Venezuelans disappointed by failure to release more political prisoners
CBC
There was disappointment on the streets of Caracas on Friday as only a handful of prisoners emerged from the Heilcoide and other prisons, despite a promise from a major regime figure that a "significant" number of people would get their freedom.
Jorge Rodriguez, Chavista president of the National Assembly and older brother of acting president Delcy Rodriguez, had announced the releases as a goodwill gesture earlier in the day.
As of Friday afternoon, Foro Penal, an NGO that advocates for political prisoners in Venezuela, said that only nine had been released and 811 remained in prison.
Early reports had indicated that Juan Pablo Guanipa, perhaps the most prominent of the opposition leaders currently held by the regime, would be freed. But that liberation failed to occur.
There was also frustration and heartbreak for family members and friends of detainees in Canada, including Guanipa's childhood friend Luz Urdaneta in Calgary.
"It's just hard to believe that somebody so hard-working and so dedicated to the well-being of the country is a prisoner, and without contact, without rights," she told CBC News.
Guanipa was arrested last May, after playing an active role in the election campaign of opposition candidates Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado. He is a former governor of Zulia state, home to Venezuela's second-largest city Maracaibo, and a former vice-president of the National Assembly.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Guanipa's arrest "unjustified and arbitrary" at the time, and "reaffirmed the United States' support for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela and the release of all political prisoners."
But since the operation to capture Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, the Trump administration appears to have changed its tune on the restoration of democracy to Venezuela, and does not appear to be using the leverage it claims it has over the rump Maduro regime to demand the immediate release of prisoners.
In comments laying out the U.S. plan this week, Rubio said the Trump administration intended to complete a first phase of "stabilization" of Venezuela before moving on to a second phase of "recovery" at an unspecified later date. Only in that second phase would the administration "begin to create the process of reconciliation nationally within Venezuela, so that the opposition forces can be amnestied and released from prisons."
Friends and family members of the detained, many of whom have suffered torture and severe deprivation in inhumane conditions, say the delay is inexplicable.
"What are we waiting for? Why? Why do we keep those people suffering for no reason?" said Urdaneta.
Like many Venezuelans, Urdaneta supported the capture of Maduro. But she has found some statements by the Trump administration since then raise doubts about its intentions.
"Really the credibility of of Trump administration, I think, is on the plate, and we are all expecting for them to follow what they promised, right? Which is a democratic country with free elections, beneficial to all Venezuelans."
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