Vice President Mike Pence delivered an address denouncing the bloody Maduro regime in Venezuela to hundreds of Hispanics at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Doral, Florida. The photo was taken by this writer.
On August 23, 2017, Vice President Mike Pence came to the City of Doral in South Florida to discuss the ongoing crisis in Venezuela and the atrocities committed by the bloody regime of the dictator Nicolás Maduro. He spoke to a crowd of over 1,800 Venezuelans, Cuban Americans, and other Hispanics. There were also Americans of non-Hispanic origin. The visit took place in the beautiful Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church located at 11691 NW 25th St. in Doral, Florida.
Previously, Vice President Pence had met with members of the Venezuelan exile community, recent Venezuelan migrants, other local leaders, and officials. The visit came following Pence’s wide-ranging trip to Latin American where he addressed leaders of Panama, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile.
Our Lady of Guadalupe has a Venezuelan-born pastor, the Reverend Israel Mago. Father Mago spoke in English and Spanish as did Archbishop Thomas Wenski. The Archbishop pointed out that Our Lady of Guadalupe, which painting can be seen in the altar, is the Patron of all Latin America. Archbishop Thomas Wenski prayed with the audience for the liberation of Venezuela. The city of Doral in Miami-Dade County has so many immigrants and refugees from Venezuela that the city is known as Doralzuela.
On August 21, 2017, Patricia Mazzei wrote an article titled “Pence hints of economic sanctions against Venezuela” which was published in the Miami Herald. The reporter explained that before delivering his remarks, Vice President Mike Pence — joined by Senator Marco Rubio, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, and Governor Rick Scott — spent more than an hour listening to 15 local Venezuelans telling him about the violence, assassinations, repression, tortures and rapes in prisons, and political persecution carried out by the bloody dictator Maduro’s security forces.
María Eugenia Tovar fought back tears as she told Vice President Pence how her 22-year-old daughter, Génesis Cardona, was killed during a 2014 protest by a gunshot to the head.
Mazzei said that María Eugenia Tovar told Vice President Pence how her beautiful 22-year-old daughter, Génesis Cardona, was assassinated during a 2014 protest by a gunshot to the head. During his speech Vice President Pence recognized Ms. Tovar and asked her to stand. Francisco Márquez talked about his four months imprisonment during which he was tortured. Márquez stated the following about the inhumane imprisonment: “What I can only describe as a putrid, mosquito-infested jungle. I got dengue fever. I was made to run amid gunfire, just to mess with my head. I shared prison cells with people that talked about how they were beaten for hours. How they put a Ziploc bag over their head with insecticide. How women had been raped.”
Political prisoners in Cuba have also been tortured, starved, assassinated, denied medicines, and women brutally raped. This writer spent two years in different prisons in Cuba, along with almost 1,200 soldiers from the Brigade 2506, and he too was tortured.
The reporter wrote that two exiled judges, Antonio Marval Jiménez and Alejandro Jesús Rebolledo, and three opposition mayors — Warner Jiménez of Maturín, Gustavo Marcano of Lechería, and Ramón Muchacho of Chacao — met with the Vice President. All these Venezuelans had fled to Miami after the lives of the judges were at risk and the three mayors were sentenced by the regime courts to prison for failing to curtail street protests.
Mayor Warner Jiménez, who escaped Venezuela by boat in a storm, said the following: “We’re fighting against gangsters. We’d like to ask for your help. Please don’t let Venezuela turn into another Cuba.”
Alejandro Jesus Rebolledo, a Venezuelan judge who fled the country recently, accused the Maduro regime of crimes such as money laundering and drug trafficking. Carlos Vecchio, a well-known leader of an opposition party, said that Venezuela is a failed state where criminals have taken control of the country. Vecchio said the following: “It is a criminal state. It is led by a mafia involved in drug trafficking and close to terrorist groups.” Ramon Muchacho was the mayor of the municipality of Chacao since 2013 but fled in July 2017, saying he was being persecuted by the government. “There is no way to get the regime out by democratic means,” Muchacho said, asking for more help from Latin America, the United States, and Europe for Venezuela.
During the meeting, Ernesto Ackerman, a local leader of Venezuelan-Americans, approached Pence and gave him a black hat with the colors of the Venezuelan flag. It read, “Make Venezuela Great Again.”
All of them urged Vice President Pence for additional economic and financial sanctions to punish Venezuela for installing a new, all-powerful constitutional assembly on August 4, 2017. The members of the so-called constitutional assembly were elected in a fraudulent election that usurped the power of the opposition-controlled parliament. The democratically elected assembly was abolished by the regime.
Dictator Nicolás Maduro appointed Islamic terrorist and drug trafficker Tarek El Aissami as Vice President of Venezuela.
