Hope, prayers, and solidarity for pro-democracy activists taking part in today's elections in Venezuela

In remembrance of Génesis, Geraldine, Anthony, Robert, Bassil, and the many others.

 Civil society and the democratic opposition face a great challenge: Ensure all votes of Venezuelans are counted, and the results respected. This election in Venezuela is being held under a dictator who has said he will not hand over power, and is doing all he can to steal it.

Nicolas Maduro has warned that if he loses the election there will be a bloodbath in Venezuela.

Maduro is a dictator, the Venezuelan government is a narco-tyranny with some extremely nasty actors that have demonstrated over the past 25 years the willingness to kill large numbers of Venezuelans to hang on to power.

The Venezuelan dictatorship has been trained by the worse thugs in Havana, Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing. They are experts in the use of violence and terror to hang on to power.

The best chance to defeat them is neither through appeasement or violence, but through strategic nonviolent resistance. I have been witnessing it over the past weeks, and hope to see it continued today, and in the days to come, when Maduro attempts to hang on to power.

My hope is informed by the late Czech dissident Vaclav Havel's definition of the word that is not equated with success but rather the certainty that what one is doing is both good and coherent. In 1990 in the book, Disturbing the Peace, Havel explained how he viewed hope.

“Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpromising the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

My prayers, hope and solidarity with Venezuelans in the pro-democracy movement in their ongoing struggle for restoring democracy in Venezuela.

Gloria al Bravo Pueblo!

  

Geraldine Moreno shot repeatedly with iron pellets at close range by the Bolivarian National Guard

23 year old college student standing in her doorway attacked by National Guard died three days later

Geraldine Moreno (23 years old) before and after the attack

Brutal February 19 attack destroys 23 year old women's face

Liseth Madía, cousin of Geraldine Moreno Orozco, recounted to El Universal that the 23 year old university student and athlete from Carabobo was shot repeatedly in the face by members of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) on February 19, 2014 during a demonstration in the area of the Naguanagua municipality in the Tazajal sector. "That was around 8:00 pm in front of her house in Bayona Country I residences, she was assaulted in a cowardly manner with a weapon that fires pellets, which were not plastic but of iron."

Geraldine Moreno who was in her fifth semester of Cytotechnology at Arturo Michelena University, was with four friends and from her residence they watched the persons protesting on the corner of the street where there was a barricade when six members of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) on motorcycles arrived on site to disperse the demonstration.

Everyone present ran. "She (running) turned when the persons behind her came and she fell because they shot at her and fired near the face, then when she tried to stand up they fired again into her face and that is when they destroyed all her visage," said Geraldine's cousin Madia .

She died three days later from her injuries

At 12:43pm on February 22, 2014 the student from Valencia, Geraldine Moreno, died.  She died from the wounds generated by the pellets fired at close range into her face by members of the National Guard who destroyed her face and one eye.

One year later

Geraldine's mom Rosa Orozco seeks justice for her daughter

According to the Panam Post four military functionaries have been arrested and are on trial for the killing of the 23 year old studis no longer independentent. On January 8 the hearing for the functionaries implicated in this murder was deferred for the sixth time. Unfortunately, the judiciary in Venezuela is no longer independent and is subject to the whims and designs of the executive which means in practice Nicolas Maduro. 

Geraldine's mother, Rosa Orozco in a February 5, 2015 interview with NTN24 denounced the judicial delays and recalled the circumstances of her daughter's murder: "Those GNB fired into Geraldine's face, she was peacefully standing in the door way of her home and some GNB arrived shooting." ... "Finally she asked the Ombudsman to dedicate himself to all the victims"and work to resolve the cases of the 43 victims of the violent protests that took place between February and June 2014."

Venezuela and Cuba: From Bad to Worse

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King Jr.


The Venezuelan opposition knows that if they do not succeed in altering the course of the Maduro regime what awaits the people of that country is to become an extension of Cuba. International organizations and many governments are refusing to even listen to the voices of the victims of Venezuelan dictatorship's repression. The international media has not been providing sufficient coverage on events in Venezuela due to extensive government censorship and pressure.  The evidence since February 12, 2014 is that the Maduro regime seeks to impose a one party state through the use of political terror that includes the murder and torture of high school and college students. Meanwhile democrats are mobilizing hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to take nonviolent action. As of March 22, 2014 the death toll stood at 34. Today marks one month since Geraldine Moreno Orozco, age 23, was killed, a victim of repression.

11 of the 34 victims killed since February 12, 2014 associated with protests

This is not a surprise for Cubans but for those old enough to remember how the Castro regime installed itself, first with rhetoric of respecting freedom of expression, human rights, denying they were communists while  claiming to be democratic and the entire time erecting a totalitarian apparatus beginning with mass executions to impose a terror that has subjected millions of Cubans to a half century of tyranny and oppression and today have extended their reach into Venezuela. The terror being visited upon Venezuelans is just the beginning.

Tens of thousands of Cubans have been killed for trying to exercise their rights over the past half century. Saving the lives of Cuban rafters and advocating for nonviolent change led to the murder of four members of Brothers to the Rescue on February 24, 1996 shot down by rockets launched by Cuban MiGs. In four months Cubans will mark 20 years since 37 men, women, and children were massacred by Castro regime agents for wanting to leave Cuba on July 13, 1994. Most of the world ignored this latter crime because it only involved Cubans. Today, March 22, 2014 marks 20 months since Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante were extra-judicially executed by agents of the Castro regime but still neither the IACHR or UNHRC has issued a report on the merits involving the murder of a lifelong and consistent human rights defender.

20 years ago this July 13, 1994 murdered by Castro for wanting to be free

The President of the United States shook hands with Raul Castro in December of 2003 as have many other president's of the Americas have also done so with Raul and his brother Fidel Castro ignoring their status as murderous tyrants. In the case of Venezuela Carlos Andres Perez had a public friendship with Fidel Castro. Only to see his country's democracy gutted and destroyed by the Castro regime years later. We witnessed earlier this year at CELAC how not only Latin American leaders but the Secretary Generals of the United Nations and the Organization of American States met with the Castro tyrants and refused to criticize them and in the case of the UN Secretary General praised the dictatorship's treatment of women. Ignoring the well documented pattern of brutalizing and killing women who dissent from the dictatorship's official line.

Months later, on March 21, 2014,  the Organization of American States refuses first to listen to the testimony of Maria Corina Machado, an elected representative of the Venezuelan people, and when the government of Panama demonstrates its solidarity, a majority of the rest of the countries led by the Maduro government (and their Castroite advisors) closed the audience so that what is said by Venezuelan democrat would not be carried by the media and engaged in additional maneuvers not to have to hear aout the worsening situation in Venezuela. Furthermore a video providing evidence of  government violence was not shown. At the top of the page is the embedded video which is available on youtube.

The violence in Venezuela perpetrated by the Maduro regime is escalating. The question that arises is will the nonviolent democratic resistance be able to bring what is for all purposes a dictatorship to back down from the path it is set on to install the Cuban model in Venezuela? The next few days, weeks and months may prove decisive. Time to pray for Venezuela and to be in solidarity with Venezuelan democrats. It will likely go from bad to worse before it gets better.