An enraged Nicolás Maduro freaked out and had a prominent journalist detained because the reporter dared show the Venezuelan president video of young men scavenging discarded food from the back of a garbage truck.
Maduro was being interviewed by Univision anchor Jorge Ramos when the despot ended the sit-down and ordered Ramos held.
In a video posted on Facebook after his release, Ramos said things started going downhill Monday when he asked Maduro whether he was a “dictator.”
Then he said he pulled out an iPad with a video showing three backpack-wearing young men grabbing for food being tossed into a garbage truck and eating some of the leftovers. One of the men, speaking in Spanish, is seen denouncing Maduro and calling for him to go.
Ramos, who arrived back in Miami on Tuesday, said he and his team were separated and detained after the interview ended and that he still had not gotten back his equipment.
He said the Venezuelan government had robbed them of their work and he is demanding that it be returned.
“They are going to say that they already deleted the images of the interview, but they also recorded the interview with three cameras, I saw them, so the interview is there,” Ramos told reporters in Miami.
“If Maduro is not a coward, if Maduro has the pants to show his face, then he should show the complete interview.”
Maduro is desperately clinging to power after opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself the rightful president and called for Maduro to go.
The United States, NATO and other countries have come out in support of Guaidó, but military commanders, many of them bought off by the president, remain loyal to Maduro so far.
While the brass may be loyal, hundreds of other military members are defecting daily, with many walking over the border into Colombia.
“I was tired of people seeing me as just one more of them,” Sgt. Jorge Torres said, referring to Maduro’s socialist government. “I’m not.”
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan opposition’s envoy to the United States, Carlos Vecchio, met with President Trump recently and asked him to increase pressure on Maduro, Vecchio’s office announced.
Vecchio wrote in a tweet that he met with Trump when the president made a speech in Florida. In the Feb. 18 speech, Trump warned members of Venezuela’s military who remain loyal to Maduro that they are risking their lives and urged them to allow humanitarian aid into the country.
The statement from the opposition’s envoy came a day after the United States targeted Venezuela’s government with new sanctions and called on allies to freeze the assets of state-owned oil company PDVSA after deadly violence blocked humanitarian aid from the country over the weekend.
With Post wires