You need to keep following closely what is going on in Venezuela. Any distraction, the more so if you are overseas like yours truly these days, and you may miss the gran finale.
As expected, a cornered regime has started its moves to abolish the national assembly and establish a bona fide dictatorship. It has no choice: elections are not an option for them, they cannot win them even with massive fraud. And lose they cannot because a change of government means that too many of them will go to jail. Thus in front of the perspective of a recall election on Maduro that all indicate will be a sure defeat for Maduro there is nothing else left but to block the drive for recall election. This is underway at great risk as the mood of the country is clearly set for change. Not necessarily in favor the opposition but most definitely to kick out Maduro.
Meanwhile there is the financial question that the National Assembly controls and the impossibility to annul each and every single law the assembly votes. The OAS is getting ready to apply the Democratic Charter and time presses. Using the silly excuse that a foreign ex-president can by himself raise a mercenary army able to defeat the Venezuelan one last week end Maduro decreed a state of emergency with wide ranging attributions for Maduro. One of the worrisome ones is that PSUV committee for food distribution control, CLAP of recent creation, will have power to collaborate with army and police for public order. Translation : civilians from Maduro political party will become gauleiters directing armed folks to control non chavista folks, in particular those demanding a recall election. From denial of food to outright repression is how it will work.
Sure enough a few minutes ago the National Assembly exerted it's constitutional right, and duty, to reject the said decree established to defend, allegedly, the fatherland. Now we are left to see how Maduro and the rubber stamp cum private regime attorney high court TSJ rules out such a momentous and necessary Assembly vote. Beyond constitutional considerations just on ethical parameters, the decree of Maduro cannot be accepted. Period.
And thus we are now on the "my way or the highway" moment we were all awaiting eagerly.
Is Maduro going to be allowed to "defend" the country at any price, including democracy, human rights and parliamentary representation?
Is the Assembly to be allowed to control an executive clearly going bonkers?
One of the worrisome ones is that PSUV committee for food distribution control, CLAP of recent creation.will have power to collaborate with army and police for public order. Translation : civilians from Maduro political party will become gauleiters directing armed folks to control non chavista folks, in particular those demanding a recall election. From denial of food to outright repression is how it will work.
ReplyDeleteWhat an acromym! I've got the CLAP on my case.
this is a sad state of affairs. The National Assembly has had their power cut from under them, and he "people of the homeland" still blindly follow Maduro. I do not see this ending so quickly, many "dictators" have survived worse... Unfortunately, I see a long road ahead..maybe year and half more..of suffering and Maduro in charge. ONLY the military can change the algorithm at this point, and maybe they will...
ReplyDeleteA national strike, work slowdown, protests, and more protests are the only viable way out. The chance of success is low, given the fact that Obama, the Pope, and Europeans are cuddling up with Raúl Castro, who probably controls Maduro's behavior to a large extent.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately my warnings, which started as long ago as 2002, about the Cuban penetration into the Venezuelan power structure, haven't been heard. You really need to frame this properly: chavismo today is a small group of Venezuelan traitors allied with narcos, thugs, and hard core communists, aided and to an extent managed by the Cuban dictatorship. If you can't recognize the enemy, express clearly that there is indeed a foreign enemy and its Castro and his troops, you don't stand a chance.
I see Mr. Obama's opening in Cuba with regard to Venezuela as a very shrewd move. By creating lines of communication, increased economic activity and better relations all around, the US President has slammed shut the one exit door open to the klepto-narco-socialist thugs running the Executive from Miraflores. Now, with better relations between the US and Cuba, they can no longer be sure of a safe haven in Havana. The risk of extradition to the US, especially for drug trafficking and money-laundering offences, is very real. They had to know that the Cubans would demand a very large payment indeed to provide them protection, but the incentives of full economic ties with the US makes what Maduro, et al can pay seem like peanuts by comparison. Mr. Obama has cleverly blocked their way out. Where else can they go?
DeleteWhat does Obama, the Pope, and Europeans have to do with it. All their actions were designed to do was nolify a Caribbean alliance which worked in Venezuela's regard. As for Cuba as an exit door that never ever existed as life in Cuba is as bad as in prison. Castros would have taken all wealth and made them into regular nothing people anyways. Not in support of Obama but this entire mess was created under Bush and was growing to involve most all of S America under him, and although it has taken time is finally being dealt with.
DeleteTo implant a dictatorship, one needs the power of the bayonets. If what I read in Runrunes yesterday is accurate and Bocaranda has proved he is reliable, then some big shot generals want Maduro out of the way. If he tries to implant a dictatorship without army support, he is doomed even if he has a shadow army of goons, Cuban style. The fact that the TSJ judges are asking to live in Fuerte Tiuna is also a good indicator of their perceived strength. This thing is likely to end soon as a farce or a bloodbath.
