Franklin Brito: A Martyr for Liberty and Human Rights in Venezuela

 "I’ve learned of the death of hunger striker Franklin Brito. It appears that Hugo Chavez now has his own Orlando Zapata" - Yoani Sanchez, August 31, 2010 on twitter

 

(Above) Franklin Brito before and after engaging in 8 hunger strikes

Hunger strikes are the ultimate recourse in the arsenal of non-violent resistance, and over the years around the world it has succeeded at times but in places like Cuba, Ireland, and now in Venezuela human beings have died on hunger strikes.

In Cuba the names of Pedro Luis Boitel and Orlando Zapata Tamayo are remembered as is Bobby Sands of Northern Ireland (who the Castro dictatorship built a memorial to in Cuba) and Venezuela's Franklin Brito is part of this select grouping that demonstrates the ultimate price when engaging in a hunger strike.

Franklin Brito was a farmer and a biologist whose land was expropriated by Hugo Chavez in 2000 according to CNN. Other news agencies place the date of expropriation anywhere between 2003 and 2004. He exhausted every recourse and was driven to the final option: the hunger strike in 2005.El Universal out of Caracas offers a chronology of Brito's odyssey. In the video below published on October 28, 2009 after over 90 days on hunger strike Franklin was carrying out, he explains how all of this began.

The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man by the Organization of American States and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations both recognize the right to private property, despite the fact that it is frequently violated. It is a human right that is acknowledged on a global scale and is expressly stated.

Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article XXIII of the American Declaration states: "Every person has a right to own such private property as meets the essential needs of decent living and helps to maintain the dignity of the individual and of the home."

When Franklin Brito's family said that he stood for "the struggle of the Venezuelan people for property rights, access to justice, for living in freedom," they were simply stating the facts of the matter. Franklin Brito states in the video below, which was shot on November 19, 2009, that he is defending human dignity.

"I am not doing this strike for something material or because persons have behaved badly towards me - that one could say are corrupt. I am doing this strike for dignity and justice. I believe that these are the greatest values that a human being should have."

 The Venezuelan tyranny* said that Franklin Brito was mentally unstable and took him to a military hospital, and placed him under an armed guard.. The Red Cross, Caracas Clinical Hospital and the Venezuelan Psychologists' Association said that Franklin Brito was of sound mind.

The tactics Mr. Chavez is using in questioning the mental stability of his adversaries, and smearing them, even in death, is straight out of his Cuban mentor's repertoire. Friends and family of Franklin Brito had best organize the facts and evidence surrounding his case protect it and duplicate it so that it cannot be seized and destroyed. They should engage in speaking out anywhere and everywhere to counter the avalanche of slander and libel from regime apologists against a man who can no longer defend himself.

Hugo Chávez has nationalized 2.5 million hectares as part of a “land reform drive.” The so-called reform, combined with increased government control over the economy, has exacerbated food shortages in Venezuela with Chavez forced to step up imports despite abundant land and a tropical climate just like Cuba did years ago.

It is not madness to take extremes in the defense of liberty and justice, but it is madness to repeat the same failed policies that have bankrupted and destroyed nations the world over and expect a different outcome in your own homeland.

Franklin Brito was a sane man confronting an evil system, and through his protest embarrassed the Venezuelan dictatorship that sought to disappear him and drove him to his death.

Three years later Hugo Chavez was dead, and his successor Nicolas Maduro was a former bus driver who had gotten training in Cuba before embracing Chavismo. 

14 years have now passed, and Franklin Brito is not forgotten, and the evil of the regime in Caracas is now recognized around the world.

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." - Marcus Tullius Cicero

*Use of the term tyranny is not a rhetorical exercise but defines what Hugo Chavez's democratically elected government has descended into a tyranny. There are two dictionary definitions of tyranny which are often related to each other. For example in the case of Cuba with Fidel Castro it is the state ruled by an absolute ruler but in the case of Venezuela it is the "arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority" that applies.

Cubazuela: Maduro reveals once again that Venezuela is a Cuban colony

"To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself." - Martin Luther King Jr. Stride to Freedom (1958)

Down with Cuban Imperialism in Latin America. Save Latin America

On January 20, 2020 Nicolas Maduro at the XX Meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission of the Cuba-Venezuela Integral Cooperation Agreement revealed the colonial status of his government: "I've told our older brother and protector, Raúl Castro Ruz, and he agrees. And it has been discussed in this mixed commission and we agree. The ambassadors are practically part of the Council of Ministers, the ambassador of Cuba has open doors in each ministry to coordinate, to move forward."

Maduro plantea que el Embajador de Cuba se integre al Consejo de Ministros de su régimen en Venezuela. #20Ene pic.twitter.com/UkZhH0Sv8F

— Gabriel Bastidas (@Gbastidas) January 20, 2020

This has been a long term objective of the Castro brothers. The Cuban dictatorship beginning in 1959 had strategic designs on taking over Venezuela to exploit its natural resources in order to magnify its regional impact.

