The crusade of Rosa Orozco, the indomitable Venezuelan

The mother of Geraldine Moreno, murdered in 2014 by two national guards while protesting against Maduro, travels to Madrid and Geneva to demand justice for her daughter and for more than 300 cases of violent deaths during peaceful demonstrations.

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Two years after the murder of his daughter, Rose Orozco he was able to face his assassins after many attempts. That day there was almost no one in the court that judged them, which the mother of Geraldine I took the opportunity to stand next to him. Overcoming the feeling that devoured his insides, I asked them directly the reason for their crime.

The guilty silence of the sergeants Alban Bonilla and Francisco Caridad Barroso members of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), lasted for a few seconds. This indomitable Venezuelan broke it off with her words, which perfectly sum up her crusading spirit: “I know I’m going to do what I have to do. And the first thing I’ll do is forgive myself, because I have to release this hate. I forgive them because I need to free my spirit and my soul to move on”.

On that long-awaited day, in front of her daughter’s murderers, the woman took a deep breath until she felt “that there was Rosa Orozco for a while and also to continue in this fight. But that I forgive does not mean that I give them absolution.” Venezuela crimes against humanity have been committed. Without justice we are not going to have peace and tranquility to move forward,” he explains to EL MUNDO.

Rosa Orozco and the lawyer Martha Tineo have traveled to Madrid at the beginning of a European journey that will also take them to Geneva. This Tuesday they will be at the headquarters of EL MUNDO. “Our demand, after sentencing the two perpetrators to 30 and 15 years in prison, is that the other guards who participated in the repression be brought to justice, as well as the responsible chain of command, which includes commanders, ministers and even the president of the Republic if that were the case”, explains Tineo.

“For us it is very important that you listen to us out of the country so that they know what is really happening”, emphasizes her friend and traveling companion.

The existing impunity in Venezuela has forced them to resort to international bodies, but their fight goes beyond justice for Geraldine. They both head the NGO Justice, Encounter and Forgiveness (JEP), that fights against impunity in the more than 300 murders committed during demonstrations and protests.

The murder of the young Geraldine, a 24-year-old university student, shocked Venezuela in the early stages of the 2014 protests, the same ones that led to prison for Leopoldo Lopez. That February day, the residents of Naguanagua (Carabobo), three hours from Caracas, They quietly demonstrated in front of their houses with flags and whistles. Very close to his was Rosa’s daughter.

“Until a detachment of 24 National Guardsmen arrived aboard 13 motorcycles shooting at some peaceful citizens. Geraldine ran out and was shot (with pellet cartridges) twice (Barroso in the back and Bonilla in the head), so she fell. The creature was helpless on the floor, she even put out her hand to beg for mercy and not be shot anymore. and Geraldine the guard Albn Bonilla shot him 10 centimeters from the face, embedding a cartridge. Why did that man do that? What was his motivation for shooting a helpless girl on the floor? My daughter was a beautiful, precious girl, never in her life had she attacked anyone, even today I can’t explain it to myself,” says Orozco.

The eight-year crusade against the revolutionary giant has forged Orozco, who has even faced the associations of “victims” that Chavismo set up to counteract it both inside and outside the country, with very little success. Even today, eight years after the tragedy, the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin) the “visit” at their house, parking “out front to see what I’m doing. I go out and knock on the glass to ask if they’ve had coffee yet.”

Rosa knows that no one is going to give her daughter back, “that is a reality that I face every morning when I wake up and she is not by my side. But that does not stop me from demanding that there be no more extrajudicial executions in my country and nor impunity, that justice be done in the case of my daughter and that of so many mothers who have lost their children, and that is why I am here. To date, 331 Venezuelans have been killed during demonstrations since 2014 and this has kept me to continue raising my voice. That is why we founded JEP, created by a mother who brutally lost her daughter in an extrajudicial execution. And with the aim of helping other mothers who perhaps do not have the same impetus as me, something with which God rewarded me to continue”, she recounts vehemently, encouraged by the memories.

The reality that the two women want to show the world has nothing to do with the one that is being sold by revolutionary propaganda through their media empire. “Lack of genuine and transparent investigations, that is the reality that we want to show”, clarifies Tineo, who denounces that the government of Maduro “wants to make the international community believe that the situation in Venezuela has improved, even though we keep Poverty rates reaching 80% of the population, with the systematic violation of the economic, social and cultural rights of the population, with lack of supply of drinking water, domestic gas, electricity… A chaotic situation”.

Rosa Orozco knows who is to blame for what is happening in her country: “Hugo Chvez and Nicols Maduro have committed crimes against humanity and have led the country to the debacle total where we are. That is why I taught my daughter to love Venezuela, the country that these people have destroyed. In my house there was talk of democracy and freedom of expression, that was what Geraldine learned.