A major investigation into the jailed leader of Venezuela’s opposition movement, Leopoldo López. Last February, López turned himself in to authorities after they issued a warrant for his arrest for inciting violent anti-government protests that left more than 40 people dead. President Nicolás Maduro dismisses him as a criminal. But López’s supporters call him a political prisoner and accuse Maduro is silencing a voice of dissent.
Roberto Lovato talking:
Leopoldo López is a unique phenomenon, I think, in Latin American political—recent Latin American political history, in terms of being someone who, on the one hand, Newsweek calls a “revolutionary who has it all” and, quote, someone who has, quote, “twinkling chocolate-colored eyes.” I’ve never seen in all my time covering social movements and revolutionary movements in Latin America—seen this kind of attention paid to a figure of an opposition movement in Latin America, a Latin America that, remember, has turned away from U.S. policy and from the U.S. And so, you have someone who’s called a revolutionary by Newsweek, who at the same time is unlike—you know, his movement, unlike most Latin American movements, is supported by U.S. policy, as versus opposed to it. The opposition in Venezuela gets U.S. funding, instead of being opposed by U.S. funding.
So, you know, last year, we saw a lot of violence. We also saw people killed. And one of the reasons that I undertook this story was that I noticed that there was a difference between what we saw last year, in terms of the immense awakening in Hollywood suddenly to Venezuela, from Jared Leto, Madonna, Cher tweeting and talking about the opposition and López, and what was actually on the streets, which was that there were 43 people killed. But you didn’t hear about the people that were Chavistas that were killed, people like a young man named Elvis Duran, 29-year-old cyclist, motorcyclist, who was beheaded by barbed wire put out by the opposition in Venezuela. So, I decided I wanted to look at the opposition. And I thought, “Well, what better way to look at the opposition than to look at one of its rising stars, its leader, Leopoldo López?”
Leopoldo López is descended from Simón Bolívar through his mom, who has a line that runs to Simón Bolívar’s sister. And he’s been compared to Gandhi and Mandela and other prominent figures in global human rights. And he, by his own admission, comes out of the 1 percent. He did an interview with his high school newspaper, at Hun High School, which was a high school where Saudi princes have gone, where the children of CEOs, Fortune 500 CEOs, and the son of a president have gone. So, by his own admission, he comes from the 1 percent and has risen to where he is now because he comes from a prominent family and because he’s a capable organizer, according to U.S. State Department cables.
his mother is one of the executives of the Cisneros Group, which is probably the largest media company in South America. one of the largest media conglomerates in the world is the Cisneros Group, with stations and networks all over the world. His mother is a senior executive. It’s interesting. He has a lot of family connections that are in media. His mother is with the Cisneros Group, this large conglomerate. His father is on the editorial board, according to El Espectador in Colombia, of El Nacional newspaper. His wife is a reality show star, TV—former TV host and radio jock. And he’s also very connected to people here in the U.S., like former Republican operatives like Robert Gluck, who runs a PR firm and previously was working on Lamar Alexander and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign, for example, to get Gray Davis out of office. And he also has connections to people like a gentleman named Leonardo Alcivar, who did communications for the Romney campaign, and worked with the Bush administration.
So, you know, I looked into statements by different figures. I interviewed members of his family. I interviewed his allies. And I had people like Gluck, Robert Gluck, tell me that he was—you know, that they have this volunteer effort called Friends for a Free Venezuela. And when I asked Gluck if he was being paid for his—for what he did, he stalled, and then he said, “Yes,” and told me that he was being paid by Leopoldo López’s family. So—and this is the gentleman who said in the news—and I quote—that to call Leopoldo López right-wing is the, “ultimate in Orwellian doublespeak.”
So, Leopoldo López comes from a very wealthy, influential, well-connected family that I think serves him in his rise to power through, first, Primero Justicia party, up to now, his party, Voluntad Popular. And throughout, you see a figure that’s also been very divisive. If you look at State Department cables that say that he is, “power-hungry and vindictive,” and at the same time describing him as a good organizer.
He’s accused of, you know, arson and incitement in last year’s upheavals that we saw in Venezuela. And he had a lot of other charges against him, but those were dropped. And, you know, his trial has had these fits and starts, and it’s been going on for quite some times. And according to one of the preeminent pollsters of Venezuela, Vicente León, Luis Vicente León, he’s actually—his time in jail is benefiting his political career, because he’s perceived as a political prisoner. That’s surely the case in the international arena, although in Venezuela the opinion about Leopoldo López is divided, as is public opinion generally. And that’s not really come out in our media, just like those Chavista dead that I mentioned early up front, that you don’t hear about the beheaded—the people that were beheaded by the opposition. You don’t hear about the Chavista dead. You heard about the people that the Chavistas killed.
I think you look at the constitution and the way that people around López, as I document in my article, are or aren’t committed, or in López himself, are committed to democracy in terms of the constitution, and the constitution that was shredded by something called the Carmona Decree and the coup. López and his lawyers, Jared Genser and José Maes, make statements denying that he had any role, when in fact, if you look at my article, López was involved in activities like a PDVSA general strike and a protest, and has made statements like on your early tape where he’s clearly supporting the coup, even though he was not a signator to the document, the Carmona accord, that his own father, who I interviewed also, signed. I interviewed López’s father, not López, and his father told me that he signed an attendance sheet, when, you know, you can see videos that there was a call to sign the accord.
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Roberto Lovato, writer and visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for Latino Policy Research.
— source democracynow.org