On January 23, 1963 Cuban Communist leader Blas Roca made it public when he told a Havana rally that when the communists gained full control in Venezuela and they “make themselves owners of the great riches in oil, aluminum and everything their earth imprisons, then all of America shall burn.”  A cache of three tons of weapons was found on a Venezuelan beach in November 1963 that was to be used to disrupt the democratic elections there.

Fidel Castro would continue to agitate for revolution in Venezuela. A well documented incident occurred on May 8, 1967 and was reported in The Washington Post that described how: "two small boats carrying a dozen heavily armed fighters made landfall near Machurucuto, a tiny fishing village 100 miles east of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. Their plan was to march inland and recruit Venezuelan peasants to the cause of socialist revolution." An all night gun battle with the Venezuelan military led to nine guerrillas dead, two captured, and one who had escaped.

Cuban Commandant Ramiro Valdes and President Hugo Chavez

Venezuelans successfully defended themselves from repeated ventures, and the Castro regime relented pledging not to attempt the violent overthrow of the democracy, but years later they succeeded with Hugo Chavez at the ballot box what they had failed to do through force of arms.

In 1992 Hugo Chavez was involved in a failed coup against the Andres Perez government. Pardoned by Andres Perez's successor, Rafael Caldera, in March 1994 Hugo Chavez made his way to Cuba later that same year where he was received by Fidel Castro as a hero not a failed coup plotter.

Fidel Castro greets Hugo Chavez in Cuba on December 13, 1994

Four years later, in a reaction to generalized disgust with the corruption endemic to the Venezuelan democratic order epitomized by the Carlos Andres Perez administration the former coup plotter was elected president.  President Caldera, who pardoned Chavez, handed power over to him in 1999. Together with Fidel Castro, as a mentor, Chavez began the process of turning a flawed democratic order into the regime it is today.

Maduro's action on Monday, was just the latest statement echoing what Hugo Chávez had already announced. In 2007 Chávez had declared that Cuba and Venezuela were a single nation. “Deep down,” he said, “we are one single government.”  

In February 2010  Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, then age 77, was hired "as a consultant for that country's energy crisis" but his expertise is not in energy.  Valdes was the Vice President of the Council of State and Minister of Communications in the Cuban government. His role in Communications was figuring out in 2007 a way to muzzle the internet, what he called a "wild colt of new technologies."

Nicolas Maduro and Ramiro Valdes

Commander Ramiro Valdes, founder of the Castro regime's feared Ministry of the Interior, head of the organization between 1961 and 1968 and was viewed by some as "the No. 3 man in the Cuban hierarchy." He is the architect of Cuban totalitarianism's repressive apparatus and assisted Chavez and Maduro in building the Venezuelan version.    

The Castro regime turned Venezuela into their colony. Today it is Cuban occupied territory.

Caracas Chronicles is right when it observes: "Amazing how everything the left accuses the U.S. of wanting to do in Venezuela —siphon off oil wealth, install a puppet dictator, run hundreds of spies, crush democratic institutions— is stuff Cuba is *actually* doing. And has been. For years."

Thousands of Cuban military advisers and intelligence officials assisted the Chavez and Maduro regime's consolidate power to entrench the dictatorship in Venezuela. OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro has described it as "being like an occupation army."

Maduro and the Castro regime are attempting to complete the installation of a communist dictatorship in Venezuela. One of the instruments that these regimes have used to subjugate populations is famine and rationing food to those who are loyal and denying it to those who are not.

Famine is a tool communists have traditionally used to remake societies. 

The deadliest famines in the 20th century were not in Africa but in Europe (Ukraine) and China.
Social science research has demonstrated that famines "happen only with some degree of human complicity."  Human decisions "determine whether a crisis deteriorates into a full-blown famine."

Jean Pierre Planchart malnourished inVenezuela. Pic: Dr. Livia Machad

In the case of Venezuela, Chávez and Maduro destroyed the market in food by imposing price controls "that resulted in underproduction when the official prices did not meet costs of production. Their governments expropriated farms, ranches, and even food distributors such as butchers. There’s very little if anything produced on these expropriated territories." Rhoda Howard-Hassmann's article "Famine in Venezuela" published on August 21, 2018 in the World Peace Foundation reports:

"By 2017 malnutrition was confirmed in Venezuela, precipitating the political unrest now roiling the country. According to Antulio Rosales (“Weaponizing Hunger is a New Low for the Venezuelan President,” Globe and Mail, March 12, 2018, p.A11) and Enrique Krauze (“Hell of a Fiesta,” New York Review of Books, March 8, 2018, pp. 4-7), by early 2018 more than half of all Venezuelans had lost between 19 and 24 pounds, and 90 per cent said they do not have enough money for food."

