JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Hu­man rights ac­tivist Sofia Figueroa-Leon says Venezue­lans across the globe are hop­ing for a regime change in Venezuela.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Figueroa-Leon said for 26 years, Venezue­lans have suf­fered, and with cur­rent US in­ter­ven­tion, based on al­le­ga­tions that Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro is a nar­co-traf­fick­er, they hope he will be re­moved from of­fice.

“Every­body wants Maduro to go. Every­body wants Maduro to fall. And some are so hope­ful that they think it’s go­ing to be like Mis­sion Im­pos­si­ble. A he­li­copter lands, the man is ex­tract­ed, and a new gov­ern­ment comes in, and Venezuela starts all over to­wards their fu­ture,” Figueroa-Leon said.

She said there is a clear di­vide in Venezuela, with the very wealthy, who are as­so­ci­at­ed with Maduro, and the ex­treme­ly poor who op­pose him. If Maduro is oust­ed, she said some nine mil­lion of a pop­u­la­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 28 mil­lion Venezue­lans who fled seek­ing bet­ter lives, will re­turn home.

De­spite this stance, Figueroa-Leon said she is against the killing of sup­posed nar­co-traf­fick­ers by the US in what in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies have la­belled as ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings. Her be­lief that the US will in­ten­si­fy their ac­tions is based on US his­to­ry, she said, as the US nor­mal­ly us­es neigh­bour­ing coun­tries be­fore in­vad­ing the tar­get­ed one. In that re­gard, she said there is mount­ing sup­port from Venezue­lans in the coun­try for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her sup­port of US ac­tion in the re­gion.

She warned, though, that the coun­try needs to be able to de­fend against drug traf­fick­ing with­out US in­ter­ven­tion, as their mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion will not be here for­ev­er.

Her warn­ing comes as the US mil­i­tary re­cent­ly in­stalled a radar in To­ba­go af­ter ban­ning flights over Venezuela’s air­space. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, how­ev­er, has said the radar has noth­ing to do with ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the US but is to help bet­ter lo­cal de­tec­tion of drug traf­fick­ers and greater bor­der pro­tec­tion.

“We al­so have to help our­selves by im­prov­ing our ca­pa­bil­i­ties, in­tel­li­gence-wise, po­lice-wise, Coast Guard-wise, pa­trolling-wise. Be­cause, I mean, we can’t wait for some oth­er coun­try to come in and do our clean­ing for us,” Figueroa-Leon said.

Al­so com­ment­ing on the on­go­ing ten­sion was so­cial ac­tivist Abeo Jack­son, who called on the Gov­ern­ment to ex­er­cise greater cau­tion in its deal­ing with the US and Venezuela.

“The in­stal­la­tion of the radar, the words that come to mind are abom­i­na­tion, heinous. The fact that we have of­fered To­ba­go as a sac­ri­fi­cial lamb in a lot of ways, and To­ba­go for the most part was kind of out of the con­ver­sa­tion, and the fact that they have been thrown in­to the mix, they’ve lit­er­al­ly be­come a tar­get be­cause any­where that has a radar that is specif­i­cal­ly for the pur­pos­es of mil­i­tari­sa­tion, for the pur­pos­es of war.”

She added that the radar is not for the pur­pose of bor­der pro­tec­tion, as claimed by the Prime Min­is­ter. Jack­son said Venezuela’s cur­rent predica­ment has a lot to do with the ef­fects of US sanc­tions in what she said was part of a grab for Venezuela’s re­sources.

“There are many peo­ple who would not agree with how their sit­ting gov­ern­ment would have han­dled cer­tain things and have their own grous­es. And they have a right to have their own grous­es. What we don’t have a right to do is stick our nose in­to our neigh­bour’s busi­ness on that lev­el and lit­er­al­ly fa­cil­i­tate the in­ter­fer­ence in their sov­er­eign­ty and their democ­ra­cy. That is not our role and func­tion. And how dare we think that we would be on the right side of his­to­ry to do some­thing of that na­ture,” Jack­son said.

She said while some Venezue­lans want Maduro gone, there are oth­ers still in Venezuela who want him to stay.