined by a handful of
studentsupporters, represents the suffering of all Venezuelans,
declared Lpezs wife, Lilian. She was joined byLedezmas wife for the
Caracas protest on May 30, which attracted an estimated 3,000
followers a sliverof the mass actions last year.The MUD coalition
issued a statement declaring it would not participate (though
Capriles tweeted that hewould personally attend), even taking a jab
at what they called Lpezs unilateral approach: The bestdecisions
are those that are arrived at together, because unity has no
substitute, the release stated.What becomes of the Venezuelan
opposition may not be determined by the outcome of Lpezs legal
case,which appears to have no end in sight. Much will hinge on
Leopoldo Lpezs credibility: whether the courtof national opinion
will continue to see Lpez and his flank of the opposition as a
serious new voice fordemocratic change or as a movement marked by
unpopular strains of radicalism.This article was reported in
partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute,
with supportfrom the Puffin Foundation.Image credit: CRISTIAN
HERNANDEZ/AFP/Getty ImagesMORE FROM FOREIGN POLICYBY TABOOLAJIMMY
CARTER GETS IT WRONG ON VENEZUELA, AGAINIS THIS SCANDAL THE PROOF
THAT VENEZUELA HAS FINALLY BECOME A NARCO-STATE?28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
19/28BRING THEM HOMEBUSTING MYTHS ABOUT THE LATEST U.S. SANCTIONS
ON VENEZUELANSSOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF VENEZUELAPOVERTY
SHOOTS UP IN VENEZUELAWhy Angolas Star Reporter Wont StayDownAngol
a' scorruptl eaderskeeptryi ngtosi l enceRafael Marques. Sofar, wi
thoutsuccess.JUNE24, 2015-2: 53PM BYDANIELMETCALFE28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
20/28The defamation trial of Angolan journalist Rafael Marques on
March 23 did not go well. As crowds of hissupporters shrieked
Criminals, murderers! and Free Rafael, the 200-odd police officers
attached to thecourthouse struggled to impose authority. When
Marques emerged coolly from the building, even some ofthe officers
couldnt resist asking for an autograph. Unsurprisingly, when the
court reconvened a monthlater, it was behind closed doors.At issue
were allegations in Marques book, Diamantes de Sangue: Corrupo e
Tortura em Angola (BloodDiamonds: Corruption and Torture in
Angola), published in Lisbon in 2011. It details a litany of
humanrights abuses and killings perpetrated in diamond mines owned
by seven high-ranking generals, includingGeneral Manuel Hlder
Vieira Dias Jnior, head of the military wing of the presidency and,
by popularreckoning, the second-most-powerful figure in the
country. Now these generals, embarrassed by Marquespainstaking
documentation of their crimes, were demanding damages to the tune
of $1.2 million.Rafael Marques de Morais is the single most
important voice in Angolan independent journalism, and hislatest
sensational trial was a test case for how far the regime was
willing to go to defend its prestige.Conscious of the worlds gaze,
the government has lately borne his tireless attacks with gritted
teeth. Aprevious jail sentence in 1999 for criticizing the
president had turned Marques into a household name.Within a few
more years he had become a popular hero.Underlying all of Marques
work is a brutal honesty about whats happening in Angola,
especially thecorruption and crony capitalism that continues to dog
this country. The articles on his crusading website,Maka Angola,
(in Kimbundu, Maka means a delicate problem) have found a wide
local and internationalfollowing. They have not only tarnished the
reputations of the Angolan elite, but have also changed whatthe
public expects of its democratically elected leaders. Marques has
made meals of the military top brass,the political establishment,
unscrupulous foreign investors, the business oligarchy and the
presidentialfamily, leaving whole swathes of the upper sets in
anxious expectation of the next set of revelations. ButMarques is
no haranguer. His investigations stand out for their meticulous
research and his tight grasp ofAngolas statute books, to which many
members of Angolas elite appear to be absolutely
indifferent.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
21/28After publishing his book in 2011, Marques went further and
launched criminal complaints against theseven generals and two
affiliated companies for crimes against humanity in the Lunda
region. Thegenerals reciprocated in 2012 with defamation lawsuits
against both him and his Lisbon publisher, Tinta-da-China.I
interviewed Marques in a flat in south London on the same day he
was announced joint winner of theprestigious Index on Censorship
award. It was less than a week before his first court appearance.