Despite this reality, on February 4, 2018 Maduro shipped 100 tons of aid to Cuba. Maduro's regime issued ration cards for food in a country were mass hunger is an ever present reality and it is understood by many that following regime instructions, such as going to vote in the last sham election, was necessary to be eligible for rations.  The electoral calculus was clear: "Everyone who has this card must vote," said Nicolas Maduro and continued, "I give and you give."

This is a very old playbook.

According to Felix Wemheuer, professor of Modern China Studies at the University of Cologne, in his book Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union," during the twentieth century, 80 percent of all famine victims worldwide died in China and the Soviet Union." 

Maduro, and his Cuban allies issued denials about the extent of the problem of hunger in Venezuela. The rejection and destruction of humanitarian assistance combined with images of tons of humanitarian assistance shipped from Venezuela to Cuba appears bizarre, but it needs to be placed in the context of previous episodes involving other communist regimes.

Both the USSR and China used Western journalists, such as Walter Duranty in Moscow and Edgar Snow in Beijing to deny that a famine was taking place and to defend the official lies of the regime. This practice continues today in Cuba, Venezuela and elsewhere.

Fidel Castro lounging with Mengistu Haile Mariam, in Ethiopia in 1977

In Ethiopia, Mengistu Haile Mariam's regime, reproduced Soviet and Chinese practices when he blacked out communications, and refused access to aid agencies.

In December 1979, during an Ethiopian military offensive, this time including Soviet advisors and Cuban troops, it “was more specifically directed against the population’s means of survival, including poisoning and bombing waterholes and machine gunning herds of cattle.”

Worse yet, as starvation took hold in Ethiopia, Mengistu ordered planeloads of whisky to celebrate the tenth anniversary of his taking power. Denying that a famine was taking place. Once that could no longer be denied he then used the famine as a cover for ethnic cleansing and removing opponents.

Despite all of this the Castro regime on too many occasions is being given a pass, and this is not only a disservice to Cubans, suffering under a 61 year old dictatorship, but also to Venezuelans that have been colonized by the Castro regime.
  

Cuba's role in the crisis in Venezuela and how it can also hurt Americans

Venezuela in crisis

Venezuelan women march on May 6, 2017 against repression in Cuba

Protests across Venezuela continue
Thousands of Venezuelan women, dressed in white, marched through the streets of Venezuela on Saturday denouncing repression by security forces. Some of the women flashed their breasts waving posters that read: "We have no firearms, just breasts." Young Venezuelans continue to be shot in the head by paramilitary groups working together with the police and national guard. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado pleaded: "We beg the armed forces: don't open fire on unarmed people."

Young Venezuelans peacefully demonstrating the Maduro regime continue to be shot in the head and killed some victims from over the past month are: Hecder Lugo (age 20), Miguel Medina (age 20), Jairo Otriz (age 19)  Carlos Moreno (age 17) and although not shot in the head, but in the throat, was 18 year old violinist, Armando Cañizales. This last death led the Venezuelan director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel,  to say "It is time to listen to the people: Enough is enough.”  There is a long list of Venezuelan youth murdered by the Maduro regime.   

Where is Leopoldo?
Venezuelan prisoner of conscience Leopoldo López Mendoza has not been seen in a month. Rumors are circulating that he has been murdered. Considering that the same Cubans who are advising Maduro also murdered an international human rights figure like Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, the fears for Leopoldo's well-being are not unwarranted.

Nicolas Maduro with his rubber stamp Supreme Court

Venezuela's downward spiral into totalitarianism continues with the Nicolas Maduro regime ramping up control and repression causing millions of Venezuelans to resist it then pause for a while until the protests die down and then begin again. The latest round began on March 30, 2017, the Maduro controlled Supreme Court stripped the National Assembly of its powers provoking the latest round of mass protests in Venezuela and international condemnation. President Maduro, following the escalating protests, called on the Supreme Court to reverse itself and they did. However at the same time Nicolas Maduro announced the activation of the green phase of Plan Zamora reported by Caracas Chronicles as:

an exercise of “integral anti-imperialist action (…) meant to strengthen the national deployment of civilian-military union to defend the nation.” The description’s made worse by the threats made by several regime members since Monday, concerning the plan to align all of their paramilitary groups – colectivos – and PSUV’s fighting corps towards the same goal of “defense”.

Cuban role in the rise of Chavism
In addition to domestic repressive forces there is a foreign presence heavily embedded in the Venezuelan military and intelligence services. Last year the head of the opposition National Assembly of Venezuela on May 15, 2016 was complaining, over social media, of the presence of 60 Cuban officers. This included a Cuban general, who he identified by the last name Gregorich, who had a leadership role that included issuing orders to Venezuelan troops. Capitol Hill Cubans identified the Cuban General as Raul Acosta Gregorich. 

