Since the days of socialist dictator Hugo Chavez and right into the reign of his dictatorial successor Nicolas Maduro, the communist Castro regime has effectively controlled Venezuela. The massive electoral fraud that took place on July 28 and the violent repression of peaceful protesters that took place afterward and continues to this day exposes the Cuban dictatorship’s role.
James Brooke explains in The Sun:
Cuba Shows Its Hand in Venezuela as Maduro Applies Lessons Learned at Havana
Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has some of the world’s best tutors on how to cling to power: Communist Cubans. While Venezuelans complain that their disastrous socialist revolution has dragged on for 25 years, few Cubans remember anything but Communism. This year marks 65 years since the Communists took power in Cuba. In a decade, they could overtake the Soviets, who ruled Russia for 74 years.
In 1986, seeking to export one-party rule around the Caribbean and Latin America, Cuban recruiters identified a promising young Caracas bus driver, a rising trade unionist without a high school diploma. Nicolás Maduro proved to be an excellent investment. The 24-year-old Maduro was flown across the Caribbean to Havana, where he joined other Latin American leftists studying the basics of Marxism, American imperialism, and socialist revolution.
Mr. Maduro’s all-expenses-paid year was spent at the Communist Youth League’s Escuela Nacional de Cuadros Julio Antonio Mella. Named after the founder of the Moscow-line Communist Party of Cuba in 1925, the school taught promising Latin American leftists how to seize power — and how to keep it. The curriculum did not feature free speech and multi-party elections.
At this institute a few blocks from Havana’s historic port, the young Venezuelan found a mentor in one guest lecturer, Pedro Miret Prieto. At age 59, this stalwart of the Cuban Revolution was one generation ahead of Mr. Maduro. A trusted friend of Fidel Castro and a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo, Mr. Miret ended up holding high posts in the Cuban government for 50 years.
Mr. Maduro was recruited by the Castro government to serve as a “mole” for Cuba’s main intelligence agency, the Dirección de Inteligencia, according to a book by a former Venezuelan Army commander-in-chief, Carlos Peñaloza. Mr. Maduro’s assignment was to bond with a charismatic, rising officer in Venezuela’s army, Hugo Chávez.
After a failed coup attempt in 1992, Chávez went on to win four presidential elections, starting in 1999. Always nearby was Mr. Maduro, his eventual political successor. After succeeding Chávez as president of Venezuela in 2013, Mr. Maduro maintained close ties with Cuba and with Cuba’s intelligence services.
On Monday, that link was visible when a congratulatory call came from the dean of Latin American political survivors, Raúl Castro. Now 93 years old, Mr. Castro first came to power with his older brother Fidel 65 years ago. Although Raúl Castro stepped down three years ago as first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, he is still considered the ultimate power on the island.
Continue reading HERE.