As Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro tells it, he lives in a very dangerous world. Since winning election in April, his administration has said there have been almost a dozen plans to murder him.
The latest accusation came Wednesday after Maduro canceled his visit to the U.N. General Assembly and a speech in the Bronx at the last minute. He accused Roger Noriega, a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States and beltway insider, and fellow former diplomat Otto Reich of a “crazy plan” to incite violence in New York, or, perhaps, even kill him.
Speaking from Washington on Thursday, Noriega said he has lost track of how many times Maduro has falsely accused him of plotting his demise.
“It’s not stressful,” he said of the recurring allegations. “I think Maduro is under more pressure than I am, and his comments reflect that. … He needs a boogeyman.”
Some of the alleged plots are modest, such as the assassins Maduro said crossed the Colombian border at the behest of former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Others seem straight out of Hollywood: Former Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel once said the opposition had purchased 18 jet-fighters that were going to operate from a U.S. military base in Colombia.
The plots are such a hot topic in Venezuela that Ultimas Noticias newspaper has put out an interactive graphic to track them.
Even more prevalent than assassination threats are acts of economic “sabotage” that have been blamed for such problems as power blackouts, and chronic shortages of chicken and toilet paper. Since mid-April, Maduro’s press office has sent out at least 144 communiques that mention “sabotage.”
When the government activated a sabotage hotline this month, it said it got more than 1,000 calls in the first week.
After Wednesday’s aborted U.N. trip, Maduro alleged a new case of potential wrongdoing. His presidential aircraft, which he said had recently undergone a five-month overhaul in France by its manufacturer Airbus, had “inexplicable” and “serious” damage to one wing. Maduro said he was assembling a legal team to press the case.
Airbus did not respond to a request for information but told the Spanish news agency EFE that it did not perform the overhaul — that work is subcontracted out — but it would help Venezuela investigate. Maduro seized on the Airbus comments as legitimizing his claim.
“The crazy right-wing has a strange and suspicious attitude,” he wrote Thursday on Twitter, referring to the airplane malfunction. “I think another one of their macabre plans fell through.”
The plane’s problems were the reason he traveled to China this month on a Cubana de Aviacion airliner that also was to take him to New York for the U.N. General Assembly, he said. That switch might have been at the heart of some of his recent travel problems.
When Maduro was initially denied the right to travel through U.S. airspace over Puerto Rico last week on his way to China, the U.S. State Department said the delay was due in part because “the plane in question was not a state aircraft, which is required for diplomatic clearance.”
Maduro said he was on a layover in Canada when he received news of the threats and aborted the U.N. trip. But there was also speculation that if the plane had made it to New York, it might have been seized by U.S. courts that have won rulings against the Cuban government.
Miranda State Gov. Henrique Capriles, the opposition leader, questioned Maduro’s story.
“Maduro said he didn’t go to the U.N. to protect his life,” he posted on Twitter Thursday. “Does anyone believe that ridiculousness? Why won’t he tell us what happened in Canada?”
If the U.N. mayhem plot is like those of weeks and months past, tangible proof will not be forthcoming. The government has accused the opposition of being ghoulish in its demand for proof.
After alleging an assassination plot against Maduro in August, National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello said his political foes had all the evidence they needed.
“We’re not going to give the right-wing Nicolas Maduro’s body as proof,” he said.
