1/ Today is the 20th anniversary of uprising which defeated the coup in Venezuela. Also Rodney Alvarez will walk free after spending nearly 11 years in jail accused of a crime he did not commit and for which he was never sentenced. #1eroMayoSinTrabajadoresPresos
2/ Rodney Alvarez was a trade union activist at Ferrominera, the state owned iron works in Bolivar state. On June 9, 20011, during a union assembly at the plant gates there was a shoot out and worker Renny Rojas was killed. Eyewitnesses identified Hector Maican as the gunman.
3/ Maican fled to the union offices inside the plant where he was arrested, with the gun, by the Bolivarian National Guard. The state prosecutor accused him of the killing of Renny Rojas a member of the PSUV youth. However, 2 days later Maican was released. Why?
4/ Maican was a leading member of the FBT, the powerful trade union faction linked to the then regional governor Rangel Gomez, who is said to have put pressure on the judicial authorities for Maican to be released. They needed a scapegoat: Rodney Alvarez, from a rival union wing.
5/ Rodney Alvarez was arrested at his place of work on 17 June 2011. His trial was postponed for 10 years! Finally on June 8, 2021 he was sentenced, without proof, to 15 years imprisonment for the killing of Renny Rojas. In December 2021 an appeal court judge annulled the trial.
6/ But still Rodney Alvarez was kept in jail pending a retrial. Finally, on April 11, the state prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced that his office had asked the judge to release Rodney, though it is not clear whether he will still face prosecution.
7/ The case of Rodney Alvarez is a scandal. It involves an extremely corrupt former regional governor, his henchmen in the FBT trade union bureaucracy and the repression against trade union activists by the state. Not what the Venezuelan working people defeated the coup for.
8/ English translation of an article written in 2019 by Lucha de Clases (Venezuelan section of the IMT) about the case of #RodneyAlvarez marxist.com/venezuela-free…
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