“Paid and drugged”: this is how guarimberos are captured in several cities of the country

The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, warned about the perpetration of different violent acts in some cities of the country, a product of the anti-democratic reaction of radical sectors of the right after his defeat in the presidential elections of this July 28.

He said that in the midst of these violent acts, many people have been caught red-handed, and that 90% of them have criminal records. “Almost 90% of those captured have two characteristics: they are in an advanced state of drug addiction and they are armed,” said the president.

He added that many detainees have confessed that they are being paid $150 a day to carry out planned and well-directed actions against specific targets and specific people. “Behind this there is a lot of money and a lot of drugs from Colombian drug trafficking,” he said.

The president explained that many of these citizens detained in violent actions are part of those who have arrived on deportation flights from the United States. “The Public Prosecutor’s Office has given instructions to go after the intellectual authors of these actions,” he said.

He reported that these groups caused damage equivalent to 10% of what they did in the riots of 2013 with Henrique Capriles, in 2014 with “La Salida” of María Corina Machado and Leopoldo López and in 2017 with Julio Borges.

“After seven years of peace, after defeating the riots with the Constituent Assembly, I saw disbelief in the people… People do not believe that they have a violent plan to go after people, to kill… people tend to erase bad memories from their minds, but I am obliged as a leader to speak to the people with the truth,” he said.

“We knew about the plan”

President Maduro warned that during the electoral campaign he had repeatedly warned of the plans of the right wing to ignore the results and generate violence after the elections. “They did everything possible before July 28 to suspend the elections… Yesterday, on election day, they wanted to cause a blackout in the country,” he revealed.

“This is the result of the plan that I had been denouncing. They participated in this campaign to organize criminal groups to generate an escalation of violence that would lead them to seize power in Venezuela,” he said about the violent groups.

He said that “we have seen this film” and called for the greatest response of repudiation to these actions of the “comanditos”, the name given to these armed groups by the extreme right.

“They say that the minutes they are going to show replaced those of the electoral power and that they intend to take this point to start an escalation of riots that we will not allow,” said the president.

Targeted attacks

The president said that the attacks against institutions and people are clearly targeted and far from spontaneous, as some of those captured have confessed that they received orders to attack specific points.

He said that the CNE headquarters in Coro was attacked and set on fire, as well as some headquarters of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, public squares, statues and icons of the revolution, public transportation and attacks on private property. “They destroyed electoral machines and material,” he denounced.

“Now do you understand what I was talking about? That we, as a government, have so far avoided a bloodbath? And we will continue to avoid it,” he said, referring to the concerns of some foreign leaders who did not understand the warning made days ago by Maduro.

“On one side, they have a smile, an old man who can hardly speak or walk, and below them are the gringos. They have always been there, before, during and after,” he declared, while reflecting: “These are the people who want to govern Venezuela, they want to unleash a civil war and hunt down any citizen… there is a Constitution here, they have tried to violate it. Capriles responds, Ramos Allup, who is behind this? The devil who wants to put on a saint’s veil?”

They are not going to harm the country’s economy

Maduro argued that it had taken a lot to lift the country from all the damage caused by the sanctions requested by extremist groups of the Venezuelan right, only to let all that effort go to waste and go back on the path that had been taken.

“We will not allow them to harm the country’s economy again,” said the president, while reiterating his call for a national dialogue, which will begin on Tuesday.

The president called on the people to remain vigilant, not to fall for provocations and to defend democracy. “Defense of peace in every street… one by one these little commanders will go where they have to go, to jail… justice so that there is peace,” he declared.

He said he spoke with the advisor to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, Celso Amorim, to whom he told that “we fought the definitive battle to consolidate peace and against criminal fascism… we are going to consolidate this victory and the right to peace and the future of our people.”