Castro regime's number three man, Ramiro Valdez with Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro

It is also surprising that when reviewing Cuban involvement in Venezuela that the February 2010  hiring of Ramiro Valdes, then age 77, "as a consultant for that country's energy crisis" did not raise more eyebrows. He is viewed by some Cuba experts as "the No. 3 man in the Cuban hierarchy." Afro-Cuban scholar Carlos Moore offers the following background information on Commander Valdez :

"Ramiro Valdez was an inflexible, totalitarian and brutal person. He was the most feared man in Cuba. The repressive policies of the regime were crafted by him. Valdez struck fear into the hearts of Cubans (even revolutionary ones). Today, he apparently continues to be the same dogmatic, sectarian and brutal person he was at the height of his power."

The Castro regime's interest in Venezuela began from the earliest days of the dictatorship. Venezuelans understood the threat poised by the Cubans by 1960 when Ernesto "Che" Guevara was giving unsolicited advice to Rómulo Betancourt, the democratically elected president of Venezuela. Guevara called for Betancourt to use the firing squad against his "rightist opponents." In 1963 Congressional Quarterly reported on how:

"Riots led by Communists and other pro-Castro elements in Caracas [in the autumn of 1960] took the lives of 13 persons and injured 100. Venezuela recalled its ambassador to Cuba, and Betancourt ordered out the army to end the rioting, which he termed an attempt to “install a regime similar to that in Cuba.”

Cuban Communist leader Blas Roca, told a Havana rally on January 23, 1963 that when the communists gained full control and “make themselves owners of the great riches in oil, aluminum and everything their earth imprisons, then all of America shall burn.”  A cache of three tons of weapons was found on a Venezuelan beach in November 1963 that was to be used to disrupt the democratic elections there.

Fidel Castro meeting with President-elect Rómulo Betancourt in 1959

Fidel Castro would continue to agitate for revolution in Venezuela. A well documented incident occurred on May 8, 1967 and was reported by Francisco Toro in The Washington Post who described how: "two small boats carrying a dozen heavily armed fighters made landfall near Machurucuto, a tiny fishing village 100 miles east of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. Their plan was to march inland and recruit Venezuelan peasants to the cause of socialist revolution." An all night gun battle with the Venezuelan military led to nine guerrillas dead, two captured, and one who had escaped.

The Castro regime's efforts would not begin to bear fruit until December 1994 with the arrival of Hugo Chavez in Havana to a hero's welcome following two years in prison for a coup attempt in Venezuela. Four years later Chavez had won the presidency of Venezuela and the Castro regime finally had its entry to Venezuela.  By 2007, Chávez had declared that Cuba and Venezuela were a single nation. “Deep down,” he said, “we are one single government.”  When Hugo Chavez died in 2013 the succession to Nicolas Maduro was planned in Havana.

 Diosdado Cabello target of the DEA with General Raul Castro and his Foreign Minister

Consequences of Cubazuela
The name of this "single nation" is Cubazuela and is a term that has been used by mainstream press publications such as The Wall Street Journal. The consequences to the people of Venezuela are well known. Violence has escalated during the Chavez-Maduro era to levels never seen before. There is widespread hunger now in Venezuela. Civil liberties and the rule of law are rapidly disappearing.

What is not generally known are the consequences for the United States and the role the Castro regime plays in this. There are numerous news reports about the Venezuelan regime's links to international drug trafficking, and that U.S. investigations point to high ranking  officials in Venezuela turning the country "into a global hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering," but little is said about the Castro regime's decades long involvement in it that still continues.  Panamanian police seized more than 400 kilograms of cocaine in a Cuban ship on its way to Belgium in April of 2016.

Cuba was placed on the list of state sponsors of terrorism on March 1, 1982, less than three months after the US State Department confirmed that the Cuban government was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government.

In a 1991 Frontline documentary, Cuba and Cocaine, U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Commander Jeff Karonis, stated, "We would observe in the middle of the day an air drop going on inside Cuban waters. The scenario would be for a small twin-engine airplane with maybe 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of cocaine to fly over Cuba, drop the drugs to a predesignated rendezvous point to several boats. Then it would exit back down off Cuba, and many times a Cuban military vessel would be in the immediate vicinity, right on scene with them.''

Venezuela: Global hub of drug trafficking
Jackson Diehl in The Washington Post reported on the Venezuela, FARC, Cuba trafficking axis on May 24, 2015 in the article "A drug cartel’s power in Venezuela":

Ever since Colombian commandos captured the laptop of a leader of the FARC organization eight years ago, it’s been known that Chávez gave the Colombian narcoguerrillas sanctuary and allowed them to traffic cocaine from Venezuela to the United States with the help of the Venezuelan army. But not until a former Chávez bodyguard [ Leamsy Salazar] defected to the United States in January did the scale of what is called the “Cartel of the Suns ” start to become publicly known. [...] The day after Salazar’s arrival in Washington, Spain’s ABC newspaper published a detailed account of the emerging case against Cabello, and last month, ABC reporter Emili Blasco followed up with a book laying out the allegations of Salazar and other defectors, who say Cuba’s communist regime and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah have been cut in on the trafficking. That was followed by a lengthy report last week in the Wall Street Journal that said Cabello’s cartel had turned Venezuela into “a global hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering.”

