An Open Letter to Mitzi and Antonio

Today I address you publicly at a time when appalling injustices, arbitrary acts and abuses that words cannot describe are being committed in our country.

And I do so because I think it necessary for people to know that here, in our beloved Venezuela, there is no shortage of fearless Venezuelans who, like you, are giving their soul, their heart and their very marrow… in the struggle to recover freedom, justice and peace in the homeland we love so much.

On the afternoon I saw the news of your arbitrary arrest, Antonio, it ran through my head like a film. I remembered hundreds of scenes in which you and Mitzi were helping so many people. A life devoted to serving others in the homeland where you were born.

And in that film, which I remember going back more than 20 years, I saw your hair turning gray, Antonio, faster than normal. Because, as Henrique Capriles once said, in Venezuela those who are fighting get wrinkles and gray hair faster.

You, Mitzi and Antonio, are an example of using power to serve. And the people have rewarded you for it, electing Antonio twice in a row, under this totalitarian regime, as mayor of one of the most important municipalities in Venezuela.

You, Antonio, had the courage to risk your life and your health in a hunger strike before the Organization of American States office in Venezuela, to denounce before the world the serious democratic instability the country was going through. And your suffering during those days, Mitzi, is known to very few.

And now you are in prison, Antonio, in a jail that has become the place of confinement for those who will stand in the front lines of the new history of our beloved Venezuela when this nightmare comes to an end. When in Venezuela we live once again in a democracy, with freedom, justice and peace for all.

Your name, Antonio, will be written alongside the great ones, the heroes, like so many others who are there with you in Ramo Verde. And your name, Mitzi, will be written in the chapter of the heroic women who have endured so many injustices with fortitude, with patience and with great passion. You will stand beside so many selfless wives and mothers who are giving their all to win back the freedom of their beloved husbands or sons, unjustly imprisoned.

I just want to end by thanking you for the example you are giving us. The example you are giving our young people, our children, our grandchildren… You, who could have gone to live somewhere else, are still here and will stay here, giving your all, because you love our country and its people as few do.

What you have taught us is worth too much. So I just want to say, in my own name and in the name of my husband, my children and many Venezuelans… Thank you! A thousand thanks!

We will follow your example, and many of us, so many!, will stay here, praying and fighting as never before for the freedom of our beloved Venezuela.

May God and the Virgin of Coromoto protect you from all evil, and protect all of us Venezuelans from so much corruption, so many lies, so much wickedness and so much injustice. May God help us!