Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo has offered a hefty reward for the arrest of a tagger who painted a message in support of authoritarian Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Bayfront Park following last weekend's Venezuelan Freedom Rally.
The graffiti said: “La furia Bolivariana está aquí” or “The Bolivarian Fury is here.” It's a reference to the socialist Bolivarian Revolution — named after 19th-century independence hero, Simón Bolívar — that has ruled Venezuela for the past 25 years.
It’s a message meant to intimidate anti-Maduro demonstrators in Venezuela, where opposition leaders dispute Maduro's claim to victory following the July 28 presidential election.
Though vandalism is a misdemeanor crime, Carollo, who chairs the Bayfront Park Trust, is taking this very seriously.
READ MORE: Venezuelans in Miami, worldwide make 'the necessary noise' against Maduro
“Bayfront Park trust has put a $25,000 reward that will be given to anyone that gives us information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the individual or individuals who were responsible for this,” Carollo said at an intimate press conference in Little Havana on Thursday.
“This is a threat. This is the same threat that they painted on walls in different areas of Venezuela to try to intimidate people. The difference is, this is Miami. This is the USA. We’re not gonna accept that here.”
The Bayfront Park Trust is a quasi-governmental board that oversees the management of Bayfront Park and Maurice A. Ferré Park in downtown Miami.
The Trust’s budget is set annually by the Miami City Commission. It’s funded by Miami taxpayer dollars, park fees and government grants.
Asked about where the money for this reward would come from, Carollo said it should be no problem for the Trust.
“We have plenty of money in the budget. It’s gonna be coming from our budget that’s for community related activities,” Carollo told WLRN.
Carollo also took the opportunity to denounce the Maduro regime and call on the U.S. to declare Maduro’s opponent, , the rightful president-elect of Venezuela, though the Biden administration has recognized González as having won the July 28 election.
Last Saturday's rally in Miami was among several demonstrations around the world — Tokyo, Sydney, Mexico City and other cities — in support of the main opposition coalition in Venezuela to make visible what they insist is the real outcome of the presidential election.
Demonstrators called on governments to throw their support behind candidate González and express support to Venezuelans who are fearful in their home country of speaking against Maduro and his allies during a brutal repression campaign.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, whose members are loyal to the ruling party, declared Maduro the winner just hours after polls closed.
Unlike previous presidential elections, the electoral body has not released the tally sheets’ detailed voting data to back up its claim that Maduro earned 6.4 million votes while González, who represented the Unitary Platform opposition coalition, garnered 5.3 million votes.
González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado shocked Venezuelans when they revealed they obtained more than 80% of the vote tally sheets issued by every electronic voting machine after polls closed. The documents, they said, showed González winning by a wide margin and were uploaded to a website for anyone to see.
On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that Venezuela’s Supreme Court has backed Maduro’s claims that he won and that voting tallies published online showing he lost by a landslide were forged.
The ruling is the latest attempt by Maduro to blunt protests and international criticism that erupted after the contested July 28 vote in which the self-proclaimed socialist leader was seeking a third, six-year term.
The high court is packed with Maduro loyalists and has almost never ruled against the government.
Maduro’s regime has brutally put down post-election protests — 2,400 people have been arrested and 27 killed — and it is now threatening to imprison González and Machado.