Dressedin a baggy top and trainers, and apparently unruffled by
either the award or the trial of his life, Marquessipped tea and
spoke about his career with precise and moderated diction.
Occasionally he would let out awinning laugh as he recalled the
exploits of his early career, but he restored his poise with a
quietintensity.Marques was born into poverty in 1971 in Malanje and
grew up in Angolas much larger capital, Luanda.Brought up by his
mother, a market vendor, he learned about journalism by poring over
the dailynewspaper she brought home from work. With the end of
communism in 1991, the state newspaper Jornalde Angola opened its
doors to new recruits. It was a narrow window of opportunity, not
repeated since,and Marques was taken on as a journalist on the
political affairs desk.As Marques explained, his headstrong
independence would soon get him into trouble. In the first of
manydemotions, Marques was transferred to the Luanda city desk. He
concentrated on aspects of the city thatthe press purposefully
ignored, such as the gathering piles of garbage and the infamous
potholes.Demoted again, Marques was assigned the mundane task of
comparing food prices in the citys shops. Hevisited Roque Santeiro,
a vast, sprawling market that was then the biggest in Africa, and
wrote of thedazzling array of weaponry on offer and the illicit
trade in donated food enjoyed by government officials.This was the
final straw. His supervisors banned him from writing altogether
and, out of nowhere, hereceived an order to report to a military
unit to train for battle. Powerful figures linked to the
newspaperwere clearly trying to get him out of the way.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
22/28The unit he joined turned out to be a high-risk commando unit
that trained with live grenades, routinelyresulting in a 30 percent
mortality rate. The beleaguered trainees often had to make do with
half-rations,or no rations at all. The reason soon became clear:
There was a scam going on, said Marques. Foodtrucks arrived, and
were then depleted sold on by the commander and then his deputy and
so on downthe food chain, until there was hardly any food for the
soldiers. The half-starved conscripts were on theverge of mutiny.
The skittish officers, by now fully aware of the young journalists
articles and hispenchant for causing trouble, suspected that
Marques was responsible. Preferring to rid themselves of
thejournalist than risk turning him into a commando, they ordered
him home. Not without mydemobilization papers, insisted Marques, to
which they reluctantly assented, and he made it to
Luandaunscathed.Marques spell with the commando recruits was a
brief episode in one of Africas longest wars. Its roots layin an
earlier guerrilla conflict against Portuguese colonial rule that
began in 1961 and ended abruptly withthe fall of Portugals Salazar
dictatorship in 1974. Angola gained its independence, which was
sooncontested among three factions. The Marxist MPLA took power in
the capital, Luanda, in 1975, with theheavy backing of its Eastern
Bloc advisors and Cuban troops. Once its smaller rival, the FNLA,
was out ofthe way, the Marxist government was soon was fighting a
full-scale war with its main challenger, the anti-communist UNITA,
lavishly funded and equipped by the United States and South Africa,
and led by itscharismatic though eventually unhinged leader, Jonas
Savimbi.The war went through many phases: the MPLA transitioned
from communism to democracy, UNITAdescended into tyranny, and the
country rumbled through several shaky United Nations brokered
cease-fires. While the MPLA had near limitless oil waiting to be
tapped offshore, UNITA ruthlessly exploited thediamond fields in
the Lunda provinces, putting garimpeiros (diamond panners) to work
in abhorrentconditions. As the 1990s wore on, and international
opprobrium gained traction, UNITA found it harder tosmuggle
diamonds onto the international market. The stalemate was broken
for good when governmenttroops re-launched the war in 1998 and
within a couple of years had overrun the main diamond
areas,depriving UNITA of its main source of funding.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
23/28The senseless grind of the war motivated Marques to write an
article for the private newspaper Folha 8called Cannon Fodder, a
passionate piece about how Angolan mothers were treated as
breedingmachines for the war effort. What to me was most incredible
was that the government never cared to setup a system to inform
these mothers of these families when their beloved sons died. It
wasnt lack ofcapacity, it was neglect sheer disregard for life. He
was interrogated and put on a black list: his articleswere gaining
notoriety, and not just within Angola. On a trip to South Africa in
1998, the magnate andphilanthropist George Soros asked Marques to
set up the Open Society Initiative in Luanda, a privately-funded
NGO tasked with championing democratic ideals, as a part of the
Soros Foundation. This wayMarques was able to reenter the public
discourse without relying on state-sponsored media. It proved
anunlikely success: the debates the organization aired on the
Catholic station Rdio Ecclsia provided aforum where legislators,
religious leaders and administration officials could talk things
out in a way thatwas impossible in parliament.At the turn of the
new century, the narrow window of freer debate was closing and the
governmentstepped up the use of its oil wealth to dominate the
media, bribing the countrys best journalists withmoney and houses.