ReplyDeleteAs Leopoldo always knew, the only way to get rid of this criminal regime is out in the streets. By massive popular protest. Marchas. It's not just Maduro. It's an entire bunch of thugs, including the police, the sebin, the corrupt military (95% corrupt), the putrid TSJ, all the "ministers", Cabello, Cilia, Luisa, Tareks, etc, etc. Hundreds of thugs, plus MILLIONS of Enchufados from "el pueblo". Everywhere, at all levels.
ReplyDeleteMany of these crooks are facing jail time, plus losing their stolen monies and properties. Plus forced exile in countries they don't like, with their entire families.
So they will not leave "democratically". They obviously break the constitution every day of every week, for years, and years. After Chabestia altered the original constitution, to begin with.
"El pueblo" will have to get even more fed up, and hit the streets to chop off the snake's head. The MUD needs to organize massive street protests. Coute-que-coute. Otherwise the self-coup is imminent, and the "parliament" is totally irrelevant.
Boiling frog effect, Castro-Chavista style. They keep tightening the screws of repression, slowly but surely, so that "el pueblo" doesn't notice. There has been an authoritarian, criminal regime for years, over a decade. But with carefully planned nuances, so that it looks like a "democracy" or "socialism". Now it's getting into the final phase of a full-blown Castrista dictatorship. Chupate esa mandarina.
But "el pueblo" is largely complicit. Or they are sleeping, scared. They don't do anything. Not just the politicians. Heck, even the MUD, many of them are already probably BRIBED too. With brand new apartments somewhere.
So the years go by and Cubazuela is becoming a full-blown dictatorship. Next thing you know they shut down El Nacional, and other media sources, and they put more political prisonners in jail. Because "el pueblo" is complicit, by the millions, or just dumb and scared. Que se la calen. To some extent, they deserve what they are getting: colas, crimen, bachaqueo and no toilet paper. They elected one of their own, and they often participate in the galactic corruption everywhere.
You are correct and the issue of getting the people to mass revolt is that the opposition sucks. They make everything about politics instead of human suffering. As bad as it is for the poor they do not think it will be better under the opposition. They need a leader to arise among the people to lead them that is separate of the politicians. When the people started to mass revolt before Lopez turned it into a political revolt which caused 70% of the people to not support the action.
DeleteI suspect that the MUD "opposition" is largely bribed by now with PDVSA Chavismo $$$. Nothing new in Kleptozuela, except it's worse now than when the AD/Copey thieves were in power for 40 years.
DeleteIt's simply mass pilferage. Not just the "government", not just the Bolichicos and the big thieves - aka Derwicks -- no. It's mass pilferage everywhere, or how do people survive with a $12 minimum salary??
Even the owners of private companies, most of them - not all - are into some form of GUISO, tigritos, segundas, twisted businesses, bribes. I know that for a fact, everyone in Vzla knows. I suspect Kleptozuela is THE most corrupt country, per capita, in the Planet today. Past Haiti, past Iraq, past Syria or North Korea or Russia.
And that includes the MUD, and the "pueblo", at all levels, in every town. That's the reason Chavismo manages to stay in power for over 17 years, in such dire circumstances.
"developping"
ReplyDeleteObama's opening to Cuba is an important step for Venezuelan citizens. This move gives Cuba less leverage with SA, and the US more, if it wants it.
ReplyDelete18/5/2016 Maduro Denounces 'Coup' and Opposition Calls for Referendum
ReplyDeleteCARACAS - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the opposition have held press conferences amid growing tension this week, in which the government has reiterated that it is protected against an alleged coup while the opposition has urged the public to ignore those shields.
Maduro said that his government is facing "the worst aggression" to hit the country in the past decade, a statement made after a national state of emergency and economic emergency were made effective last Friday.
According to Maduro, plans for a "military intervention" by the Colombian former president Alvaro Uribe was one of the factors that led him to declare a state of emergency.
He added that a U.S. military plane "with lethal technical capabilities" had illegally entered Venezuelan airspace twice last week.
The maneuvers of the foreign aircraft were allegedly intercepted by the Venezuelan Air Force, which forced the plane to leave the territory, though the incident "will be vigorously protested to the U.S. government", said Maduro.
The Venezuelan opposition is accused of attempting to overthrow the government, through actions for a referendum that Maduro says have no "political viability".
Signatures were collected by the opposition and presented to the electoral authorities on May 2 to initiate a recall referendum.
"Those who have signed have legal, criminal and administrative responsibility and we will act with all the power of justice," Maduro said, adding that the opposition has tried to commit fraud and will be sued in court.
Daniel come back! what about the medicine for your "SO". He is waiting anxiously.
ReplyDeleteOAS Head - Venezuela's Maduro "Another Petty Dictator"
ReplyDeleteMessage from the OAS Secretary General to the President of Venezuela
President Nicolás Maduro,
I am not a CIA agent. And your lie, even if it is repeated a thousand times, will never be true. Nevertheless it should be clarified, although this is to deny the absurd. My conscience is clear, President, and my behavior more so. There is no threat that you can make that will even remotely affect either.
I am not a traitor. I am not a traitor to ideas, nor to principles, and this means that I am not a traitor to my people, those who feel themselves represented by the principles of freedom, honesty, decency, public integrity (yes, those who assume power as poor people and leave the same way), democracy and human rights. But you are, President. You betray your people and your supposed ideology with your rambling tirades, you are a traitor to ethics in politics with your lies and you betray the most sacred principle in politics, which is to subject yourself to the scrutiny of your people.
You should return the riches of those who have governed with you to your country, because they belong to the people, you should return justice to your people in all the senses of the word (including finding the true killers of the 43 and not the people you hold prisoner for their ideas, although they may not be yours nor mine). You should return the political prisoners to their families.
You should give the National Assembly back its legitimate power, because this comes from the people, you should return to the people the decision about their future. You will never be able to give back the lives of the children who have died in hospitals because they did not have medicine, you will never be able to free your people from so much suffering, so much intimidation, so much misery, so much distress and anxiety.
I hope that no one commits the folly of carrying out a coup d’état against you, but also that you yourself do not do so. It is your duty. You have an obligation to public decency to hold the recall referendum in 2016, because when politics are polarized the decision must go back to the people. That is what the Constitution says. To deny the people that vote, to deny them the possibility of deciding, would make you just another petty dictator, like so many this Hemisphere has had.
I know that the OAS and my work bothers you because, as the song goes, “entre los Ceibos estorba un Quebracho.” I am sorry to inform you that I neither bow down, nor am I intimidated.
Blah, blah blah. Nice words, but just words. As we've seen year, after year, after year of the Chavismo regime. They couldn't possibly care less about what anyone says internationally. They know they will DO nothing in fact. And the Venezuelan "pueblo" hardly even hears or reads about this stuff from international bureaucrats, anyway. Bottom line is that if you really want to revolt, you have to hit the streets. And when you do, you get sprayed with pepper gas, or get arrested by the corrupt Nazional guard forces.
DeleteJust reporting the news Sledge in Daniels absence.
DeleteSledge is a concern troll WH, everytime he types Cubazuela or Kleptozuela I have a shot. I know longer drive.
DeleteAnd your specific point about the subject at hand is?? Say something about the TOPIC, beside stupid ad hominems, or shut the hell up.
Delete
ReplyDeleteToday: Maduro Will Declare "State of Internal Commotion" if Coup Incidents Occur
CARACAS - Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro warned that he could declare a "state of internal commotion" if coup incidents occur and reiterated that there are "serious threats" to peace in the country.
The state of internal commotion is a third level after the state of emergency and economic emergency already decreed last week and "a resource that I have as head of state if signs of a coup occur," he said in a mandatory radio and television transmission.
"I will not hesitate to declare it if necessary (...) hopefully that will not be necessary," he said Wednesday.
The president said that under the Constitution, the state of emergency and economic emergency, which were denounced yesterday by the opposition-controlled parliament, may be applied in "exceptional economic circumstances that seriously affect the economic life of the nation."
"I think here no one doubts (...)that we are in an exceptional situation which requires exceptional actions (...) in order to protect peace in the country," he underlined.
According to the president, the National Assembly "has been lying about the new decree."
"The Assembly should be of service to help economic production," he stressed and said that they should not encourage speculation and instead contribute to solve the Venezuelan complicated situation.
He questioned if the National Assembly will last until October when it is expected to submit the national budget proposal for 2017 for approval.
The Venezuelan opposition marched today to demand that the Election Commission grants them the right to hold a referendum to oust Maduro before his term ends in 2019.
No, No and NO! Welcome to the new norm...
ReplyDeleteNo, No and NO! Welcome to the new norm...
ReplyDeleteSo we should nickname Maduro as Dr No.
Deletehttp://venezuelausa.blogspot.com/2016/05/venezuelan-socialist-accuses-government.html?m=1
ReplyDeleteEugene, my old Chavista friend do you still have your brain full of Bolivarian turds?
Deletehttp://venezuelausa.blogspot.com/2016/05/venezuelan-socialist-accuses-government.html?m=1
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