The accusation came to light as a result of the scandal over the funds delivered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with great media impact and as the executive secretary of ALBA-TCP, Jorge Arreaza, said “fell the masks” of imperialism.
President Nicolás Maduro revealed in his Monday program Con Maduro +, that the USAID gave the opposer Juan Guaidó; Leopoldo López, María Corina Machado, Julio Borges and Antonio Ledezma, 1.72 billion dollars “for humanitarian aid.”
The US Agency said “what we already knew”, he said, and pointed out that they “stole with both hands, they put their hands in the pocket of Donald Trump, who was president of the United States at that time and they deceived him vilely”. The head of State stressed that they put their hands in his pocket to conspire and steal from the American taxpayers, “but fortunately we knew how to resist, we defeated them and now we are going after them,” he said.
“One day we are going to put the hooks on Guaidó and that whole gang of thieves and scammers,” he said.
Maduro hinted that through the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Southern Command and other agencies of the US Administration, “as much money or more than that came in (to Venezuela).”
In that context, the Minister for Internal Relations, Justice and Peace Diosdado Cabello announced the opening of an investigation in the country on the USAID case, which “is a scandal,” he said.
“Nobody is going to cover that up, there is no way they will try to cover it up,” he stressed, and affirmed that the money is linked to media outlets, salaried stooges whose only job was to attack their own country.
Cabello pointed out that only two percent of the resources delivered were audited and “the rest was stolen,” he added.
The executive secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) said on Telegram: “The masks have fallen! Imperialism exposes its interventions with political objectives in the world through resources from USAID.”
Arreaza described the Venezuelan case as pathetic, in which Non-Governmental Organizations “with respect to the government of Venezuela, but very governmental with respect to Washington,” set up a whole network to receive resources with political objectives. Under the umbrella of the supposed Humanitarian Aid Plan, “they created disaster with funds from the same country that attacks its own people with sanctions and denies them the right to prosper. Shameful!” he said.
Also this week, the National Electoral Council (CNE) changed the date for the elections for Parliament, governors and state legislative councils to May 25, which was originally set for April 27.
This change responded to the requests of the various actors in the democratic life of the nation, who decided to participate “fully and actively in the electoral process called” by the electoral body, explained the president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso.
On April 27, however, the second popular consultation will be organized in the more than five thousand communal circuits of the country, where the people choose their own development projects.
Amoroso specified that the changes in dates were made with the “intention of facilitating and promoting” the participation of the different factors of society.
In light of this change, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) reported that the nominations of candidates of the political force to be held this weekend were moved to March 15, in accordance with the decision of the Electoral Power.
According to the secretary general of the PSUV Diosdado Cabello, the change of date will sharpen the internal conflict between the opposition groups.
Since the elections to choose the National Assembly, governors and state legislative councils were for April 27, there was going to be someone left, “but since they will now be on May 25, there will be no one left. They are going to fight each other!” he added.
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