VenEconomy: Not Gone with the Venezuelan Revolution From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune February 19, 2015
On Wednesday, a year after democratic leader Leopoldo López turned himself in to the system of administration of justice of Venezuela's communist revolution, CNN en Español, CNN's Spanish-language channel, broadcast a telephone interview conducted by journalist Fernando del Rincón on February 8 from the Ramo Verde military prison located in Los Teques, a city near Caracas.
It should be noted that by the time CNN broadcast this interview, López, just like Daniel Ceballos, the former mayor of the San Cristóbal municipality in San Cristóbal state, had been in solitary confinement in a 7-by-7-foot punishment cell for a week, without access to sunlight or natural air and with visits suspended for not letting a group of law enforcement officers wearing ski masks thrash his usual prison cell.
It should also be remembered that López was brought to a spurious trial a year ago without evidence supporting the allegations of him being the mastermind behind a subliminal message that allegedly resulted in acts of violence in the area surrounding the Prosecutor's Office on February 12 of last year. Events that led to protests in several states throughout the country with a death toll of 49 young people in the hands of the State's security forces and vigilantes, and hundreds of detainees (60 of them haven't been released yet and 1,900 are still subject to a reporting regime before a court.)
Of all the truths told by López, besides the tough personal and family situations he has faced this year, three stand out:
The first is that, besides him, the opposition mayors, the students and the rest of the political prisoners, all Venezuelans are being held prisoners in their own country over the situation of insecurity, healthcare crisis, and shortages. And that prison known as Venezuela has been also built with controls on the economy, investments and the coercion of free enterprise, as well as with violations to the freedom of speech and opinion that keeps almost 80% of the population uninformed of the harsh reality of the country.
The second is that the prison depriving López and the rest of Venezuelans of liberty today is only temporary. As López told del Rincón during the interview, “…there is no political or social ground supporting this government and that's why (…) it increasingly seeks to restrain communications, it increasingly seeks to restrain dissident voices (…). The Government is looking to sow fear (…). Faced with that situation of widespread persecution, we need to have the courage to confront the State, understanding that there will be consequences, because there will be some for sure."
López is also right when he said that those ruling Venezuela today must understand "that their proposal failed, that they have caused the collapse of Venezuela, that the opportunity they've got from Venezuelans all these years, in particular since the arrival of Maduro in power, has proven to be a failure in all areas."
And he is convinced that the country will "move forward" while pinning his hopes on a "Venezuela soon to be built on the conviction that all rights must be for all the people."
Those are the hopes, the convictions of struggle, of freedom to think and determination to build a Venezuela where everyone will be welcome with the same rights and duties that exist in millions of citizens that the revolution of the Castro brothers, the Chávezs and the Maduros has not been able to bring down.
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