Caracas mayor arrested

[frigidmagi]

CNN

(CNN)Political chaos roiled oil-rich Venezuela Friday after intelligence agents in the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro arrested the mayor of Caracas. The arrest came just days after Maduro accused the mayor of involvement in a plot to overthrow the government.

Agents arrested Mayor Antonio Ledezma -- a well-known opposition politician -- on Thursday in a raid that sparked a fierce outcry from the president's political opponents.

President Nicolas Maduro said the mayor will be prosecuted "so that he answers for all of the crimes committed against the peace, security and constitution of our country."

In a televised address, Maduro said Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma was captured by order of the Attorney General's Office.

A high-level Venezuelan military source with knowledge of the situation told CNN en Español the mayor was taken into custody because of his alleged involvement in a plot to overthrow the government an accusation Maduro leveled last week. Ledezma denied it, calling it the government's latest attempt to manufacture controversy and target political opponents.

In 2009, Ledezma staged a hunger strike to protest the political tactics of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

His attorney, Omar Estacio, decried his detention. Ledezma was "virtually kidnapped," Estacio said, calling it "a violation of the most fundamental principles of Venezuelan law and international law."

The mayor's office told CNN en Español that more than 150 intelligence agents participated in Thursday's raid.

"They destroyed the doors," his wife, Mitzy Capriles, told CNN en Español. "There was no room for mediation. (My husband) was asking them to please stay calm and was asking what was going on. Abruptly, pushing and shoving, and without saying a word a gigantic, enormous contingent of agents, who were all over the place on the sixth-floor office where he works part of the day, took him away."

Richard Blanco, an opposition Venezuelan lawmaker whose office is also in the building, said he witnessed Ledezma's arrest.

"They pushed me as well and they pointed their guns at me," he said. "They broke the metropolitan mayor's office glass doors with a sledgehammer."

Opposition leaders said Ledezma was a political prisoner unjustly held by the government.

Word of his detention spread rapidly on social media after a Twitter post from the mayor's account Thursday evening said his office had been surrounded by police.

Mi oficina pretende ser allanada en este momento por varios policias del régimen, torre Exa, el Rosal.

— Antonio Ledezma (@alcaldeledezma) February 19, 2015
About 90 minutes later, another tweet from the account, purportedly written by the mayor's wife, said he had been beaten and detained without any arrest warrant.

"I hold Maduro responsible for the life of my husband," the tweet said.

Escribe Mitzy, la esposa de Antonio. Lo golpearon y llevaron detenido sin orden judicial. Hago responsable a Maduro por la vida de mi esposo

— Antonio Ledezma (@alcaldeledezma) February 19, 2015
Accusations of coup conspiracies have a long history in Venezuela. A coup briefly removed Chavez from office in 2002.

In his national broadcast Thursday night, Maduro repeated accusations that his government had blocked a U.S.-backed opposition coup plot that included plans to attack the presidential palace with a military jet.

"Enough already with vampires who conspire against peace," he said.

Maduro's accusations spurred a sharp response from the U.S. State Department, which called them "baseless and false."

"The United States is not promoting unrest in Venezuela nor are we attempting to undermine Venezuela's economy or its government. We remain Venezuela's largest trading partner," State Department spokesman Jen Psaki said in a statement Thursday night.

"Venezuela's economic and political problems are the result of the policies of the Venezuelan government. The Venezuelan government should stop attempting to distract attention from the country's economic and political problems and focus on finding real solutions through democratic dialogue among Venezuelans."

The accusations and the Caracas mayor's arrest come as opposition protesters mark the one-year anniversary of a wave of anti-government demonstrations that rocked Venezuela and led to the arrest of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez.

[Lys]

I can't offer much in the way of useful commentary here since I don't folow Venezuela politics that closely, so instead I'm going to share amusing trivia: Caracas has six mayors. You know how the City of New York is divided into five boroughs? Well, the Metropolitan District of Caracas is divided into five municipalities: Libertador, Chacao, Baruta, Sucre, and El Hatillo. In what can only be described as a bureaucratic nightmare imagined in the depths of hell by Satan himself, every single one of the municipalities has its own mayor, administrative structure, laws, and police force. Additionally the Meteropolitan District, which is to say the five municipalities together, also has a mayor, administrative structure, laws, and police force.

Now, to be fair, it's generally the case that any given city in the USA will have two local administrative structures: city and county. The difference is that usually in the US the city administration ranks below the county administration, whereas in Caracas it's the other way around. You could argue that this is necessary given that the Liberator municipality, which makes up about half the city, is located inside the Federal Capital District, whereas the other four municipalities are located in the state of Miranda. You'd be wrong, but you could argue it.

In fact until the Chavez' first constitutional rewrite back in 1999, there was no Metropolitan District. The Federal Capital District and its single municipality were effectively the city of Caracas in the way that DC is the city of Washington, while the other four municipalities were suburbs in the way that Bethseda is a suburb. I imagine it was changed because Chavez wanted to make sure he had a party loyalist controlling the capital, and Libertador tends to be swingy. Point in fact, it was Ledezma who was mayor at the time, though he lost the re-election to a Chavista anyway.

Now the position of metropolitan mayor had been controlled by Chavista mayors since its inception in 2000 until 2008, when Ledezma was elected. Then in 2009, with his usual respect for the democratic process, Chavez decided to transfer most of the powers and authority held by the metropolitan mayor to the head of the Federal Capital District, who in turn would be appointed by him. This lead to, among other things, the disbandment of the Metropolitan Police, with the personnel being transferred to the new National Bolivarian Police. This means Ledezma holds little in the way of actual power and authority, which doesn't exactly put him in a position to be plotting any coups.

On a tangential side note, I continue to hate how Simon Bolivar, a wealthy aristocrat who ruled like a military dictator and loved Colombia more than his home country, is somehow held up as some kind of populist socialist revolutionary by the entire Chavista movement. He fucking wasn't! Jesus Christ, why can't they all be like the other communists and name their shit Revolutionary This or People's That instead of tarnishing the man's name? National Revolutionary Police would have been perfectly acceptable!