Hugo Chavez’s former defense minister Raúl Isaías Baduel, who helped defeat the 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chavez as president of Venezuela, was arrested Friday on charges of corruption. The arrest, in the presence of his angrily protesting wife, was captured on video. He did not go quietly:
Baduel was later released, but has been barred from leaving the country. He resigned as defense minister and broke with Chavez over the president’s proposed constitutional changes, which were defeated by Venezuelan voters last year.
What a difference a few years make. Chavez and Baduel used to be BCFs (best comrades forever):
Of course anyone who suggests that Baduel would not have been arrested if he had continued to play along with Chavez must be a counterrevolutionary imperialist or Zionist– like, I assume, Baduel.
