Note: I am not at home today and do not have access to a computer. As a result, today’s update will be short. I will resume regular updates tomorrow.
The Foreign Affairs Ministers of Colombia and Venezuela (Maria Angela Holguín and Delay Rodriguez, respectively) will meet in Ecuador today to discuss the ongoing border crisis.
Jorge Rodriguez Mocks Santos
Speaking at an event in Caracas yesterday, the head of the PSUV, Jorge Rodriguez, mocked a comment made by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos who said earlier this week that “the Bolivarian revolution is destroying itself“.
Rodriguez repeated a contentious assertion that 140,000 Colombians immigrate to Venezuela every year. Maduro has cited a similar figure of 120,000, although Migration Colombia has said that only 8,000 Colombians have migrated to Venezuela this hear.
In response to Santos’ comments, Rodríguez said:
140,000 masochists from the Republic of Colombia have come to live in this hell that is destroying itself.
WP Editorial Condemns López Verdict
An editorial piece published in The Washington Post called Leopoldo Lopez’s prison sentence “absurd”, and said that calling it a “complete travesty of justice” “gives it more credit than it deserves“.
The editorial points out that fact that despite presenting 108 witnesses, the prosecution was unable to provide any evidence that Lopez was guilty of the crimes with which he was charged. At the same time, 58 out of the 60 witnesses presented by the defence were rejected out of hand by the judge, and the remaining two refused to testify.
The editorial ends on a grim note: it highlights the fact that political prosecution like the one Lopez faced is ongoing, and that the government is “working to manipulate the vote” in the December 6 parliamentary election.
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