The Committee of Victims of Guarimbas (political destabilization, violence, and blockades) rejected a resolution by European Union representatives Thursday which demanded the release of far-right opposition members detained in Venezuela for inciting violence and social unrest in the country that left over 40 people dead. The resolution is “anachronistic, de-contextualized, far from the Venezuelan reality,” affirmed the head of the committee, legislator Jose Morales of the governing Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). The committee presented the case of 43 people who died during the violence, where far-right sectors demanded the resignation of democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro, to the EU lawmakers at a meeting in Strasbourg, France. However, the discussion was disappointing for the members of the committee, who expected the session to take a balanced approach in relation to the cases of the few right-wing leaders of the violence who have been detained. “In a surrealist debate, they evoke events like the torture of Leopoldo Lopez [radical leader of the protests], as well as a mass of lies that confirm how these institutions perceive Venezuela, while turning their back to our peoples,” said Morales. The victims had decided to go to Strasbourg, the French city hosting the EU parliament, after European legislators approved a previous resolution denouncing alleged state-repression against right-wing political opponents in Venezuela. Committee spokesperson Yendry Velazquez said during the debates, “We were kept silent and invisible again in the parliament, where we were horrified to hear the surrealist versions they 'know' about the situation the country was going through.” Moreover, she criticized the fact that less than 50 out of the 751 EU parliament’s legislators attended the session. Source URL |
