“I have five arrest warrants”

The latter, former president of the National Assembly of Venezuela and assistant of Miranda State between 2000-2005, 2010-2015 and 2016-2021, it did not take even 24 hours to decide. And, just as the Spanish government did regarding the possible connection of Basoa and Adasme with the National Identity Card In a Machiavellian plot to destroy the leader of the Chavista regime, Borges denied any responsibility or involvement.

“They blamed me for everything that happened to them,” he said in a conversation with SPANISH Since Madridthe city he has been living in since he decided to go into exile in 2021.I already have five arrest warrants. I have been accused of participating in many plots. Among them, the one where they said he was going to pilot a plane to Miraflores bomb. In another, he was going to steal the paper money; I was also criticized for the shortage of medicines. All this for our international role in asking the world to stand with the Venezuelan people and recognize Maduro for what he is: a dictator who threatens the entire West“.

QUESTION: Is there a conscious strategy of pointing the finger at external powers to fuel a kind of “persecution fever”?

ANSWER.- Maduro, since July 28, has been naked before the whole world for his monumental fraud. So he has decided to become a dictator, like North Korea, criminalizing any form of dissent and fabricating conspiracies to be able to imprison anyone who thinks differently. The important thing is that all this repression is going to generate more contradictions between them. It is going to fracture it. The first signs of internal cracks are beginning to appear.

Q. – But do the accusations of espionage against a socialist government that did not even vote in favor of recognizing Edmundo González as the legitimate winner of the elections make sense?

A.- The important thing is that President Sánchez dissociates himself from the Zapatero agenda, which has been the one that has predominated since July 28. Sánchez should have Boric’s position. This is the reference that is expected of the democratic left. It must be understood that Maduro is a dictator who threatens the entire West. And we must achieve a change in Venezuela and make it once again a reference for democracy and the future. Iran. Cuba. Russia. Ripe. No one will be able to defeat the Venezuelan people.

Q.– What role do you think Zapatero plays in the equation?

A.- He was the one who worked out the whole plan with Maduro to exile Edmundo González. In other words, Maduro was the bad cop who harassed Edmundo, and Zapatero presented himself as the good cop who saved him. But both are evil. President Sánchez now has a golden opportunity: to rectify the situation and respond to Maduro on his terms by recognizing Edmundo as president-elect, just as Parliament did.

Q. – What strategy have Chavez, and now Maduro, followed with regard to the media?

A.- In Venezuela, there are practically no media left. Not even digital, because they block them. Nor networks, because they minimize them. At first, the strategy was to close the media in Venezuela, as was the case with Radio Caracas Televisión. Then they moved on to a second phase, which was to create related media, and then they began to use corrupt members of the regime to buy other media, as was the case with Globovision, El Universal and others.

Borges considers Maduro’s strategy of capturing the two Spaniards to be nothing more than a smokescreen to divert attention; a strategy to use the hostages as “exchange tokens in a negotiation“. It wouldn’t be the first time. “Maduro imprisons foreign citizens and then negotiates with countries and bends their demands regarding the need for democracy and human rights in Venezuela. “Right now, a number of foreign citizens are being detained at the border with Colombia and not all foreigners can enter the country.”

The case of Adasme and Basoa, Borges believes, is not new. “Spain experienced it in Cuba with Angel Carromero when the death of Oswaldo Paya“. This is the car accident that, on July 22, 2012, in Cuba, cost the life of the leader of the opposition to the Cuban government and founder of the Varela Project group. The car was driven by Carromero, leader of the New Generations group of the Popular Party of Madrid, and a court took advantage of the event to find him guilty of negligent homicide, although he finally managed to escape conviction and return to Spain without any guilt.

“Maduro learned from the Cubans the strategy of capturing foreign citizens to use them as bargaining chips in negotiations and weaken the countries’ claims about the need for democracy in the country,” Borges continues. “We have already seen it with the United States and a significant number of citizens of that country who are then released in the negotiation processes. Maduro wants to divert Spain’s position by interlocuting Shoemaker. It operates regardless of who governs in Spain. But in the meantime, there have been many cases of Spanish Venezuelans, such as Rocio San Miguelwho continues to be arbitrarily detained.”

Maduro, in just one year, has closed more than 200 radio stations. “The role of the media is fundamental, especially to continue denouncing the abuses of the regime and to raise awareness in the world. That is why we are so concerned that in Europe Some media outlets maintain a rather ambiguous line of information on certain Venezuelan issues. But there are no more half-measures here. “Maduro is a dictator and Edmundo is the elected president of Venezuelans.”