On February 13, 2017, Vice President El Aissami was sanctioned by the Treasury Department under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation. U.S. officials after accusing him of facilitating drug shipments from Venezuela to Mexico and America, froze tens of millions of dollars of assets under El Aissami’s control. A day later, Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly (that was later illegally abolished by the regime) voted in favour of opening an investigation into El Aissami’s alleged involvement in drug trafficking. Tarek El Aissami was being accused of running a drug trafficking network of corrupt officials in Venezuela.
Vice President listened to the Venezuelans’ horror stories and to each individual, he offered words of comfort, and reiterated the Trump administration’s commitment to doing more. “The United States is helping,” Pence said. “And more help is on the way,” he added.
The White House, according to the Wall Street Journal, is considering banning any trades in U.S. dollars of Venezuelan debt. Mazzei stated the following: “That’s the sort of financial sanction — short of prohibiting Venezuelan oil imports and exports — that Rubio and other South Florida politicians have pushed to starve Maduro of cash. The Treasury Department has already slapped individual financial and travel restrictions on 30 Venezuelans tied to the government…Vice President Mike Pence hinted at soon-to-come economic sanctions against the Venezuelan government, but he offered little in the way of specifics of what a more robust U.S. response might look like or when it might come, choosing instead to deliver a broader message of hope to increasingly despondent Venezuelans.”
Vice President Pence pointed out that the Trump administration intends to further punish Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and members of his regime for destroying the South American country’s democracy. More sanctions could come as early as this week. But Pence did not detail any potential penalties.
“Our resolve is unwavering,” Vice President Pence told the over 1,800 people at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church. Vice President Pence stated the following:
“You may be assured: Under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the United States of America will continue to bring the full measure of American economic and diplomatic power to bear until democracy is restored in Venezuela. We hear you, we stand with you. We will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles. As other countries in Latin America have improved their economies, Venezuela has gone downhill.” The Vice President called Maduro’s presidency, a dictatorship.
Venezuelan woman showed a sign asking for U.S. military assistance against the Maduro regime.
A woman held a sign at the event that read, “Venezuelan resistance asks for military assistance. We can’t do it alone,” an apparent reference to Trump’s remarks earlier this month that there was a possibility for the United States to invade Venezuela.
The week before Vice President Pence visited Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and Panama in an attempt to rally the region against Venezuela. President Trump’s comments that a military option has not been discarded alarmed some Latin American leaders. However, it is not well known that Iran has military bases in Venezuela with ballistic missiles pointed at U.S. cities. Retired four-star Admiral James Lyons has denounced these bases and asked for a surprise American strike to destroy them.
Many individuals responded with an enthusiastic applause to the Vice President. Women brought the tricolor Venezuelan flag and others draped the flag over their shoulders. The crowd frequently chanted “Libertad. Libertad!”
In this picture, taken by this writer, appear three Venezuelan women and my friends and campaign volunteers Ana María “Chiqui” Lamar and Raquel Barreto Melero. We are holding the flag of Venezuela.
Mazzei pointed out that Vice President Pence noted with satisfaction that Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela announced on August 22, 2017 that Venezuelans will be soon required to obtain travel visas into his country — a move denounced by Maduro’s regime. “While President Trump has said that ‘We have many options for Venezuela,’” Vice President Pence said, “we remain confident that working with all of our allies across Latin America, we can achieve a peaceable solution to the crisis facing the Venezuelan people.”
In Doral, Vice President Pence spent about an hour at the U.S. Southern Command privately debriefing generals about his trip to South America and thanking local service members. The U.S. Southern Command is responsible for all of Latin America.
Major General U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Jon A. Norman, left; Lieutenant General Joseph P. DiSalvo, Deputy Commander of U.S. Southern Command; Vice President Mike Pence, and Brigade General Juan Pablo Forero, right, Director of Exercises and Coalition Affairs, at the U.S. Southern Command in Doral. These generals met with Vice President Pence prior to his speech at the church.
Mazzei said that Vice President Pence did not give any specifics about upcoming action. However Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart and Senator Marco Rubio praised the White House for imposing four rounds of individual sanctions in seven months in office.
Senator Marco Rubio spoke in support of the Trump administration sanctions against the communist regime in Venezuela. The picture was taken by this writer.
Senator Rubio spoke in English and Spanish and received a warm welcome from the audience as he spoke in front of the altar of the church. Senator Rubio said that he has spoken with the president seven or eight times on how to deal with Venezuela at his request. Senator Rubio said that the Maduro regime is totally isolated. There is not a democratic nation in Latin America that has not raised its voice to condemn the regime. America will do whatever it is necessary to assure that democracy will be restored in Venezuela, he added.
