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Maduro ‘100 % defeatable’ says head of Venezuela opposition

Photo: Federico Parra / AFP

January 10 | By AFP | Patrick Fort / Esteban Rojas |

With the end of his symbolic interim government, which Juan Guaido hoped would push President Nicolas Maduro from power, the opposition leader is now proposing primary elections to reunify a fractured opposition, insisting that Maduro is “defeatable”. 

“The problem we have today is to reunify the democratic alternative. Once the democratic alternative is reunited, Maduro is 100 percent defeatable,” the 39-year-old said Monday in an interview with AFP in Caracas, ahead of presidential elections slated for 2024. 

Guaido, who is the target of numerous judicial processes in his country, hopes the primaries can take place in the first half of this year. 

Riven by divisions, the opposition itself has recently eliminated the “interim government” that in January 2019 had been recognized by the United States and fifty other countries due to challenges to Maduro’s re-election a year earlier.

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– Are you disappointed with the old allies who withdrew support for the “interim government”? –

“We are focused on what we have demanded from early on: free elections, a presidential election that we have been owed since 2018, and the pending task is to reunify the democratic alternative, which is the majority.” 

“More than disappointed, I think that today as Venezuelans we feel disgust, not with our allies, but with everyone’s behavior … More than disappointed in one, two or three people, more than that, I share the feeling of disgust for what is currently happening in Venezuelan politics, which must transcend partisan interests and continue fighting for the common good… I assume my share of responsibility.” 

“There is a process of restructuring, of reconstruction (…) and I believe that we also have the opportunity around the corner, which is the primary election (…) We must get ready immediately.”

– How did the progressive loss of international support, together with the shift to the left of several Latin American countries, affect you? –

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“Getting close to Maduro is a mistake (…). Yes, certainly an Alberto Fernandez (president of Argentina) getting close to Venezuela clearly weakened the position of the interim government. Much better a country solidly denouncing a dictatorship than relativizing it, the same with the president (Gustavo) Petro (in Colombia), the same with (Andres Manuel) Lopez Obrador (in Mexico)…

“The international community has great weaknesses in holding dictators to account.” 

– After all the divisions, can the opposition win the 2024 presidential elections? – 

“If there is unity, without a doubt. The problem is not Maduro, or rather, the problem we have today is to reunify the democratic alternative. Once the democratic alternative is reunited, Maduro is 100 percent defeatable (…). Facing the possibility of a free and fair election, Maduro is absolutely weak, defeatable”. 

– Is the opposition losing strength in the negotiations that resumed with Maduro delegates last November in Mexico? – 

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“(Eliminating the interim government) does not put us in a better position (…) but we are ready for an agreement that has to do with electoral conditions to make an election a political solution to the conflict we are experiencing in Venezuela.” 

– Will you be a candidate in possible primaries? – 

“My candidate is the union. My candidate, then, is the primary and when we have primaries, when we have a schedule, I will make a decision (…). Today all of us (the main opposition leaders) are incapacitated, imprisoned or in exile. So a lot will have to do with how Mexico evolves and how the possibility of a competitive primary and a free, fair and competitive (presidential) election evolves.”

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International

Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car

A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.

The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.

The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.

Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.

 

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International

Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat

 

Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.

Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.

According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.

The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.

“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.

Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.

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International

Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five

Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.

The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.

“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.

Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.

Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.

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