The Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace, Diosdado Cabello, reported that the majority of applicants to be police officers have been proposed by the communal councils. He made this statement during his speech within the framework of the opening of the Police Services Academy of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), in Junquito, an event that was led by the President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro.
He said that before, power was exercised by an “economic leadership” and that it “organized its own political, military and police leadership and they obeyed orders from the real boss, which was North American imperialism.”
Cabello related that everything began to change with the arrival of Commander Hugo Chávez. “When Commander Hugo Chávez began to talk about popular power, even lifelong leftist sectors did not understand it,” he said.
Cabello revealed that today the majority of young people who are studying at the PNB Police Services Academy, “come proposed by the communal councils, they are neighborhood boys, they are from the town, and they have the approval of their Communal Council to come to study, to be a police officer. It is there where the people begin to exercise true power.
He said that previously there was “strong” discrimination in institutions, even in the Armed Forces.
«It was one thing to be an officer and another to be a non-commissioned officer. How difficult it was to break that paradigm. In the police forces there were different officers and troops. In the town, their feet were on the ground and those who could, who had access because they had money to go to a university,” he stated.
He recalled that in the face of this scenario, it was Commander Chávez who understood that the issue was not to bring power closer to the people, but rather to give power to the people.
“When you listen to a young police officer, a cadet from this school or from the Military Academy, from the Guard, you see that he is being trained politically, but also humanly, in the sense of camaraderie, in being supportive, of being convinced that we will not be able to do it alone, that national unity is necessary,” he expressed.
He stressed that no one is deceiving the Venezuelan people and that “imperialism can find ways,” but it will not achieve it, with the type of officials that are currently being trained.
«Tell me, President, the psychological terrorism they have against the people, other people with less have gone bankrupt. This town, what is going forward, is restored, united,” he pointed out.
Carmen Meléndez: we continue building Homeland
For her part, A/J Carmen Meléndez, who was at the event, stated that before it was an elite that was in charge in the Academies and that “they didn’t care what was happening outside.”
«If we behaved well and met the requirements, we were promoted. They trained one to be inside a dome, not to go beyond and it was with our commander Chávez, with the Bolivarian Revolution (…) that brought us with Plan Bolívar 200 to have that contact with the people,” he stated.
«We have learned with the people, and popular power is empowered in our Homeland. In all corners of Venezuela, working, doing their project, happy that they feel that they are listened to and that we are an obedient government,” he indicated.
Meléndez assured that the Homeland continues to be built in Revolution and, with the people empowered.
