![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/28032015-1.jpg\")
When he was \r\nkicked out of the church again, Leonel was already married and living in a small \r\nhouse he had built on the same plot of land where he was born. It is a space the \r\nsize of a block with access to two parallel streets. Instead of being \r\ndiscouraged, he took the other 52 expelled members to his home and invited them \r\nto congregate every week to found a new church that would truly practice the \r\ncommandments of the son of God. So they built the first hall and three years \r\nlater they started living together. All 53 of them. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
In Hebrew, \r\nHabir\u00fa means \"the one who crosses\". The scriptures claim that they were once \r\nnomads; sometime they're pictured as mercenaries, sometime slaves and some time \r\nrebels. Leonel is certain that the Habir\u00fa were a Babylonian caste dominated by \r\nMesopotamia and condemned since then to prejudice. By living together as a \r\ncommunity, the 53 crossed the established norms of modern society, and also \r\nrebelled against the prohibitions and practices of the Adventist church. They \r\nall called themselves Habir\u00fa. By that time, Venezuela was already talking about \r\nsocialism and a communal state whose leader, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, dreamed of satellite \r\ncities and community self-management. It was 2005. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\n
It would be \r\n1.00 in the afternoon, no less. Leonel left the principal's office of the \r\nGuillermo Miller School and went home for lunch when he someone knocked the \r\ndoor. In El Bajo the breeze is strong due to its proximity to the beach, and at \r\nthat time the children had just left school. When Leonel peeped out, he saw two \r\nwomen. One of them, he says, looked more like a man than a woman, and the other, \r\na gangling officer of the \"Consejo de Protecci\u00f3n del Ni\u00f1o y el Adolescente\" \r\n(Council for the Protection of Children and Adolescents). They did not carry a \r\nsearch warrant, but they did carry badges that identified them as members of the \r\n\"Cuerpo de Investigaciones Cient\u00edficas, Penales y Criminal\u00edsticas\" (Scientific, \r\nPenal and Criminal Investigation Corps) (CICPC, the auxiliary police of the \r\nProsecutor's Office in Venezuela). His wife, Yaneth, didn't know what to expect, \r\nshe had already dealt with a lot, so she opened the door and the ladies entered \r\nthe residence. One look at the rooms, another one at the corridors, they took \r\nsome notes. A scream from the asexual official, then a louder scream: a threat. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
The \r\nchildren's rights worker told Leonel that the school he ran was illegal, but \r\nthat March 16, 2011 he had updated the documents. They took a mobile phone from \r\nhim and inspected the entire school. The procedure took about an hour, and ended \r\nwhen a scientific police inspector named Luis Noguera acknowledged that there \r\nwas no reason to arrest him, but suggested that he go to the police delegation \r\nin the jurisdiction to find out what the complaint on him was about. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Leonel, who \r\ndoesn't know how to drive, asked one of his followers to drive the car and \r\nYuvani, his faithful companion, to follow him to the police office. The Prophet \r\ndidn't know what to think and devoted himself to look at the route between his \r\nhouse and the old cross: a truck that had just arrived with a group of students, \r\nthe gathering of some neighbors supporting him and a dozen (or more, he doesn't \r\nremember how many) of patrols of the San Francisco municipal Police. Leonel \r\nwondered what was happening before letting out a nervous laugh. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\n Already \r\nconstituted as a community based on the Christian scriptures, the Habir\u00fa \r\nparticipated in the \"Misi\u00f3n Vuelvan Caras\", a program of the government of Hugo \r\nCh\u00e1vez that provided advice to Venezuelans to organize cooperatives. From there \r\nthey received financing and founded a bakery for distribution, that is, they \r\nprepare products and sell them to the merchants. In this way they expanded the \r\nhouse and bought two more properties in nearby neighborhoods. Each member of the \r\ncooperative had to perform a function and all the money collected was taken to \r\nan ark to administer it equitably towards meeting basic services and other \r\nneeds. Then the practice grew and the Habir\u00fa developed other domestic \r\nactivities, because they all lived together. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Already with \r\ncontacts in the government, the members of the cooperative were in charge of \r\npreparing lunches for every assembly and political act that took place in the \r\nsouth of Maracaibo. In only five years, its members already had a residence (on \r\nthe plot of land of Leonel's parents), two bakeries, a sedan-type car, a \r\ndistribution truck, a refrigerated truck, a private school and a popular market \r\nthat sells food to the inhabitants of La Cruz at solidarity prices. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n The Guillermo \r\nMiller School is located right in Leonel's house and on the popular market. The \r\n17 children who live in the commune study there and their mothers are the \r\nteachers. At the same time, around 180 children from the community receive \r\nclasses in this private institution, with classrooms for only 12 students each \r\nand equipped with books, computers and air conditioning. Their parents, most of \r\nthem shrimp workers, pay 200 bolivars per month, which is the same as one dollar \r\nat the black market exchange rate. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n The famous \r\nefficiency of the Habir\u00fa caused the neighbors to invite them to participate in \r\nthe elections of the communal councils, so Leonel became one of its members \r\nalong with Yuvani. Among his projects was to build a school for children with \r\nspecial needs that would benefit 30 sectors of that parish. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n His dealings \r\nwith the public administration provided him with funds but also with enemies. \r\nCommunal councils members, upon receiving the funds from the Government, must \r\nseek contractor companies to execute them. They already had several thousand \r\nbolivars in their hands when the parish leaders of the government's \"Partido \r\nSocialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV)\" (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) \r\nrecommended several acquaintances. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n - Unknown \r\npeople called me saying that their company could do the work, but we refused, \r\nand since I had to sign the checks, nothing was ever approved for anyone. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n The new \r\nschool's name is Desiderio V\u00edlchez and it was the only work delivered by any \r\ncommunal council in San Francisco. Although the project established that it was \r\na simple structure, they installed a playground and air conditioners. Part of \r\nthe secret was that the workforce was from Habir\u00fa itself, since they are \r\nresponsible for all the planning, architecture and construction of absolutely \r\neverything. They don't pay for any service and the costs go down. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n - We showed \r\nthat the work could be done with the budget they delivered - tells Leonel. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Thus anybody \r\ncan gain enemies. <\/p>\n\n\n - I don't \r\nknow whose phone they took from me, but yes, it had a pornographic video - He \r\nhas a not so dense moustache and wears a black plastic strap watch and a blue \r\nshirt with short sleeves. His facial features denote he has some indigenous \r\nancestor. <\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n Armando \r\nGuill\u00e9n is a commissary over 50 years old, almost two meters tall, with a deep \r\nvoice and a big mustache. He directed the Scientific Police subdelegation of San \r\nFrancisco - a municipality in the south of the metropolitan area of Maracaibo - \r\nfrom 2010 to 2012. Despite his accomplishments, the local media criticized his \r\nclose ties with PSUV Mayor Omar Prieto. He was accused of receiving direct \r\norders from the mayor, without obeying any other hierarchy. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n That day \r\nLeonel arrived at the old police offices and took him directly to Guill\u00e9n's \r\noffice, located on the first floor (only a few offices on the ground floor, and \r\nin a corridor, the bathrooms right next to the cells). He then felt some peace \r\nof mind, but before meeting with the commissioner, he saw Ra\u00fal D\u00edaz Granados \r\nleave the office, the boyfriend of his wife's sister, who had left Habir\u00fa months \r\nbefore, despising the entire environment. They looked each other in the eye, but \r\ndid not speak a word to each other. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Upon \r\nentering, the commissioner clarified the doubts: the complaint was made by Ra\u00fal, \r\nabout some irregularities in his community. Either way, it wouldn't get any \r\nbigger, he thought, but he was still surprised by all the police deployment for \r\na complaint that would be nothing more than a gossip. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n - When the \r\nconversation with the commissioner ended, I felt like going to the bathroom. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Leonel \r\nGonz\u00e1lez was in prison for six months. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Cruel labor, \r\nforced labor, sexual violence on a continuum basis, profit for non-indicated \r\nwork, profit for child work, exhibition of pornographic material and reduction \r\nto slavery. These were the crimes which Leonel was accused of committing, along \r\nwith Yuvani and both's driver. The next day he entered the \"Bunker<\/I>\u201d of \r\nthe \"El Marite\" prison and then the scandal began in the entire state of Zulia. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n - When a new \r\ndetainee arrives at the prison, the welcome is a beating, but the \"pran\" was \r\nbusy that day. The other prisoners asked us, before they beat us, not to scream \r\ntoo much because that annoyed them -. None of them were ever beaten. According \r\nto Leonel, the \"pran\" is a good man. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n They \r\nmaintained order and respected the internal rules of the de facto leaders of the \r\npenitentiary, but the rest of the detainees were still concerned. The beating \r\nwas imminent. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Another \r\ncommon practice is for the prison leader to murder anyone who has committed a \r\nserious crime such as rape. According to this unwritten code, the crimes of \r\nLeonel and company were unforgivable, and on a daily basis the local media - the \r\nnewspapers Panorama<\/I>, La Verdad<\/I>, Versi\u00f3n Final<\/I> - published \r\nnew details provided by commissioner Guill\u00e9n: that Leonel authorized young \r\npeople to masturbate only in his presence and then return the favor; that he \r\nresorted to physical violence for no apparent reason and that 30 children had \r\ndisappeared from the commune. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n The prophet, \r\nfar from receiving a beating, made friends with the leader and the other \r\ndetainees. Having his integrity assured, but still being imprisoned, and with \r\nthe uncertainty of not knowing which enemy to fear. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\n - I don't \r\nknow who it was. I don't know if the communal councils joined the people who \r\nhave left upset from the community. I don't know if it was Mayor Omar Prieto, I \r\ndon't know, but this was a test that we had to face and the truth always comes \r\nout. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n On Friday, \r\nApril 1st of that year, 2011, Leonel's wife, Yaneth, told the newspaper \"Versi\u00f3n \r\nFinal\" that Mayor Omar Prieto had promised to exterminate what he called a \r\n\"sect\", while she herself denounced that political interests wanted to keep \r\ntheir facilities. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n The case of \r\n\"El Patriarca<\/I>\", as they dubbed him from the police office, fell into the \r\nhands of the 48th prosecutor's office of the Public Ministry, headed by Fernando \r\nLossada. After the 45 days required by law to find evidence to incriminate the \r\naccused, the six crimes were dismissed, as well as subsequent allegations of \r\nrape and attempted murder against a woman who died in 2002 in a road accident. \r\nAlthough all these cases were in different times, some well organized entity \r\nmanaged to gather all the information, including the alleged homosexuality for \r\nwhich he was expelled in 1985. Leonel still insists on not knowing who is behind \r\nall the accusations. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n On the 45th \r\nday, the charges on Leonel, Yuvani and their driver were withdrawn for all six \r\ncrimes. There was no evidence of cruel treatment, rape or reduction to slavery. \r\nAfter the hearing and with their reputations cleaned in front of the national \r\nauthority, the prophet and his companions were nevertheless returned to the \r\npolice jail. <\/p>\n\n\n The commune \r\ngrew since 2011. Now there are 63 adults and 17 children who live among its \r\nbranches. In the entrance hall there is a set of white leather furniture with a \r\nhanging glass lamp and a glass table, from which you can see the polished beige \r\nporcelain tiles of the floor. At both sides, rooms occupied by married couples, \r\nsome of them with cribs, disposable diapers and baby clothes. There is also a \r\ngirls' room with eight beds all covered with pink quilts and surrounded by \r\ndetailed decorations (butterflies, lamps, pictures). Leonel himself is in charge \r\nof the design. In the dining room there is a table with eight seats and on one \r\nside one of the six kitchens: marble cladding with carved wooden cabinets and \r\nchromed handles. There is also another kitchen with three tables, all with eight \r\nor more places. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n For Leonel, \r\n\"el Patriarca\" is not a pejorative description, although he knows that those who \r\ncall him that is because they have read the newspaper. However, he believes that \r\nthe police were right, because he is the leader and father of the whole \r\norganization. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n -We live in \r\ncommunity, we formed a commune. In short, we are communists. He says this \r\nas he leaves that first structure, his old house, and move to another one with \r\nfloors of caicos (ceramics) and beach armchairs. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n He shows \r\neverything, without grandiloquence. He arrives in the meeting room where there \r\nis any number of ornaments, another kitchen, another glass table, another living \r\nroom and a corner with several portraits. Adam on one side, Jesus on the other. \r\nFrom top to bottom, important figures of the Adventist temple. In the middle, in \r\nthe biggest picture, Leonel. Just as some of the residents cook and do all the \r\nhouse chores, one of them painted the picture. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\n In another \r\nwing of the structure, the rooms. There are two separate rooms with individual \r\nwooden beds, side by side. The blue of one and the pink of the other indicate \r\nthat the occupants are divided by sex. Everything carefully placed: bedside \r\ntable, lamp, picture, window. Then, bedside table, lamp, picture, window. There \r\nare also fans and air conditioning. From there you can see that a bridge of \r\nsorts connects the first floor of one wing with the first floor of another. \r\nThere are more rooms, libraries, computer rooms, playgrounds, meeting rooms. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Leonel has \r\nhis office and he makes the rules. He walks across the cement roads and forbids \r\nstepping on the grass. He says hello to a bricklayer who makes a new room and \r\nnotes that he is not being paid. He has a roof, food, education, entertainment \r\nand he only has to do what he knows how to do. He arrives at the dance therapy \r\narea and remembers that down there is deposited what comes out of the 35 \r\nbathrooms of the structure, because in the neighborhood there is not sewage \r\nnetwork. He tells it while pointing to the pool, where one of the residents \r\nteaches swimming on Sundays and everyone, everybody, must attend the lessons. He \r\nalso points out, proudly, that he has six power plants, bought during the \r\ncrisis, and that he no longer depends on the State in that aspect. He also \r\nshows, in a more remote area, the construction of the visiting room and a small \r\nchicken coop. His plan is to produce their own food because he must buy sacks of \r\nvegetables and other food by bulks every day. Everything is planned in the small \r\nrepublic ruled by \"El Patriarca<\/I>\". <\/p>\n\n\n Anabel has \r\nbeen living with her husband and three children in Habir\u00fa since 2011. For many \r\nyears, she used to listen to Leonel's ideas, before his definitive expulsion, \r\nand shared his thoughts. Young and impetuous, the brunette went to study in \r\nCanada and returned to Venezuela with a law degree and married to a Salvadoran. \r\nWhen she arrived in 2010, she stayed just a few months. She didn't like the \r\nstrictness of the rules. It's a different lifestyle. