![]() ![]() “They aimed a gun at me in front of my kids.” “They come into your house without uniforms, carrying weapons of war, their faces covered, and they break down your door,” he said. Reyes said that on three occasions members of the colectivos have shown up at his home and warned him to stop organizing against Maduro. “It is for paramilitary groups to pursue us, to go into our homes and even to assassinate the dissidents who are against Maduro’s regime.” “Those of us involved in politics, in social work, know what that statement is about,” opposition activist Julio Cesar Reyes told CNN. “I call on the colectivos, the hour of resistance has arrived, active resistance in the community,” Maduro said in a speech in March, that unnerved many members of the Venezuelan opposition. Nevertheless, the colectivos appear to be a well-organized part of the Maduro strategy to hold onto power. Mendez claims to have received military and political training from the Venezuelan government, but did not answer questions about details of their coordination with the government, and how the colectivos are funded. Since January, when opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself to be the interim president of Venezuela, motorcycle riding colectivo members have terrorized anti-government rallies with gunfire and prevented opposition lawmakers and journalists from entering the National Assembly. Questioned whether he’d chosen to house the radar and radio station inside a school to protect it from US military strikes, Mendez shrugs and grins.Ĭolectivo leader Naudy Mendez stands at the center with four of his lieutenants in the Antímano neighborhood of Caracas. Mendez says there is a radar unit on the roof of the school to monitor against US bombers school but when we ask to see it no one can find the key. ![]() His radio station is located in a small room on the second floor of an elementary school. He wags his finger at the imaginary gringos as he broadcasts from the small radio booth with a large picture of deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez looking down. Mendez is burly, middle-aged with greying hair and claims he has been shot five times in different conflicts. Opposition leaders say the groups are part motorcycle club, part death squad and worry that, as Venezuela’s political and economic crisis worsens, no one is reining them in. Maduro says the colectivos are front line organizers for his socialist revolution. His lieutenants are all skinny and appear to be half his age for the most part, they silently watch their loquacious boss hold court live on air. They play a growing role in keeping embattled president Nicolas Maduro in power. Mendez’s threats carry no shortage of menace: when he’s not on the radio, he heads a colectivo, one of the dozens of armed paramilitary groups that are the only law in many of Venezuela’s poorest neighborhoods. We will rain down lead on them,” Mendez told his listeners of the potential US invaders. There are warriors here too willing to give their lives,” Mendez declared during a radio show he hosts from Antímano, an impoverished and violence-ridden slum in Caracas. ![]() “To the gringos who say the boots are already in Venezuela, be careful. Armed conflict between the US and Venezuela may never take place-but Naudy Mendez knows who would come out on top. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |