Caracas Chronicles

One of the dictatorship’s greatest villains, mayor Jorge Rodríguez, was confronted in a street of Mexico City. The guy who approached him made a first video just 17 seconds long, asking the mayor, as he quickens his pace: “Are you running away?” The mayor retraces his steps, recording the guy with his own phone as he asks him: “Did you come to spend some of your blood-stained, corrupt dollars..?” but the mayor simply keeps on recording while blocking the guy’s camera with his hands, demanding that he not take pictures. We hear the man say: “I’m not going to hurt you or anything. I’m not taking pictures of you, but don’t touch me,” something else happens, but the audio didn’t catch it.

In the second part, too long for Venezuela’s lousy connection speeds, we see the mayor hurrying down the street with two youths and a child.

The same man asks him: “What are you doing in a really democratic country? There are no drug traffickers here, you garbage.” The mayor’s son turns to face the guy but Jorge Rodríguez stops him, pulling him by the arm and making him walk ahead of him as they start to walk even faster.

Seeing the son’s reaction, the guy asks: “What? Who are you going to defend? A murderer? Wanna steal my phone because I’m telling you that you’re using blood-stained dollars?”. An older woman hits the guy with her purse. The guy continues “… you’re responsible for all of our dead, you’re a murderer, you’re a murderer and no matter where you go, we’ll find you.” The woman, walking beside him as the mayor and his children widen the gap, tells him: “Shut up, you sissy!”, the guy replies: “I’m not shutting up! And you won’t find peace anywhere in the world. All of our dead have mourners and you will never hide from us.”

“What do you think?”, the man asks the woman. She replies with an indifferent shrug: “Nothing, nothing.” The guy goes on: “Go get your son, because you’re going to have to protect him for the rest of your life anyway, because it’s your fault his last name and future are tarnished, you’re a murderer, and an accomplice of the narco-dictatorship.”

You won’t find peace anywhere in the world. All of our dead have mourners and you will never hide from us.

The woman asks him: “Aren’t you ashamed?” The guy interrupts her and retorts: “No, I’m not. The real shame for me is that you have the same blood as me.” The woman says: “No, no, not the same blood, don’t be an idiot.”

The guy says: “Because you’re murderers, murderers, you destroyed a country, you’re stained with the blood of thousands of young men and women.” The woman turns and rebuffs the argument: “You, you and the opposition.” The guy asks her: “Why did he leave the country in secret? Why did he run away? Why did he try to attack me when I was recording him?”. The woman retorts: “Because you’re a thug.” The guy asks: “What are you afraid of?” and the woman says: “…and thugs are frightening.” The man insists: “What are you afraid of? You’ll have to be afraid because there’s no place where you can hide.” We hear the woman on the background saying. “You’re an idiot.” By then, there was no trace of the mayor and his children.

The woman turned out to be the mayor’s mother.

They’ve been destroying our country for too many years, with cruelty and pleasure, taking delight in their abuses and their enormous impunity. Jorge Rodríguez is a key chavista figure in a rogue gallery of people who will certainly be recognized anywhere, for many years to come, for the damage they’ve caused and will keep on causing. On Twitter, people resumed the debate on whether escraches are right, and whether it’s inappropriate to do them in the presence of minors.

I’ll just say that Jorge Rodríguez made himself an icon of revenge.

Good day.