The US Immigration and Customs (ICE) has detained Rafael Jose Cuero Silva, a former Venezuelan military officer living in the United States who has been accused of suppressing and torture students protesting against socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro. El Nuevo Herald It has been reported on sunday.
Cuero Silva, a former colonel of Venezuela's Bolivaria National Guard (GNB) and commander of GNB detachment 47, is reportedly under an FBI investigation into accusations of committing human rights abuses against Venezuelan opposition protesting against Lala's Venezuelan state's maduro system between 2013 and 2017.
At the time of writing, Ice's online detainee locator system It is listed Quero Silva is in custody at the Krome North Service Processing Center in Ice in Miami, Florida.
“Two victims reported him to the FBI. I also criticized him, spoke with FBI agents, and they were investigating him,” said Jose Antonio Colina, a retired Venezuelan soldier and political exile. El Nuevo HeraldFlorida-based Spanish newspaper, Sunday.
Corina, who leads the group known as the Venezuelan, was politically persecuted in exile (Veppex), and Quero Silva moved to America with his wife and children, and his stepfather also resides in the United States through an “investment visa.”
Corina further argued that Quero Silva will be subject to immigration lawsuits. He added that after supporting Venezuela's socialist regime, he considered it “pathetic” to be “hidden” in the United States.
Quero Silva moved to the US and at some point in 2017 demanded political asylum with his family, Voice of America (VOA) It has been reported Monday cited the Venezuelan press. Venezuelan politicians and representatives of civil rights groups accused Quero Silva of suppressing and torture dissidents in Venezuela's Lala state during two protests between 2013 and 2014.
Venezuela was protested in mid-2013 after dictator Hugo Chavez died of a private type of cancer in March 2013.I won“Depending on a voting margin of about 1.5%. Before his death, Chavez appointed Maduro as vice president in late 2012. This allowed Maduro effectively to assume the interim presidency of Venezuela from the moment his predecessor died.
The significantly narrow “results” converted to a difference of about 223,000 votes sparked nationwide protests. These demonstrations eventually fell after “opposition” presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski, who first contested the outcome – his followers urged them to stop the protest. suggestion What they play salsa Instead, it was music during Maduro's inauguration.
A year after 2014, Venezuela's “opposition” was L'Asarida (“Exit”) The aim was to drive out Maduro and put an end to Venezuela's socialist regime. Like the 2013 protest, the 2014 protest reportedly killed more than 40 people, injured nearly 500 people and arrested over 1,800, but ultimately failed in the expulsion of Maduro. They instead saw the “opposition” with the administration Engage In the round of negotiation It did not create a single meaningful step to restoring Venezuela's democracy.
According to the VOA, Quero Silva was “directly linked” to the arrest and torture of opposition during both protests. Speaking to US government-funded broadcasters, Andres Cormenares, a Venezuelan opposition who was expelled in Spain, claimed that the FBI interviewed him in 2019 as a witness to a US investigation into Quero Silva's alleged actions in Venezuela. Cormenales Quero Silva described as “a very strict character” He personally led the crackdown on civil society in Lala between 2013 and 2014.
“Kero Silva was the mastermind who ordered the siege of Lala, not just citizen protests, but what became known as the siege of private housing developments in cities such as Ilivalen and Paravecino,” political asylum said. “He was one of those who placed military tanks in front, joined the development of housing behind some soldiers, attacked private property, and posed arbitrary arrests and direct threats to people.”
Cormenales, who leads a Venezuelan civil rights group known as Funpaz, told VoA that the group had requested President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a bipartisan US senator to act to prevent Kero Silva from being deported to Venezuela. Instead, they called for him to go to court in America.
“As an organization and as a victim, if he is deported to Venezuela, he is either accepted as a hero or his crimes will not be punished. We have absolutely no faith in Venezuela's justice,” Cormenales said.
Doricer Alvarado, a Venezuelan journalist in 2018 Condemnation Quero Silva was part of Miami's Hispanic TV network as a soap opera, where he played the role of a police officer. Alvarado found a former military official at a 2017 event in Florida and claimed she was nervous due to the previous persecution she endured while reporting on the 2013-2014 protests in Kerosilva and Lara.
“It was partly because of him that I left Venezuela,” Alvarado said. “In the midst of oppression, journalists covering the demonstrations were persecuted by military intelligence.”
Christian K. Calzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
