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Maduro rejects Spanish meddling

JOHN HAYLETT examines the latest political developments in Venezuela

President Nicolas Maduro ordered the recall this week of Venezuela's ambassador to Spain, citing Madrid's unacceptable interference in his country's affairs.

Mario Isea Bohorquez returned to Caracas "for consultations" after conservative Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy met Lilian Tintori.

Tintori is the wife of far-right Venezuelan activist Leopoldo Lopez who faces serious charges of arson, terrorism, homicide and conspiracy.

Rajoy tweeted a photo and accused the Maduro government of not respecting its citizens' right to protest.

Lopez, who coined the Salida (Exit) opposition strategy of violent street confrontations to remove the Bolivarian government, is accused of responsibility for clashes earlier this year that led to the deaths of 43 people, mostly government supporters, security forces and bystanders.

President Maduro was incandescent over Rajoy's intervention, noting that his conservative Peoples Party (PP), led by Jose Maria Aznar, backed the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002.

"He simply does not have the moral authority to talk about Bolivarian Venezuela. You respect Venezuela, Mr Rajoy, as we respect the Spanish people," he declared. 

"Go and talk about the disaster that you're inflicting on Spain and the Spanish people ... You have flagrantly evicted 700,000 Spanish people from their homes. Why don't you sort out those problems?"

The United Socialist Party (PSUV) leader made clear that there would be a full review of diplomatic relations with Spain.

The Spanish PP leader may regard dozens of deaths as an acceptable return from street confrontations that degenerated from apparently peaceful protests to deliberate targeted attacks on security personnel and PSUV supporters.

Maduro and Venezuela's popular forces who are continuing the Bolivarian revolutionary process led initially by Chavez have no intention of accepting the normality of terrorism.

Rajoy's interference in Venezuela's legal processes followed a contentious recommendation by the UN working group on arbitrary detention that urged Lopez's immediate release.

Lopez responded by refusing to attend a court session on Tuesday, tweeting that "as a prisoner of conscience, (I) have decided not to attend the trial hearing."

Venezuelan representative German Saltron fingered Barack Obama as being behind the working group's statement, pointing out that he made a similar call in his September address to the UN general assembly.

Saltron told the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that Obama had done so because Lopez "is one of his emperors in our country."

He added that although the working group "suggests, without demanding or ordering," Lopez's release, he is "being tried by our tribunals and for that reason a request to intervene ... cannot be accepted unless there is proof that his physical integrity is in imminent danger, which is not the case." 

The internal terrorist threat is not an academic consideration for the Bolivarian revolution.

The sadistic knife murder of young National Assembly PSUV deputy Robert Serra and his partner Maria Herrera in their home last month passed all but unnoticed by the global media.

They were tortured, stabbed and bled to death. Their home was not robbed. It was a political double assassination designed to induce terror.

Interior Minister Rodriguez Torres said: "We are not dealing with unfortunate events committed by a common criminal. We are dealing with an intentional murder, planned and executed with great precision."

President Maduro told a subsequent mass protest rally that the murders had been designed "to silence us. The right-wing fascists are scared of young rebels, young revolutionaries."

Serra, a lawyer from a poor background, had recently denounced in the National Assembly the connivance of former Colombia president Alvaro Uribe with terror suspect Lorent Saleh who was deported to Venezuela by current Colombian head of state Juan Manuel Santos.

Saleh spoke of buying arms, snipers and explosive experts to take out a hit list of 20 Venezuelan revolutionary leaders to bring down the government.

Classic US tactics devised by the CIA to overthrow inconvenient governments combine assassinations, economic sabotage and street disorder to create confusion and demoralise its opponents.

Caracas has acted decisively to counteract cross-border smuggling of price-controlled essentials into Colombia, which provides short-term profits for the private sector and frustrates poor citizens unable to access cooking oil, flour sugar, powdered milk, toilet paper amid artificially engineered shortages.

The government will not shrink from doing everything necessary to crush the threat of terrorism.

Serra and Herrera are not the first victims of the death squads. Tupamaros leader Juancho Montoya was shot dead in January. Caracas municipal leader and ex-soldier Eliezer Otaiz, who had an impressive following among street-level collectives, was murdered in March.

Guarico state university student leader Yeison Carrillo was taken out by a single shot to the head on campus last month.

There was also a recent police raid on a Caracas pro-government collective that resulted in five deaths, including its popular leader Ocreman.

Add to that the arson attack on the national offices of the Communist Youth and a pattern is discernible.

The president has noted that police complicity is integral to some of these murders and he intends to purge officers bought by criminals or the pro-terrorist opposition.

The Spanish government has shown which side it favours in this life-and-death struggle.

Venezuela will depend on its international friends to counter such malign influences in coming months.

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