Senator Marco Rubio stated the following: “I have 100 percent confidence that the president and vice president of the United States will take the appropriate measures. They will do it at the right time, and they will do it in the right way, but they will do it. It is going to happen. I am confident that one day, in a Venezuela that is free, many of us will be able to gather in a setting such as this.”
Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart from South Florida, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott gave Vice President Mike Pence a standing ovation following Vice President Pence’s remarks on Venezuelan crisis, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in the city of Doral in South Florida.
The four individuals of the Trump campaign in Miami-Dade were invited by the White House to hear the Vice President, from right to left Manager Coral Gables Office Ron Gawronski, Manager Hialeah Office George Morffiz, former Mayor of Hialeah and Miami-Dade Campaign Chairman Julio Martinez, Manager West Dade Office Frank de Varona, and a campaign volunteer.
Who is Vice President Mike Pence?
Michael R. Pence is the 48th and current Vice President of the United States.
According to his official biography, Michael R. Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana, on June 7, 1959, one of six children born to Edward and Nancy Pence. As a young boy he had a front row seat to the American Dream. After his grandfather immigrated to the United States when he was 17, his family settled in the Midwest. The future Vice President watched his Mom and Dad build everything that matters – a family, a business, and a good name. Sitting at the feet of his mother and his father, who started a successful convenience store business in their small Indiana town, he was raised to believe in the importance of hard work, faith, and family.
Vice President Pence set off for Hanover College, earning his bachelor’s degree in history in 1981. While there, he renewed his Christian faith which remains the driving force in his life. He later attended Indiana University School of Law and met the love of his life, Second Lady Karen Pence.
Vice President Mike Pence is coming down from Air Force Two airplane.
After graduating, Vice President Pence practiced law, led the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, and began hosting The Mike Pence Show, a syndicated talk radio show and a weekly television public affairs program in Indiana. Along the way he became the proud father to three children, Michael, Charlotte, and Audrey.
Growing up in Indiana, surrounded by good, hardworking Hoosiers, Vice President Pence always knew that he needed to give back to the state and the country that had given him so much. In 2000, he launched a successful bid for his local congressional seat, entering the United States House of Representatives at the age of 40.
The people of East-Central Indiana elected Vice President Pence six times to represent them in Congress. On Capitol Hill he established himself as a champion of limited government, fiscal responsibility, economic development, educational opportunity, and the U.S. Constitution. His colleagues quickly recognized his leadership ability and unanimously elected him to serve as Chairman of the House Republican Study Committee and House Republican Conference Chairman. In this role, the Vice President helped make government smaller and more effective, reduce spending, and return power to state and local governments.
In 2013, Vice President Pence left the nation’s capital when Hoosiers elected him the 50th Governor of Indiana. He brought the same limited government and low tax philosophy to the Indiana Statehouse. As Governor, he enacted the largest income tax cut in Indiana history, lowering individual income tax rates, the business personal property tax, and the corporate income tax in order to strengthen the State’s competitive edge and attract new investment and good-paying jobs. Due to his relentless focus on jobs, the state’s unemployment rate fell by half during his four years in office, and at the end of his term, more Hoosiers were working than at any point in the state’s 200-year history.
As Governor of Indiana, Vice President Pence increased school funding, expanded school choice, and created the first state-funded Pre-K plan in Indiana history. He made career and technical education a priority in every high school. Under Vice President Pence’s leadership, Indiana, known as “The Crossroads of America,” invested more than $800 million in new money for roads and bridges across the state. Despite the record tax cuts and new investments in roads and schools, the state remained fiscally responsible, as the Vice President worked with members of the Indiana General Assembly to pass two honestly balanced budgets that left the state with strong reserves and AAA credit ratings that were the envy of the nation.
It was Indiana’s success story, Vice President Pence’s record of legislative and executive experience, and his strong family values that prompted President Donald Trump to select Mike Pence as his running mate in July 2016. The American people elected President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence on November 8, 2016. President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence entered office on January 20, 2017.
Vice President Mike Pence remains grateful for the grace of God, the love and support of his family, and the blessings of liberty that are every American’s birthright. He looks forward to working with the American people as together they seek to Make America Great Again.
Conclusion
The speeches made by Vice President Mike Pence, Senator Marco Rubio, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart and Governor Rick Scott lifted the spirits of Venezuelans and other Hispanics in the audience. They look forward to the Trump administration increasing economic and financial sanctions against the oppressive and brutal Maduro regime that is committing genocide against the people of Venezuela. This writer hopes and has recommended to some White House officials to implement a complete economic embargo against the communist regime in Venezuela as a means of overthrowing the bloody chavistas from power.
