Venezuelan Interior Minister — and long-suspected drug lord — Diosdado Cabello on Thursday warned the socialist regime has the “monopoly on weapons” in the country in what appears to be a new show of strength from the strongman.
Cabello, a man actively wanted by U.S. authorities on multiple narco-terrorism charges and with a $25 million bounty on his head, appeared in the late night hours of Thursday at O’Leary Square in downtown Caracas alongside an assortment of armed Venezuelan law enforcement officials — including members of the DGCIM and SEBIN, two brutally repressive intelligence agencies at the service of the ruling rogue socialists.
After stating the date and time, the socialist strongman said that the first purpose of the video was to “inform the world that Venezuela is at peace.” The footage was broadcasted by VTV, the Venezuelan regime’s flagship propaganda television channel and then shared by Venezuelan outlets throughout social media.
“Venezuelans are at peace. We have been slowly recovering after the attack against our people, against the peace of the country, which ended with the kidnapping of our brother President Nicolás Maduro and our beloved comrade Cilia Flores,” Cabello said.
“Venezuela is at peace, and one of the fundamental reasons that Venezuela is at peace and that peace is guaranteed is that the Venezuelan state has a monopoly on weapons,” he continued. “The weapons are in the possession of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces and the state security forces.”
“Possession of weapons has allowed us to maintain control, so that no group or individual can claim responsibility for acts of violence other than those committed in the early hours of January 3 by the government of the United States,” he concluded.
Cabello is widely considered to be the Venezuelan regime’s most powerful strongman and, as Interior Minister and “Sectoral vice president for Policy, Citizen Security, and Peace,” is in control of the regime’s repressive apparatus.
Following the United States’ capture of deposed dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, Cabello has threatened Venezuelans under the purported premise that “to doubt is to betray.”
Venezuelan law enforcements officials and members of the Colectivos socialist armed gangs are presently deployed across Venezuela to intimidate and arrest individuals who celebrate Maduro’s downfall. José Antonio Colina, president of the non-government organization Venezuelans Persecuted Politically in Exile (VEPPEX), explained to Breitbart News this week that Cabello is at the forefront of the intimidation campaign.
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“When it happened [Maduro’s capture], everyone celebrated in the streets of Madrid, Doral, Colombia; no one came out in Venezuela for fear of being victimized by the regime’s repressive apparatus,” Colina told Breitbart News. “It is clear that anyone caught celebrating will be thrown in jail.”
On Wednesday, Cabello hosted a new, noticeably somber episode of his weekly socialist show Con el Mazo Dando (“Hitting with the Mallet”), where he accused the United States of allegedly “murdering” people unrelated to the operation to capture Maduro. At press time, Cabello did not offer proof of his claims.
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