Wikileaks revealed that American diplomats also know that the Castro regime provides safe haven for the FARC in Cuba. Considering the close working relationship between Cuban and Venezuelan officials and the rampant drug trafficking and money laundering in Venezuela the claim that officials of the Castro regime are not involved seems highly unlikely. Furthermore in confronting the problem of rising levels of drugs flooding the United States, U.S. officials should re-visit sharing drug intelligence with the Castro regime.

Outlaw regimes in Venezuela also allied with Cuba

North Korea
"Our government, our people, our party, in addition to condemning any imperialist attack, will fight with Venezuelans to safeguard the Bolivarian Revolution" - North Korean Ambassador Jon Yong Jin, 10/3/13 

A report appeared on May 18, 2016 that North Korean Special forces and the Chinese People's Liberation Army are in Venezuela conducting military exercises with their Venezuelan counterpart. 

In March 2016, the same month that President Obama visited Cuba, the Castro regime signed a confidential military cooperation and intelligence-sharing agreement with North Korea reports the Paris based publication Intelligence Online. The Cuban dictatorship, under Raul Castro, has had extensive relations with the Hermit Kingdom that has included violating international sanctions to smuggle tons of weapons.

North Korea reopened an embassy in Venezuela on June 20, 2014 following a high level meeting in October 2013 with North Korea's ambassador to Cuba Jon Yong Jin who was executed in a purge in December of 2013.  Venezuela recognized North Korea in 1974 but due to North Korea's economic crisis in the 1990s it shut down its embassy in Venezuela at the time.  Venezuelan officials who met with the North Korean diplomat showed an interest in grafting elements of the North Korean governing philosophy onto the Bolivarian Revolution.

The official claim by the Maduro regime is that all this is being done to combat the threat of U.S. imperialism, but the reality appears that this has more to do with maintaining and consolidating control over Venezuela. 

Iran
"I've visited Iran more than 20 times, I deeply know the good nature, the good, deep spirit of the Iranian people and I love it. I love Iran as much as I love our Commander Chavez.” - Nicolas Maduro, August 30, 2016

Fox News reported on April 17, 2017 of a serious security threat for the United States:

A former director of Venezuela’s Office of Identification, Migration and Foreigners said that during his 17 months in the post, the socialist government gave at least 10,000 Venezuelan passports and other documents to citizens of Syria, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries.

In an interview with El Nuevo Herald, Colonel Vladimir Medrano Rengifo said the operation was headed by current Vice President Tareck El Aissami.
He said most passports and visas were granted in the Venezuelan Consulate in Damascus, Syria’s capital.

"Today we don’t know where these people are, nor what they are doing,” said Medrano, who currently resides in the United States.

 The crisis in Venezuela is having tragic consequences for Venezuelans and, with the rising levels of drugs entering the United States, also for Americans. However the relations with outlaw states points to more ominous dangers that need to be taken into account. Lastly ignoring the role played by Cuba is a mistake.

Some Observations: Venezuela, Cuba and the Trump Administration

Venezuela's slide into Cuban totalitarianism needs to be confronted

Venezuela should allow Leopoldo Lopez, a political prisoner & husband of @liliantintori (just met w/ @marcorubio) out of prison immediately. pic.twitter.com/bt8Xhdo7al

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017

 The Maduro regime in Caracas on February 15, 2017 ordered cable providers to take CNN in Spanish off the air, days after CNN aired an investigation into the fraudulent issuing of Venezuelan passports and visas. Minutes later, reported Hannah Dreier over twitter "it's already gone from all cable channels" in Venezuela.

Freedom House had already declared Venezuela "not free" in its annual world report and removing CNN in Spanish from all cable channels in the country only underlines and confirms that this South American nations is no longer free.

The Trump Administration's press spokesman announced on February 3, 2017 that the White House was conducting a review of U.S. - Cuba policy with a human rights focus. Ten days later on February 13, 2017 the Treasury Department announced sanctions against Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami who has been linked to drug trafficking. These items are connected because Venezuela is a de facto colony of Cuba. Cuban intelligence officers and generals are operating on the ground training the Maduro regime in totalitarian tactics to repeat the Cuban model there.

Nicolas Maduro and Cuban General Ramiro Valdez in Venezuela

On the same day that the Maduro regime pulled CNN in Spanish off the air in Venezuela President Trump met with Lilian Tintori, wife of imprisoned opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and according to Senator Marco Rubio's communication's director Alex Burgos over twitter she spoke to him and Vice President Pence "about human rights abuses by [the] Maduro dictatorship and the 109 political prisoners behind bars." 

This meeting was important because the Obama Administration had sought to marginalize her, refusing to receive her and today she is in The White House briefing both the President and the Vice President on the situation in Venezuela. Following the meeting President Donald Trump tweeted that Leopoldo Lopez was a political prisoner who should be immediately freed.

President Trump is right that Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez is a prisoner of conscience who should be immediately released.

