A former Chavist minister attacked the extortion of the Maduro dictatorship against those who want to be vaccinated against the coronavirus: “It is a neo-fascist discrimination”

There are growing complaints about the coronavirus vaccination program that began to promote the Nicolás Maduro dictatorship since last weekend in Venezuela. In addition to the demands of the interim government of Juan Guaidó and various sectors of Venezuelan society, there are also questions from former Chavist officials.

This is the case with Rodrigo’s head, a fervent critic of Maduro who served as Venezuela’s finance minister under the government of Hugo Chávez (between 2007 and 2008) and currently works as a professor in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Zulia.

After Chavist authorities gave priority to people with the “national card” this weekend, chaos has reigned in recent days in several vaccination centers across the country, where large crowds and long queues have been recorded. This obvious – and dangerous – disorganization adds to questions about the lack of transparency about the amount of vaccines available in Venezuela and the irregular access to them.

“We demand that there be access to vaccination based on the humanitarian principles of equality, human dignity and transparency. The vaccine is a safe strategy to reduce mortality and disease. And this is not happening, everything is a spectacle. They started a second leg and it was a complete mess. In addition, it is added the immense neo-fascist discrimination according to which if you do not have the national card you cannot be vaccinated “, denounced Cabezas, in dialogue with Infobae.

In this sense, he indicated that the main procedure in all countries of the world is to vaccinate health workers, and then the older and higher-risk population, with pre-existing diseases. “Less in Venezuela,” he lamented.

“It is an inhuman and discriminatory act, while the few vaccines have been allocated to ministers, deputies, governors, mayors and leadership structures of the ruling party, and their families (…) The countries of the world never give priority to the politicians in power. It is a flagrant violation of the right to life, ”lambasted the 60-year-old economist.

The former Chavista minister said that in Zulia state in May 16 doctors died from coronavirus. As with much of the health workforce, they “did not have adequate protection” nor were they vaccinated.

A few weeks ago, the Maduro dictatorship announced that 90% of health workers had already been vaccinated. But quickly, the Venezuelan Medical Federation (FMV) denied this information. “The vaccines that arrived were diverted by the government to immunize Chavist ministers, deputies and politicians, and left health workers defenseless”, said Douglas León Natera, president of FMV.

Cabezas also referred to Maduro’s “lies” and “false promises”. In this regard, he recalled that on November 15, 2020, the dictator declared that in the first quarter of this year 10 million Russian Sputnik V vaccines would arrive in the country. He even announced that the vaccine would be produced in Venezuela. . “Nothing came. They have taken this with a huge lack of responsibility when Venezuelans’ right to life is at stake. The state has a responsibility to protect Venezuelans. “

Indeed, the exact number of vaccines arrived is unknown, the information provided by the Chavist authorities being contradictory. A few days ago, Maduro announced the arrival in the country of 1,300,000 vaccines from China. However, The regime did not show images of the arrival of this shipment, as it did with others, and did not provide further information in this regard.

“Is a lie. 30 or 40,000 vaccines arrive and … photo on the plane, photo of landing, photo back to Caracas, they show the box … 1,300,000 vaccines have arrived and there is no photo? It is obvious that this is a big lie on the part of the dictatorship, ”said Juan Guaidó.

Before the announcement of this new batch of doses, Maduro had given details on the receipt of 930,000 vaccines from Russia and China, while the Minister of Health, Carlos Alvarado, raised this figure to 1,480,000 , with no arrival date of more than half a million making a difference or other data.

“There is no credible information on the number of vaccines. The estimated calculation from what the government said is that in May there were 240,000 vaccinated. Under pressure they spoke of a second stage of vaccination, without seeing the arrival of new vaccines. No one knows the numbers; as well as the number of people infected and dead are not known. Nobody believes those released by the government, ”added Cabezas.

The images which showed the large crowd in the various vaccination centers of the country raised the question of whether indeed all of these people could be immunized, despite the shortage of vaccines. The Venezuelan economist commented that “a lot of people went home without getting vaccinated, very upset”: “What there was was a list that matched the ruling party’s militants.”

The former chavist minister felt that it was necessary to work in a “lifetime agreement”, which guarantees access to the vaccine “on an equal basis and without political discrimination”. For this, he argued that there had to be an agreement between the Maduro regime, “and the democratic opposition led by Juan Guaidó in Venezuela”. As he admitted, the National Assembly led by Guaidó “took safe steps” to obtain vaccines from the COVAX platform, managed by the World Health Organization (WHO). The aim, he stressed, is “to demand that the government authorize a deal to save lives.”

“We need an agreement that has no political flair because saving lives does not come from the left, the right or the center. It is an inalienable human right, ”said Cabezas, who also underlined that in this way, it would be possible to access the donations of vaccines that the international community promotes.

On Thursday, Joe Biden’s government announced that the United States will immediately donate six million vaccines to Latin America and the Caribbean. However, the US Ambassador to Venezuela, James storyHe clarified that this time Venezuela is not on the list of countries that will receive the doses “due to the lack of transparency” of their vaccination plan.

In this context, Cabezas warned that the pandemic situation in Venezuela “is dramatic”: “There is a peak in transmission of the virus, with an alarming increase in cases and deaths. The system is saturated ”.

The repudiation of the Argentine government

In his capacity as former Minister of Chávez, and as a “member of the socialist movement since the age of 13” Cabezas questioned the Argentine government of Alberto Fernández for its decision to withdraw the country’s support for the complaint filed with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Maduro’s dictatorship for human rights violations in Venezuela.

“Being me, an activist of the socialist movement, today in clear dissent with what is a fraud called the Bolivarian Revolution, it caused us a huge disappointment that a progressive government like Argentina was able to withdraw the charges. human rights violations. rights before the International Criminal Court without assessing the number of victims that there have been throughout these years under the Maduro government ”he commented.

In this sense, he recalled the young people who were assassinated in 2017 as part of the protests against the regime, as well as those who were kidnapped and tortured by the Chavist security forces. In addition, he recalled that “a soldier (Rafael Acosta Arévalo) died in a court in his wheelchair as a result of the tortures suffered, and a city councilor (Fernando Albán) was expelled from a police establishment”.

“Trying to wash his face now, they admit he was tortured,” Cabezas said, referring to recent statements by Chavista Attorney General Tarek William Saab, who admitted Acosta Arévalo and Albán were killed by regime agents, many of whom, according to Saab, are on trial. For the opposition, it is a simple maneuver of the dictatorship to show the international community changes in the structure of the police force, in particular after the report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights which demanded the dismantling of organizations like FAES and DGCIM, accused of having carried out hundreds of extrajudicial executions.

The Venezuelan economist criticized the “ideologization” of human rights in the region: “How is it that there is torture on the right and torture on the left?” We do not like violations of the right, like those of Pinochet in Chile, but in the face of those of the left, like those of Maduro and Ortega in Nicaragua, we must be silent.

“The left has advanced on the irresponsibility of giving automatic solidarity, without examining the facts, the processes, the contents, and the claim that I make to this government (that of Argentina), is that instead of listening to the other government, or to the interests that may have, had to listen to the victims, those who have suffered human rights violations, ”he concluded.

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