To this day this the creation of a hub of mediocrity, as Marques
puts it has beenthe most effective means to destroy freedom of
expression Angola. Anyone who stands out as beingmorally strong,
intellectually strong, that has a voice, is co-opted or destroyed,
he said. This is creating avacuum in society where you dont have
singers who are inspiring, you dont have artists who areinspiring,
you dont have academics who are inspiring. You never hear an
Angolan doctor talking aboutthe need to improve the health sector
because that would be the end of him.The state finally tired of
Marques writings. In 1999, after he published an article called The
Lipstick ofDictatorship, in which he described president Jos
Eduardo dos Santos as a dictator, Marques wascharged with
defamation and served 43 days in prison, 11 of them in solitary
confinement.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
24/28He was held in a small cell which had been built by the Stasi,
the East German secret police, and designedsothat he could neither
lean nor stand upright. The concrete bed swarmed with
cockroaches.Nevertheless, Marques was able to carry on his work.
The leading prisoner recognized him from hisbroadcasts on Rdio
Ecclsia, and allowed a stream of prisoners into his cell. Provided
with pen and paper,Marques wrote their testimonies and smuggled the
notes out again.With the killing of Savimbi in 2002 and the
subsequent surrender of UNITA, the government finallysecured
victory (leaving aside a smoldering rebellion in the northern
exclave of Cabinda). The country wasin ruins, a million were dead,
and the land was sown with perhaps ten million landmines.
Thegovernments immediate task was to rebuild a country that had
ceased to function. Fortunately, it had oil,sales of which
accounted for over 90 percent of exports. As a result, in the
mid-2000s, Angola enjoyedstaggering economic growth averaging 16
percent a year. Luanda thronged with oil and
infrastructurecompanies jockeying for lucrative contracts. New
developments, office blocks, port facilities and hotelstransformed
the skyline, and Chinese-built roads began to crisscross the
country. But there was littletrickle-down. The post-war windfall
has been confined to a tiny percentage of the population, leaving
thevast majority to perform the miracle of living on about $2 a
day. Despite some improvements, thirteenyears after the wars end,
the country is still built on patronage and clientelism, there are
shockingly highlevels of child mortality, and the quality of
education and public health is pitiful.As the conflict ended,
senior army officers joined the other members of the ruling party,
glidingcomfortably from the barrack room to the boardroom, their
positions affording them easy access tolucrative shares in
telecommunication, construction, and diamond mining companies,
whose operationsthey generally ignored: management was always left
to others. They migrated seasonally to beach housesin Cascais,
Miami and Rio de Janeiro, employed discreet English nannies, and
generally tried to keep outof the public eye.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
25/28Marques 2015 trial changed all that. For the first time,
images appeared of the well-fed generals sitting incourt alongside
the witnesses: thin, wizened Lunda tribespeople, in traditional
outfits and beadedheaddresses, the manifest victims of a rotten
system who had been harassed throughout the whole legalprocess. One
witness, Alida Moises da Rosa, was interrogated by police about why
she insisted on going tocourt. You killed my two sons, she replied.
Now you can kill me too.Had Marques been an average blogger or
troublemaker, the authorities would likely have threatened himinto
silence, or bought him up, as they have with countless other radio
journalists, poets, musicians andcommentators. But Marques would
not be bribed and he was not afraid of jail. Years ago they had
tried toisolate him by steering international organizations to
other critics of the regime (naturally, of theirchoice). But by the
2010s he was such a renowned figure that no boilerplate process
could possibly dealwith him. Put him in jail and the world would
cry for his release. Dispose of him, and the governmentwould sink
in the eyes of the world a prospect that, at a time of scant
respectability, it cannot abide.Keeping him at large risked further
embarrassment.These are difficult times for the MPLA. President dos
Santos, now in his 37th year of rule, must finallyaccount for the
last decade. Blaming slow progress on war damage is now wearing
thin. There is acutepressure to deliver for the 2017 elections, and
unexpectedly low oil prices have massively curtailed hisability to
do so without a painful restructuring of the patronage and
corruption that underlies the system.And pressure is building. In
2011 the unthinkable started to happen: Angolans, long silenced by
decades ofwar and an unchallengeable state power, went onto the
streets to voice their anger: youths too young tohave participated
in war and veterans tired of waiting for late pension payments. The
demonstrators werequickly quashed by state security, but they would
soon appear again, sometimes only very few at a time.Led by
musicians, activists, lawyers and an increasingly vocal political
opposition, these crowds havesince reappeared persistently,
fearlessly flaunting their disapproval of a government that is
unsure whatto do with them.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
26/28But Rafael Marques is their biggest irritant of all. Operating
out of his house in Luanda, he has grown usedto heavy surveillance,
threats, and periodic house arrests. As a precaution against
poisoning, he must takehis own food with him if he goes out of the
house.They bug my house, he said. They once recruited my cleaner.
But I enjoy being in isolation because Ihave more time to write and
more time to investigate them because Im not socializing. So
actually theycreate the conditions for me to do my work well. I can
go for two weeks without going to my gate.Marques should count
himself lucky the regime isnt always so lenient to its challengers.
One need onlythink of the tragic fate of two young protesters,
Antnio Alves Kamulingue and Isaas Sebastio Cassule,who disappeared
without a trace in 2012. It later emerged that the men had been
abducted, tortured, andmurdered by the security services. Cassule
was thrown to the crocodiles in the Bengo river.Marques defamation
trial was concluded on May 28 following a series of legal
irregularities not leastthat the allegations in Diamantes do Sangue
were never even addressed by the court. Though the judgedeclared
that Marques had fabricated the material in the book, all charges
were dropped. In what Marquessubsequently described as a trap, the
judge made an about-turn: the court proceeded with a
differentcharge of slanderous denunciation, condemning Marques
first to a month, and then to a six-month jailsentence, suspended
for two years. These unexpected turns carried a note of revenge,
while offering theillusion of leniency compared to the sentence
Marques could have received. In reality, the sentence isnothing
more than an attempt to keep him quiet, at least for a while.
Marques is making efforts to appeal,so far without success.[The
sentence] was designed to stop him writing, said one columnist for
a Luanda weekly. But if thetrial was meant to make the generals
look good, they have failed. Every Angolan who has access to
theinternet has downloaded the book. Everyone can see that MPLA is
supporting the interests of thesegenerals against the
people.28/7/2015
TheMakingofLeopoldoLpez|ForeignPolicyhttps://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/themakingofleopoldolopezdemocraticvenezuelaopposition/
27/28The states victory may have left Marques temporarily defanged.
But the irregularities of the trial, thecraven behavior of the
prosecution, and public outrage on behalf of the victims leave
nobody in any doubtas to the real victor. Marques has spent over
twenty years confronting the state, so it would be prematureto
assume that he has given up. The question now is who will make the
next move.Daniel Metcalfe is the author of Blue Dahlia, Black Gold:
A Journey Into Angola.Photo credit:REUTERS/Herculano CoroadoMORE
FROM FOREIGN POLICYBY TABOOLAJIMMY CARTER GETS IT WRONG ON
VENEZUELA, AGAINTHE REAL SHAME IN PAKISTANTHE 750 MILLION DOLLAR
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OF 1966-1989LINKED OUTINTRODUCING THE MOST DYNAMIC CITIES OF
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