2023-12-31 03:42:57
Lieutenant Pedro Naranjo was a helicopter pilot in the Venezuelan National Guard. In May 2018, his father, General Pedro José Naranjo Suárez, was accused of insurrection and sent to prison. In 2022, father and son escaped the country and ended up in the United States. But in mid-December of this year, the son was deported by Joe Biden’s government and is now in a Venezuelan prison. This is the story.
General Naranjo was arrested along with other officers for allegedly plotting to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro, sow chaos and disrupt Venezuela’s 2018 presidential elections, in what the Chavista regime called Operation Armageddon.
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Naranjo has always denied involvement in the plot, but was court-martialed on charges including rebellion and treason.
The AP agency reported that in 2021, General Naranjo was hospitalized after suffering a stroke in prison. Then, under international pressure from Maduro’s opponents and the Organization of American States, he was allowed to go under house arrest.
But when he learned that this measure would be revoked, he decided to escape the country. In 2022, the general and his son Pedro Naranjo left Venezuela across the border with Colombia.
His son has said he never conspired against the Maduro government, but he joined his father’s escape plan to ensure he arrived safely at his destination, the AP said.
Some time later, both of them undertook the dangerous path on foot through the Darién jungle; His final destination was the United States.
The journey of a migrant from Venezuela to the United States. (AFP).
On October 4 of this year, they crossed the Rio Grande near Brownsville, Texas, and surrendered to the Border Patrol.
After ten days of arrest, the general was released while his asylum request is resolved. He established his residence in Texas. His son did not suffer the same fate, as he was sent to a detention center in Louisiana.
On December 14, the young 27-year-old lieutenant was deported to Venezuela in compliance with an order issued by an Immigration judge.
After his arrival in Venezuela he was held in a military prison.
“His only crime was being a good son,” María Elena Machado, who has seen her son in prison twice since he was deported, told the AP.
The rate of granting asylum to Venezuelans
It was 72% in the fiscal year that ended September 30 in the United States, compared to 52% for all other nationalities, according to the Transactional Records Access Information Office at Syracuse University.
In this 2023 photograph provided by María Elena Machado, Lieutenant Pedro Naranjo with his father, retired General Pedro Naranjo, in Colombia. (Associated Press).
General Naranjo’s lament
“We never had a plan B,” General Naranjo told the AP agency in a telephone interview from Houston.
“It never crossed our minds that the United States, as an ally of the opposition and democracies in the world, defender of human rights and freedom, would do what it did with my son,” he added.
As AP reports, the United States has resumed deportation flights to Venezuela. According to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data, since October there have been 10 such flights.
Last week, a group calling itself Independent Venezuelan American Citizens (IVAC) joined Miami Republican Congressman Carlos Jiménez to denounce the deportation and subsequent arrest of Naranjo Jr. at the hands of the Maduro regime, AP reported. The organization said it sent a request to the White House on Dec. 12 to block the deportation, but received no response.
Lieutenant Pedro Naranjo is 27 years old.
According to Ernesto Ackerman, president of IVAC, Lieutenant Naranjo qualified for asylum due to “credible fear”, that is, that his life is in danger in his country, because he is the son of a soldier who was imprisoned for three years and who is a politically persecuted person from the “Nicolás Maduro regime.”
“He arrives in a democratic country, with the hope that they will give him asylum and hand him over to a boss,” Ackerman told the EFE agency.
“It’s like taking a DEA agent and sending him to El Chapo Guzmán,” Ackerman said. “I don’t see any difference.”
The activist recalled that in 2020 the United States Department of State offered a reward of 15 million dollars for anyone who provides information that allows the capture of Maduro, accused of narcoterrorism charges.
In a press conference held in Miami on December 19, IVAC denounced that the deportation of Lieutenant Naranjo will generate a counterproductive effect among members of the Venezuelan Armed Forces who are willing to “revolt against Maduro.”
“These young people, who are the ones who could rise up in Venezuela, are now going to be afraid, they are going to think that they are going to be returned,” the organization explained, according to EFE. “They take away any hope of liberation in Venezuela,” she added.
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro (R), welcomes Colombian businessman Alex Saab at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas on December 20, 2023. (Photo by Federico Parra/AFP).
Sanctions relief
Naranjo’s deportation occurred at a time when the United States is easing economic sanctions on Venezuela in exchange for the release of political prisoners, an end to persecution of opponents and guarantees of free presidential elections in 2024.
The president of IVAC recalled that the United States Government promised to reimplement the sanctions as of November 30 if Venezuela did not take concrete actions to reverse the annulment of the opposition primary election process that María Corina Machado won, something that It hasn’t happened.
Additionally, last week Biden released a key ally of Maduro, Álex Saab, who was detained more than three years ago and accused of money laundering.
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