Hopefully Cuban democratic opposition leaders will have the same opportunity and the bad days of the Obama Administration bending over backwards for the Castro dictatorship including threatening to forcefully eject the daughter of martyred Cuban human rights icon if she dared ask a question in the Kerry State Department.

The Trump Administration's ongoing review of Cuba policy with a human rights focus is good news for Cuban democrats and human rights defenders. As is the meeting with Lilian Tintori and call for the freedom of her husband, Leopoldo Lopez.

Free Leopoldo López Mendoza Now!

"Chances are when you read this letter I will already be jailed on the orders of Nicolas Maduro; a situation that I 'm willing to take on if in something it contributes to awaken our people on the need to together make a change." - Leopoldo López Mendoza, letter to Pope Francisco February 17, 2014

Leopoldo López on February 18, 2014 addressing supporters before turning himself in

On June 29, 2015 thirty human rights organizations in a written statement to the UN Human Rights Committee gave an overview of the human rights situation in Venezuela which included the following:

"There are persistent reports of extrajudicial executions, excessive use of force, torture and other ill-treatment and arbitrary detentions. Journalists, human rights defenders and critics of the government continue to be attacked and harassed." [...] "The justice system is inefficient and continues to suffer from a lack of independence and impartiality. As a result, the vast majority of  human rights violations remain unpunished, depriving victims, who often face ongoing harassment of their right to truth and justice, and adequate reparation."

The ongoing political show trial of Leopoldo López Mendoza is a cautionary example of the radical deterioration of human rights in Venezuela and the lack of an independent judiciary to defend them. Leopoldo López has been arbitrarily detained since February 18, 2014. The Venezuelan opposition leader turned himself over to authorities after gathering tens of thousands of Venezuelans in a massive street protest where he explained the reasons why he would subject himself to this unjust process and then reaffirmed his commitment to nonviolence:

"Well brothers and sisters I ask you to continue in this fight and do not leave the street, to assume our right to protest, but to do it in peace and without violence, I ask that us, all of us that are here, all of the Venezuelans that want a change, to get informed, educated, organized, and to execute non-violent protests, the protests of masses, and the will of souls and hearts that want to change, but without hurting your neighbor."

In August of 2014, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that the detention of Leopoldo López was arbitrary, and recommended that Venezuela immediately release him. On June 30, 2015 in an address to the United Nations Human Rights Council Lilian Tintori outlined the circumstances of his imprisonment:

My husband Leopoldo is in jail for speaking out against the human rights violations that occur in our country, the right to life is violated every 20 minutes, homicides last year were above 25,000, inflation, medicine and food scarcity is more that 72%. [...] In 2014, there were more than 3700 arbitrary detentions. I am here as a wife, as a mother that is raising her two children alone.  My husband and opposition leaders are in jail for demanding democratic change through constitutional, non-violent methods. They have not committed any crime.

Leopoldo López has spent one year, 6 months and 19 days jailed for his defense of human rights and his call for nonviolent resistance to restore Venezuelan democracy. Unfortunately the political show trial he has been subjected to threatens him with a 14 year prison term.  What is being done to Leopoldo in Venezuela is unheard of in a democracy, but common practice in Cuba. The small island nation now controls the Maduro regime in Venezuela.   Only a combination of international solidarity with internal civic nonviolent resistance will obtain Leopoldo's freedom. This is my small contribution to inform and demonstrate my solidarity. What do you plan to do?

Leopoldo López Mendoza in his prison cell in 2015

Venezuela: Cuban Occupied Territory

"Franklin Brito died 5 years ago a victim of this dictatorship that stole his land, his property, but never his dignity. We will never forget him." -  María Corina Machado
 

Nicolas Maduro and General Ramiro Valdez in Venezuela

Secretary of State John Kerry in an interview with journalist Andres Oppenheimer last month made it known that "the United States and Cuba are talking about ways to solve the Venezuelan crisis." In a previous blog post I outlined some of the reasons why this is a bad idea. Emilio J. Cardenas, former Argentinian Ambassador to the United Nations, in El Diario Exterior reports on what the Cubans are currently up to in Venezuela:

Cuba Trains "Thugs" in Venezuela

As a result of the so-called process of "normalization" of relations between Cuba and the United States, the former country has been formally excluded from the U.S.'s list of countries that "export" terrorism. Right or wrong. But that's how it is.

One would think this would definitely preclude Cuba from the possibility of further promoting violence in our region, as indeed it did -- actively and constantly -- in the 1970s, feeding and arming those who killed innocent civilians during the various "internal armed conflicts" in the decade of lead. But this, as we shall see, is not necessarily the case. There are different types of deception, and infamous variants, that are still being used.

Cuba, for a long time, has usually repressed dissidents through its security forces, but also "accompanied" by groups of allegedly independent "thugs" who -- in the streets and squares of the country -- beat opponents mercilessly, with a reprehensible "professionalism".

