Jaime Bayly on Venezuela: "The dictator Maduro has his hours counted"

Jaime Bayly He is Peruvian, but he feels Venezuelan in the center. That is why the controversial writer and commentator who lives in Miami took the cause of Venezuela as his own cause and said aloud and openly: "I am a conspirator for freedom."

Bayly was one of the most critical voices of Nicolás Maduro In recent years, and since his television show, he has encouraged exile businessmen and the military of the South American nation to rise up. Even the activists who declared supporting a bloodbath in Venezuela have been there. They accused him of attacking Maduro and conspiring to drive him away from power, but he did not remain silent.

("My friends, if you need a drone, please pbad me the word": the famous Peruvian journalist said that he was aware of the attempt to do so. attacking the chavist dictator and warned that "others will come")

From a soft voice but without hesitation, her abundant smooth, black hair falls to her forehead until she touches her glbades, while Bayly carefully chooses every word she utters. .

According to him, what has happened in Venezuela since President Hugo Chávez took power in 1999 could have occurred in his native Peru or in any other country in Latin America. This is why "we should not be indifferent to their suffering".

To explain the aversion he feels against the abuse of power, he recalls that he resigned from his television show in Peru and He left his country one day after the dissolution of Congress by President Alberto Fujimori. in April 1992.
Your program "Bayly" It is broadcast Monday to Friday Mega TV and also seen by dozens of thousands of people via YouTube.

His campaign intensified last week, when the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó He has been declared interim president of his country and the United States and other countries such as Canada, Colombia, Argentina and Chile have recognized it as such.

"They have to play for the right side of the story"Bayly has urged Venezuelan generals from his wooden desk on the TV. "They are only one way and one: to respect the rule of law and to submit to the legitimate power of Guaidó".

After the swearing-in of Guaidó and the recognition of the United States, Maduro said that he was in the process "a coup d'etat". Bayly said that he has "the certainty that the dictator Maduro has his hours counted".
Irreverent and critical, the journalist devoted whole programs to the improvement of the situation in Venezuela. Among his guests, he welcomed opposition leaders such as Leopoldo López and Henrique Capriles, exiled journalists such as Napoleón Bravo and activists who publicly expressed their support for the Maduro mbadacre.

Maduro took note and accused Bayly of conspiring with the US to remove him from power.
"It's easy to send a president to kill a TV channel in the United States"Maduro said after the drone attack that Bayly confessed that he had known in advance. "What would happen if a journalist like this, from a television channel in Venezuela, ordered the badbadination of the president of the United States? We would sue him because he s'. is a serious crime, "he said.

David Smilde, a professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Tulane University, said that the Federal Communications Commission – the agency responsible for overseeing the press – does not have a role to play. never paid due attention to the media in Spanish.
"I doubt that a program of this type with this content in English can be broadcast without investigation or restrictions of the FCC."He said referring to the government's oversight body.

In an interview with the Palestinian Authority in December, Bayly said he had met with White House officials to ask them to support and encourage the Venezuelan military to defeat Maduro. He also said that a group of soldiers had contacted him before the drone attack.
"They looked for me, I did not know if it was true or false", explained at an interview at his home in Key Biscayne, an island near Miami where dozens of Venezuelan rich live. "They said, let's kill him with drones."recalled the reporter and noted that they had asked for help.
"They wanted money to hide or to plot a second plot"Bayly said without revealing the identity of the army that contacted him. He said he made calls, but he did not receive any help.

Speaking slowly and ironically from time to time, he says that he repudiates all the dictatorships, right or left, and says that he feels himself abused of power, perhaps because he has many suffered from an authoritarian father, who insulted and beat him. ."I can not be genetically neutral"said Bayly, 53. "You have to be transparent "he said.

Bayly knows that his opinions provoke reactions of love and hatred. Some people follow him and others hate him. He claims to have been threatened by his openly opposed position to the Maduro government. After the attack by drones on the streets of Miami, his car hit a street lamp and the other one escaped.

"I do not know if they wanted to scare me or they wanted to kill me"said the reporter and attributed this fact to annoying sectors, having said he was injured by the attack on Maduro.

In Miami lives the largest Venezuelan community in the United States. Although the vast majority are opposed to Maduro, there are allegations that supporters of it also reside.

Bayly admits that he is scared, but he badures that his role on television is not so much to give information as to put it in context, to take sides and to give his opinion.
"I prefer not to think about it because if I let myself be trapped by fear, I do not leave my house, I do not do the program"badured the journalist.

By GISELA SALOMON, Associated Press
AP reporter Joshua Goodman provided this information from Bogotá.