Brave Sir Robin ran away
Bravely ran away, away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin
The Ballad of Sir Robin, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975
As noted by Bina last week and confirmed today, the Mayor of Maracaibo
Manuel Rosales has done a brave Sir Robin and ran away to Peru to escape the court case he faces in Venezuela. The charge is that he evaded $66,000 worth of taxes which might not sound that much, but it's very much the example charge for a guy that has been suspected as a classic corrupt LatAm politico for decades.
But of course it's all being politicized as Rosales is one of the main opposition figures to Chávez in Venezuela and there's little doubt that Hugo would love to see Rosales thrown in the slammer. So is it a straight case of weeding out corruption or a political witchunt? Probably both, methinks.
However, your humble correspondent loses 100% of any respect he might have had for Rosales' case now that he's confirmed as having bolted the country. If you want to play the
"I'm a political prisoner" card you gotta be a prisoner first, and jailtime for your ideology is one of the calling cards round here. They all do it, y'know. Lula, Michelle, Evo, Hugo...the list goes on and on. So if you want to make a point, Manuel, do some time. But if you want to hang out in a 5 star hotel in Miraflores Lima for a while, be clear that you are a plain old lilly-livered yellow-bellied chickenshit coward.
UPDATE: Let's add Bina's comment below to the main section so that you can all see it easily. BTW, if anyone wants to write an equal&opposite rebuttal to Bina and defend the Rosales position I'll put it up in the same way, too.
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It's not just tax evasion; he's also suspected of huge embezzlement. He's failed to keep up local infrastructure, such as the Port of Maracaibo, for years, and no wonder. He made off with enough public money (some of it from the Zulia state lottery) to buy numerous large estates and put them in the names of various family members. And that's not even counting all that fancy real estate in Florida...But of course it's political--in a socialist country where there's a land reform law forbidding ownership of large, non-productive tracts of land (hey, campesinos gotta eat and grow local food, can't go on living in slums and depending on importation, y'know), this kind of thing is just pure politics. (We'll just ignore the fact that the Inter-American Human Rights Commission never received his claims of political persecution while we're at it. You'd think someone so rich and well-lawyered would at least be able to present a case, wouldn't you?)
BTW, did I mention he paid off the media with Cartier watches? No wonder that "witch-hunt" meme keeps cropping up. Where will they get their fancy bling from if he's forced to give back what he stole? Gotta earn those gold watches...
Like I keep saying: I can't respect the oppos if they don't clean up their corruptos.
Cook da bookz