This allows the communist authorities to argue that only the allegedly "spontaneous" group are responsible for the repression and its consequences. Never the authorities. They pretend to have nothing to do with the violence, when in fact, they are the ones who prepare, decide and to put in place their "thugs" for the crackdowns. It's similar to what is done by the Russian Federation, in Crimea, as in eastern Ukraine. An old trick, which no longer fools anyone, but still serves to hide the sad truth of violence against innocent people. They do the "dirty work" for authoritarian regimes. Again and again. With the endorsement, hidden but real, of the authorities.

This technique is also used by Nicolas Maduro, with his so-called "collectives". They move on motorcycles, in pairs. They are groups of thugs armed to the teeth, not only with guns, but also with sticks and chains to hurt their targets. And to intimidate. They carry revealing designations: "Los Tupamaros", "La Piedrita" or other. They are directly responsible for the violence; especially repression against students, of whom they have killed 25, and have wounded several hundred others participating in peaceful protests -- of both sexes.

These Venezuelan groups are trained in Cuba or by Cuban instructors. Or on the border of Venezuela, with instructors from the FARC, as revealed by the content of computers seized by the Colombian army from the leaders of this terrorist organization. They train for periods of up to three months.

Moreover, they are often serve as "bodyguards" for public officials at all levels. As was the case of a former secretary of commerce, now processed, among us. Among those responsible for the training -- according to reports -- are three Cuban generals: Leonardo Andollo; Ramiro Valdes; and Carlos Fernandez Rondín.

Some estimates place the number of Cubans in Venezuela at 210,000  According to a 2014 article in The Guardian: "Cubans have computerized Venezuela's public records, giving them control over the issue of identity papers and voter registration. They have representatives in the ports and airports, as well as supervising foreign nationals." In short, Venezuela is Cuban occupied territory and under the control of the Castro regime.

Secretary Kerry, the best message to send to the Castro regime to solve the Venezuelan crisis can be summed up in two words: Get out.

Cubazuela: The hunger strikes of Franklin Brito and Luis Enrique Santos

Former Cuban political prisoner Luis Enrique Santos Caballero evicted, humiliated and left homeless along with the rest of his family for political reasons in Cuba by State Security is slowly dying.  Luis Enrique began a hunger strike on May 24, 2013 demanding housing for him and his family. His health was compromised to begin with, he has only one kidney. He lost consciousness today and is said to be near death.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that such a case has drawn international attention. In Cuba the names of Pedro Luis Boitel and Orlando Zapata Tamayo are remembered as is Bobby Sands of Northern Ireland (who the Cuban dictatorship built a memorial to in Cuba) and Venezuela's Franklin Brito joined this select grouping that paid the ultimate price when engaging in a hunger strike on August 31, 2010. Unlike the other men mentioned above, Franklin was not in prison at the time of his hunger strike.

Franklin Brito was a farmer and a biologist whose land was expropriated by Hugo Chavez in 2000 according to CNN. Other news agencies place the date of expropriation anywhere between 2003 and 2004. He exhausted every recourse and was driven to the final option: the hunger strike in 2005
Brito began a series of hunger strikes that resulted in his death five years later.

On November 19, 2009 Franklin Brito in the midst of one of these hunger strikes, he explained what motivated him:

"I am not doing this strike for something material or because persons have behaved badly towards me - that one could say are corrupt. I am doing this strike for dignity and justice. I believe that these are the greatest values that a human being should have."

 Luis Enrique Santos Caballero like Franklin Brito is engaged in a hunger strike to defend his dignity and to demand justice for himself and his family. Both men are confronting regimes that claim to champion social and economic rights but in practice violate them as much as they violate civil and political rights. 

Sadly, as time passes the plight of the Cuban and Venezuelan peoples appears to become one. Let us pray that the struggle for dignity in the face of tyranny does not claim another casualty with Luis Enrique today as it did with Franklin Brito on August 31, 2010. 

Hugo Chavez Death Rumor: Another Bad Copy from the Castro tyrant handbook?

"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." - Niels Bohr

Update June 29, 2011: Reuters reports images of Hugo Chavez shown to dispel rumors
It is always dangerous to make predictions because the odds are that you'll likely get it wrong but trends and patterns makes it difficult to fight off the temptation. In the case of the present rumors and speculations surrounding the health and possible death of Hugo Chavez Frías a couple of factors lead me to venture that he is not dead.

1) Hugo Chavez Frías is a bad remake of Fidel Castro. His tenure as President in Venezuela has been marked by the transformation of a democratic Venezuela with flaws into a Venezuela transitioning into a totalitarian regime. Like Fidel Castro, after a failed coup attempt, repackaged himself a democrat but unlike Castro (who faced an authoritarian dictator) he was elected to office. Since then he has used all his means at his disposal to chart a course for Venezuela to become another Cuba.

2) Fidel Castro in Cuba has floated death rumors for decades. In 2009, 1997, 1994, 1986, 1964, and at other times the press reported that Fidel Castro was dead or that there were rumors circulating that he was dead.

