The military Alí de Jesús Uzcátegui Duque, current ambassador of Venezuela's regime to Austria, was, according to El Universal, the director of the basic school of the Military Forces in Maracay in 2002.
Uzcátegui rose to prominence because he was the one sent by Baduel to the Orchila Island that year to bring back the former coup monger and then president Chávez to Caracas. Chávez had been deposed for less than two days but Baduel and other military rethought their stance and decided to put Chávez back in office. Uzcátegui was then appointed as Director of Military Intelligence as prize for his behaviour. Baduel is a former friend of Chávez now in prison for falling out of love with Chávez and/or corruption, depending on what opinion you hear.
Uzcátegui graduated from the military academy in 1976 and he was actually in the same group with Baduel. Uzcátegui, unlike Baduel, remained loyal to the "comandante eterno". While Baduel became a maverick, Uzcátegui kept close to power.
Uzcátegui rose to prominence because he was the one sent by Baduel to the Orchila Island that year to bring back the former coup monger and then president Chávez to Caracas. Chávez had been deposed for less than two days but Baduel and other military rethought their stance and decided to put Chávez back in office. Uzcátegui was then appointed as Director of Military Intelligence as prize for his behaviour. Baduel is a former friend of Chávez now in prison for falling out of love with Chávez and/or corruption, depending on what opinion you hear.
Uzcátegui graduated from the military academy in 1976 and he was actually in the same group with Baduel. Uzcátegui, unlike Baduel, remained loyal to the "comandante eterno". While Baduel became a maverick, Uzcátegui kept close to power.
The man was made secretary general of the National Defence Council in 2007. Just a few months later Uzcátegui was sent to Austria to become the Venezuelan ambassador. He had also been director to one of Chávez's countless foundations, the Fundación Proyecto País, between 2005 and some time before it was closed down in 2008. General Uzcátegui was married between 1979 and 2011. Mario Silva apparently mentioned him in his infamous interview with a Cuban operative in Venezuela, which was leaked last year. Mario Silva said there Uzcátegui was one of the military "they" (the Cubans?) could trust to become minister of Defence or be close to the minister of Defence.
And now he is in Austria and, according to this article, he put a school under pressure to sack a Venezuelan woman working there who had taken part in a march in Vienna for human rights in Venezuela. His embassy had apparently sent a picture of the woman in the march and asked the school to sack her because Maduro is the "legal president". Apparently, this military doesn't know in Europe you can march to demand the head of State to step down. And now Austrians know what we always knew: employees of the Venezuelan embassy in Austria -like elsewhere- take pictures of Venezuelan dissidents and use those pictures for bullying or worse.
I am still waiting for the Austrian foreign office to tell us what is really going on in Austria.
You can watch a boring speech of military Alí de Jesús Uzcátegui Duque introducing another speech by writer* Britto García, an old communist during an event in Bratislava, Slovakia. The usual mantra propagated by officialdom abroad goes like this:
- there was a coup against Chávez (true but they don't mention the military were the main responsible for that and they don't mention Chávez carried out an even bloodier coup in 1992 against a democratic government) and everyone opposing Chávez and now Maduro is a fascist
- there is now some kind of "marriage" between the civil society and the military - the unión cívico militar
* Britto's merits as a writer might be the source of dispute, I took away the quotation marks I had initially, see comments for reason
No reason to put writer between quotation marks. Luis Britto García is a writer, and a good one, with obviously abhorrent political ideas. :)
ReplyDeleteReally? I tried to read some of his stuff, but I didn't like what I read. Even his spelling is bad and I don't think it was some literary innovation. OK, de gustibus non est disputandum but I doubt he would get a literary prize not sponsored by the Cuban government or a very lefty organisation :-)
DeleteTiene razo Henry G, es un escritor y muy bueno y venezolano, por favo nos parescamos a los chavitas, que quitan méritos solo por autoritarios!
DeleteGalia,
DeleteNo es sorprendente que Britto haya sido premiado básicamente en Venezuela y en Cuba, donde es conocido desde hace décadas como un defensor del sistema de Castro, etc. Aunque el conocimiento que se tenga de un autor a nivel internacional no es ni requisito ni garantía para su calidad, sí puede decir algo: a Britto lo admiran en Venezuela y Cuba.
Su lenguaje está lleno de clichés que quizás sean admirados en Venezuela pero no son precisamente lo mejor que puede ofrecer la literatura actual. Su misma ortografía no es precisamente muy buena.
Eso también es indicador de algo.
Una cosa es querer defender el país y otra considerar que hay que defender a capa y espada la calidad de un escritor...sobre todo, como dije, porque para gustos hay colores.
Y lo sé: hay millones de personas en todo el mundo que consideran que Coelho es un magnífico escritor. Yo considero que no lo es y tengo derecho a decirlo. Cada uno tiene derecho a tener su opinión particular sobre tal o cual escritor.
DeleteSaludos
Beyond the literary stuff I disliked from Britto were his repetitive accounts of why there were problems with Chavismo and why communism failed in the Soviet Union.
ReplyDeleteThe guy is really the archetypal caricature of a communist from the Universidad Central de Venezuela who never read anything but the literature provided by the PCV and the Soviet embassy and a couple of friends, who never became interested in reading diverging accounts of world history. The guy is also the typical apparatchik.
"The socialist experiment failed because of bureaucracy"
Delete"The socialist experiment failed because of the Fifth Column"/Gorbachev
etc
You had to read to get that Kepler?
ReplyDeleteI could tell just by looking at his face,there's something about a marxist...the hair,the empty eyes i don't know...
How many people have to die for their psychopath fetish? socialist experiment?
These people are completely crazy and macabre, i definitely feel like a rag doll living under this bloody experiment called bolivarianism.
Anyhow, i still wonder why hes in an Embassy and not someplace more relevant to the venezuelan public sphere,he's not particularly old.
Or maybe he just likes Vienna.
I'll make sure to leave him a present if i visit Vienna someday
Looks are inconsequential, Juan.
DeleteRegarding why Uzcátegui is in Austria, I can only guess.
Mind: the guy was put there already at the end of 2007. He was at the head of DIM for only a few months. That is peculiar.
Another thing is that the ambassador to Brazil now is the former defence minister Diego Alfredo Molero Bellavia, who was 53 of 56 students.
I was wondering Kep,and this is just crazy thinking sparked by some news I read here about an ETA guy who got caught in a mall here in Venezuela.
DeleteIs there any connection between ETA,FARC,Austria,DIM,Duque,the EU or even Hezbollah?
As I said this is just crazy but it might be worth the search.
We all know how the Bolivarians have always supported these beligerent/terrorists/thugs like FARC,ETA,El Chacal,Hezbollah and other extremists, along with the common knowledge of Cabello being the big fish when we talk about drug trafficking in Venezuela(maybe even latinamerica).
I don't know,it's just thoughts.
Are there any news on this case? Did the dismissed kindergarten teacher take any legal steps to regain her position or get some sort of compensation?
ReplyDelete