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n There is a \r\ntime for getting up and a time for going to bed. What should and shouldn't be \r\ndone is written, so she gave up the idea and returned home. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n - But outside \r\nI realized that I felt better here and I came back in 2011. I am the lawyer of \r\nthe cooperative and Habir\u00fa, \"she declares proudly, while showing a packet of \r\n\"arepanes\", a sort of integral pita bread that revolutionized the bakeries and \r\nthe cooperative's funds. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n The year she \r\nreturned, her first case was the battle between a man and the State. - Leonel's \r\ntrial ended in November 2014. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n The day they \r\ndismissed their crimes, however, they returned him to jail. The same prosecutor, \r\nLossada, had charged them with a new crime: tax fraud. As with Al Capone, they \r\nturned the case around to accuse him of allegedly evaded tax matters. Leonel \r\nbecame the first Zulian citizen to remain detained in a preventive detention \r\ncenter for more than four months for not having declared income taxes. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n Anabel \r\nexplained that this is usually a very cumbersome administrative procedure \r\nbecause it is the tax entity (Seniat) that must initiate the investigation and \r\nthen forward it to the Public Prosecutor's Office. If it is proved, an \r\nadministrative penalty is applied. In this case, it was preventive detention. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\n - \r\nBut there is another detail: because Habir\u00fa is a cooperative, they only have to \r\ndeclare taxes, not pay them. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n The \r\nanomalies spread. Although the crime was charged against Leonel, the prosecutor \r\nrequested the freezing of all the cooperative's assets. It would have been \r\nacceptable if the investigation had fallen on such an organization and not on a \r\nnatural person. After six months and some procedural delays, Leonel Gonz\u00e1lez and \r\nYuvani (the driver was released after 45 days) returned to Habir\u00fa under \r\npresentation regime. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n The \r\ncase was dismissed. <\/p>\n\n\n - \r\nYes, they made fun of it in the press, but it happened on January 6, 2012 what I \r\nhad predicted: the beginning of the end time. I am a prophet -, Leonel never \r\nloses his smile or the self-confidence. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n To \r\nhim, it was all a test. Today he is collecting evidence to denounce prosecutor \r\nFernando Lossada. He already pointed out the case against the newspaper \r\nPanorama<\/I> at the National College of Journalists and is still evaluating \r\nwhether or not to file a formal lawsuit against the newspaper with the Public \r\nProsecutor's Office. After the arrest and the accusations, the commune grew even \r\nmore and its facilities were improved, there are new members and he seeks, every \r\nday, for the members to multiply. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n According \r\nto him, he has never rejected anyone. Ra\u00fal D\u00edaz Granados, one of his accusers, \r\nlived in Habir\u00fa for several years and one day, tired of the rules, he left. His \r\nwife, the sister of Leonel's wife, didn't want to leave the community and that \r\nupset him. Like him, others have left. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n One \r\nof the main rules of Habir\u00fa is that whoever leaves, cannot take anything with \r\nthem, but the whole building is in the land of Leonel's parents. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n It \r\nis 5:00 in the afternoon and from the backyard you can hear the hubbub. There \r\nare at least nine children in school uniforms playing in a small park. There is \r\nno rule that controls the sand on white t-shirts. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n - \r\nSoon you will hear about us, because we want this to grow, for thousands of \r\npeople to live like this, with us - Leonel's project demonstrates that the \r\nmistake of communism is to isolate itself from religion. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n \"El \r\nPatriarca<\/I>\", \r\nwho has always been persecuted by sexuality in all its expressions, has no \r\npartner since Yaneth died of cancer. He refuses to replace her. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n - \r\nShe's going to resurrect. I'm waiting for \r\nher.<\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/28032015-2.jpg\")
The crime of having success<\/h2>\n\n\n
Hidden camera joke<\/h2>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/28032015-4.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/28032015-5.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/28032015-6.jpg\")
End of the world<\/h2>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/28032015-7.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-generator-for-wp\/admin\/src\/images\/PDF_Tray.svg\")
<\/span><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"