The late free market economist Milton Friedman once observed that "The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.” The numerous times in the past that these rumors circulated about Fidel Castro offers an opportunity to test the validity of the above hypothesis that Hugo Chavez is not dead.

There are a number of reasons that both Castro and Chavez would float such rumors. First, it is an opportunity to see how both one's political enemies and supposed friends react at a perceived moment of weakness. Afterwards purges, summary trials and maneuvering to make ones political opposition look foolish can consolidate the regime. Second, it shifts attention from other news that could be even more damaging than a fictitious death watch were the strong man miraculously recovers or claims never to have been deathly ill with the bonus of discrediting political enemies. Third, it creates enough disinformation when repeated numerous times then when the individual is indeed on deaths door the previous false flags will give news gatherers, adversaries and enemies pause before trying to report or capitalize on the situation.

Yoani Sanchez tweeting today described the regime response when Fidel Castro's life hung in the balance gripped with a serious illness in 2006:

"When Fidel Castro got sick they lied to us for months saying that he was well and that he would return to his functions quickly."

It was only two years later, Yoani went on to tweet, that Fidel Castro in one of his reflections finally admitted that he had been between life & death.As Venezuela continues its sad spiral down into the abyss of Cubazuela, a Castro-style totalitarianism, one would expect this type of tactic by Chavez as he continues to emulate his mentor and ideological guide: Fidel Castro. This is the behavior of a totalitarian despot not a democratically elected leader.

Franklin Brito: A Martyr for Liberty and Human Rights in Venezuela

"I’ve learned of the death of hunger striker Franklin Brito. It appears that Hugo Chavez now has his own Orlando Zapata" - Yoani Sanchez, August 31, 2010 on twitter










(Above) Franklin Brito before and after engaging in 8 hunger strikes

Hunger strikes are the ultimate recourse in the arsenal of non-violent resistance, and over the years around the world it has succeeded at times but in places like Cuba, Ireland, and now in Venezuela a human being has died on hunger strike.

In Cuba the names of Pedro Luis Boitel and Orlando Zapata Tamayo are remembered as is Bobby Sands of Northern Ireland (who the Cuban dictatorship built a memorial to in Cuba) and now Venezuela's Franklin Brito has joined this select grouping that demonstrates the ultimate price when engaging in a hunger strike.

Franklin Brito was a farmer and a biologist whose land was expropriated by Hugo Chavez in 2000 according to CNN. Other news agencies place the date of expropriation anywhere between 2003 and 2004. He exhausted every recourse and was driven to the final option: the hunger strike in 2005.El Universal out of Caracas offers a chronology of Brito's odyssey. In the video below taken October 5, 2009 on day 93 of a hunger strike Franklin was carrying out in which he explains how all of this began:



Despite its widespread violation there is a right to private property enshrined both in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Organization of American States' American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. It is an internationally recognized human right and clearly stated:

Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article XXIII of the American Declaration states: "Every person has a right to own such private property as meets the essential needs of decent living and helps to maintain the dignity of the individual and of the home."

When Franklin Brito's family said that he stood for "the struggle of the Venezuelan people for property rights, access to justice, for living in freedom," they were simply stating the facts of the matter. In the video below taken on November 19, 2009 Franklin Brito declares that:

"I am not doing this strike for something material or because persons have behaved badly towards me - that one could say are corrupt. I am doing this strike for dignity and justice. I believe that these are the greatest values that a human being should have."

The Venezuelan tyranny* said that Franklin Brito was mentally unstable because he had sown up his mouth and cut off one of his fingers on live television. The Red Cross, Caracas Clinical Hospital and the Venezuelan Psychologists' Association said that Franklin Brito was of sound mind.

The tactics Mr. Chavez is using in questioning the mental stability of his adversaries, and smearing them, even in death, is straight out of his Cuban mentor's repertoire. Friends and family of Franklin Brito had best organize the facts and evidence surrounding his case protect it and duplicate it so that it cannot be seized and destroyed. They should engage in speaking out anywhere and everywhere to counter the avalanche of slander and libel from regime apologists against a man who can no longer defend himself.

Hugo Chávez has nationalized 2.5 million hectares as part of a “land reform drive.” The so-called reform, combined with increased government control over the economy, has exacerbated food shortages in Venezuela with Chavez forced to step up imports despite abundant land and a tropical climate just like Cuba did years ago.

It is not madness to take extremes in the defense of liberty and justice, but it is madness to repeat the same failed policies that have bankrupted and destroyed nations the world over and expect a different outcome in your own homeland.

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." - Marcus Tullius Cicero

*Use of the term tyranny is not a rhetorical exercise but defines what Hugo Chavez's democratically elected government has descended into a tyranny. There are two dictionary definitions of tyranny which are often related to each other. For example in the case of Cuba with Fidel Castro it is the state ruled by an absolute ruler but in the case of Venezuela it is the "arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority" that applies.