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My name is Jose. I was born in Latin America, specifically Caracas, Venezuela. I was raised by a Christian family who hosted US missionaries frequently. So, I was a bilingual Christian by age ten. Nowadays, I am just a bilingual sinner.
Because I always felt other Venezuelan people should learn English, I became an English teacher when I was 24. Then I came to live in the USA for the first time in 2004 and got a Master of Arts in Education at Hamline University.
Unlike other Venezuelan people at Hamline, I ignored the opportunity of using my J visa to gain permanent residence in the United States and returned to Venezuela as soon as I had finished my Master's degree in 2006. I was very excited about a crazy President who, by then, had already helped the excluded side of Venezuelan people (mostly dark-skinned ones) to get literacy programs and get urgent health care, and identity card. As many readers may already suspect, this president was Hugo Chavez. This man was determined to fight against traditional Venezuelan people and to empower excluded people.
Hugo Chavez was wrong and right at the same time for numerous reasons. My point is not to discuss that here today. But I usually say that Chavez brought inclusion to a pit of corruption and that the result is hence the democratization of corruption. One of the bad things that derived from this inclusion process was that people who had become used to crime as a way of living had been included without much reflection on the fact that crime is not part of being a fine citizen of any country.
Many formerly excluded people were able to study and get a bachelor's degree and went ahead to get better lives. Many other formerly excluded individuals took this opportunity to become even greater criminals. Some great criminals were not even excluded and some formerly excluded people were never never crime. However, crime grew.
I didn't know crime growth was going to change my life. I was aware of the risk of suddenly getting shot in the head if I refused to let someone holding a gun take my car. So, I was prepared to surrender my car or any valuables if someone with a gun asked for it.
I was also aware of the fact that I could die on the road where no speed limits rule. Heavy vehicles aren't consistently checked. Many people drive under the influence of alcohol and/or other drugs. And, I also learned to love speed.
Anyway, I was pretty happy to live in a country where the landscape and the weather are so great. I was disappointed to see so many undereducated Venezuelan people littering and trashing such a paradise. But I was certain that someday and somehow, things would get better. I thought I could contribute to this end and I enjoyed meeting people with similar mindsets.
I had many friends in Venezuela who were willing and eager to make Venezuela a better place. One of them was the wife of my father's only brother. She was a Swiss woman who had been raised in Venezuela and had decided to settle there, abandoning Switzerland as birthplace. Her name was Maria Spinas but we called her Clelia, her second name.
Clelia and I often talked about how to improve Venezuela, its institutions, its people, culture, etc. She was a civil engineer and had her own construction company in Eastern Venezuela.
One day, she decided to dissolve the company and contribute as an engineer within the government. By 2008, she was working as an inspector for the Venezuelan ministry of housing. She was in charge of evaluating certain buildings and construction sites before signing the delivery of trust funds to the contractors executing the projects.
On March 8th, 2009, Maria Clelia invited me to have dinner at her apartment after finding out that I was visiting her city. I gladly attended and we talked for several hours, as usual. Unlike other times, we did not vaguely explore general topics regarding life, history, culture and other subjects regarding Venezuela, Switzerland or the USA. This time, she was shocked because she had found out that some people (a private contractor, a bank manager and the Mayor of a city in her state) had forged her signature as an inspector and had released government trust funds.
She told me all about it while she held a folder with more details. She spent hours while I became shocked as well. At one point, I told her that these people may be coming after her because she had been reporting this to the main offices of the ministry, which told her to ignore the corrupt group's crimes. Clelia said she was not afraid. That was the phrase she said that I first recalled when, three days later, her ex-husband (my uncle) called me and told me that she had been murdered in her own apartment --the same apartment where we had had dinner talking about corrupt mafias that may want to have her killed.
Of course, I was very sad. But, after a couple of hours, I became really angry. Suddenly, I remembered that I was working for a journalist in London for whom I translated news reports on Venezuela. This man was Roy S. Carson. He owned and ran a website by the name of www.vheadline.com, a news outlet about Venezuela in English.
I decided to send Mr. Carson an email explaining to him all the details I recalled from my conversation with Clelia during dinner.
Several articles denouncing the murderous mafia network were published on Mr. Roy's website and this generated pressure on top Venezuelan politicians through Venezuelan diplomatic missions in English-speaking countries, which read Carson's website frequently.
The following list of people were found to belong to this terribly corrupt mafia and have been involved in numerous crimes against public Venezuelan funds. These people and their connections in other local governments were behind any journalist or informant who may potentially unveil other corrupt operations.
Former Mayor of Guanipa, Freddy Arriojas
Former Mayor of Guanipa Pedro Martínez,
Former municipality council deputies at the Guanipa city hall:
Vilma Marín,
Elizabeth de Mendoza,
Mayra Silva,
Andrés Fajardo,
Carmen Macuare,
Efrén Ruiz
and Alexis Galindo.
Also former Manager at Banco Guayana and former director of Housing (Vivienda) in the town of Guanipa, Argenis Lozada.
These people, along with higher-ranking politicians in the Venezuelan dictatorship harass, torture and murder people like myself. In my case, as you can read in my four current posts and the subsequent 29 to be posted, I was arrested and threatened with a ten-year conviction in exchange for $20,000. My reputation was damaged on local newspapers and a criminal record was opened on me. My bodyguard's motorcycle was confiscated. Then, he was arrested and told to call me asking me for $5,000. And finally, he was shot in order to get rid of my only protection. I fled Venezuela and informed the French government about this.
I have opened this steemit blog in order to let everyone know about my aunt's story. Please read all my other posts to get more details about this sad story and support change in Venezuela's cultural and political system.
Maria Clelia Spinas Dora