From official terror to article 350 - 6) Luisa and Leopoldo are nothing

On rare occasions in spite of all my daily turmoils I do sense a certain elation. As an history buff I am keenly aware that I am in the middle of History, with a capital H.  Be it when I listen to grenade explosions in Caracas from my patio, or whether I am gassed directly, be it Leopoldo being "freed" or whether Diosdado (and others) announcing that they are about to take arms to defend the revolution, there is no need to have extrasensorial powers to gather that something big is taking place.

How have we reached such a point?

The fault is, of course, all in the regime. Besides wrecking the economy through looting, inefficiency, and breach of security by allowing free reign to narcos, the regime has lost its sense of "el pueblo", has become stubborn, stupidly and meanly stubborn. As such its mistakes are feeding the flames. That they may or not be stoked by Cuban interests is not even worthy of consideration. Cubans are arrogant enough to consider that their model applies everywhere and yet we see that in spite of Lula and the billions from Chavez commie supremacy has not been achieved.

There has been a major block to any possible solution to the Venezuelan crisis: about 2-3 dozen of military and high ranking chavistas who are implied in drug traffic, and even in covert support for terrorism. There is no exile for them, nowhere to hide. So they have taken the regime hostage by pushing the ante. And they pushed it too far as defections seem to be getting bigger than a trickle. The fact of the matter is that many inside chavismo see no need to immolate their future so that Tareck El Aissami or Diosdado Cabello or general Reverol can hide in comfort in Venezuela 'til kingdom comes.

That blockade, possibly forcing Maduro to take credit for it even if he could lose a lot for nothing, was a dangerous play at first. When the regime started annulling the National Assembly last year there could have been a time where some negotiation could have been possible, say until signatures for a recall election were gathered. Once these signatures were annulled, once the governor´s elections were annulled, once the "dialogue" was shown to be a crass fraud there was no other option left for the opposition but to take to the streets. And the regime obliged with further provocations, reaching the insane proposal of a new constitution which started finally peeling off chavistas. And more than 3 months of protest later and more than 90 deaths later even taking back the constitutional assembly plan may not solve anymore that political crisis. Not that the Diosdado group wants it to be solved, mind you!

We should keep our eyes on that reality, that the final result of all of this travail is the desperate fight for Diosdado and Tareck and X generalS to hold to power for dear life, the banned-to-be.

That the prosecutor of the nation's, Luisa Ortega is now in an open fight with chavismo is irrelevant. If she is removed from office tomorrow and jailed it would change nothing. Well, it may radicalize more the opposition and peel off yet more chavistas, but the point is that Luisa is just one of the cogs. The banned-to-be will remove Luisa and whomever they need to remove, and soon will start to kill directly as needed.

That Leopoldo has been "freed" Saturday is also irrelevant. It is so irrelevant that the regime is actually letting him speak and does not care whether Leopoldo is seeking a medical visit to justify the excuse for releasing it. The transfer of Leopoldo to his house arrest was an inner chavista fight, a coup from the ones that are getting tired being taken hostage by the banned-to-be group.  In fact, having made Leopoldo into the martyr of democracy and a near shoo-in as the next president, if elections are held, is irrelevant for chavismo now.

What matters now is whether the banned-to-be become the banned. We should root for the people that freed Leopoldo and have stopped so far the final removal of Luisa. If they fail the consequences may be terrible.

I just wish we knew who are we truly rooting for.