Friday, May 19, 2017

Speeding up to the grand finale

I was working on a text about how hard it has become to live in Caracas in the last month but today's news make me realize that it is going to get much worse fast.
Highlighting Gladys because
it makes me so happy

The Miami Herald gives you all. And it would be very difficult to exaggerate what they write or overstate the importance of it. Let's start with a sound bite from General Torrealba, the one who three weeks ago (I think) had his HQ filmed as a horde of paramilitary colectivo motorbikers were leaving it, breaking any law that used to exist in Venezuela. That video was frightening by itself and promptly the buildings from were it was taken were searched (I think, memory fails me, and if not those buildings Barquisimeto has had several nights of building searches and looting and abuse and violence anyway).

Not that it mattered much for chavismo: after all it was a way to press on the psychological terror that Maduro has been leading (him as a figure head or the Cubans or someone else, does it matter?). But that recording goes too far as Torrealba calls for training of snipers and admitting that they will be used in a not so distant future even though other military objected (not for humanitarian reasons, mind you, but to save their skin).  This is The Hague court  material.

But if Torrealba thinks he can get away with it (oh hubris, when thy hold us in thrall!) he should think again. Today FINALLY the US has retaken sanctions against Venezuelan officials. Nothing less than the constitutional court judges have been added to the Treasury list, the OFAC´s SDN. You know, those 8 TSJ members who have been consistently taking decisions against the National Assembly until they went ahead and tried the outright coup that has started this month and a half of violence and repression.

Of course, on immediate terms it does not do them much harm but....  now Treasury can go against any of their front people; now no one that makes business with the US government can make business with them; obviously they cannot travel to the US anymore; not even to check on any property they may have since that one is frozen; and if their plane lands in a country sympathetic to the US, well, you know.....

Of course, they can still enjoy the unfrozen loot in Venezuela but the world has suddenly gone quite smaller around them.

Of course you could say that this is more ammunition for the propaganda regime and that in the end it will hut more the Venezuelan people than the regime. BULL SHIT!  We are already hurting quite a lot and truly with or without US sanctions against the regime personnel it is going to get worse for us. SO, please, foreign powers, fuck these bastards, give us at least that small consolation.

Of course, the regime will try to use this for its internal propaganda, which will fall on deaf ears courtesy of near starvation levels of an increasing share of the populace. But overseas they cannot counter the tide against the regime. Even Ecuador's Correa is stating to raise his voice, timidly, but raised it is. Meanwhile back in Washington, for all of his recent problems Trump is not forgetting about Venezuela, something for which we welcome his consistency. He received Santos and for all we know they did talk heavy on Venezuela. After all these are the two countries who have the most to fear from the final collapse of Venezuela. Colombia could have 2 million refugees over a few months and the US will see its share. And the problems that come along as the latest trend is for exiled Venezuelans to hunt down chavistas hiding in Florida and harass them. Not something that I would do, but heck, who am I to condemn such activities from people that have lost it all to Chavez?

Meanwhile, to improve further its image overseas, the regime confiscated Henrique Capriles passport today as he was about to board a plane to an meeting on human rights. Right, well done Maduro! The irony here is that as the regime blocked one of the main figures of the opposition from traveling it did not imagine that within hours even with a passport the high court could not travel anywhere anymore. Well, maybe to Cuba. If their plane does not need to do an emergency landing in a pro US island.

Whatever it is you may think of all of this I trust that you will agree with me that the end, some end, is coming sooner than later.

Of course, you knew that already.




9 comments:

  1. Foreign governments hide their mercenary nature by claiming "sanctions help regime propaganda". What they fail to account for is that regime propaganda is aimed at left wing radicals who will support communist dictatorship no matter what. These European, Latinamerican and USA communists are linked, their beacon or command centers are in Havana, Madrid, Buenos Aires, etc.

    The best way to defeat THEM is to go all out to free countries like Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea are free, because the horrors revealed after they fall are a powerful weapon against the worldwide communist scourge. Obama's policy, being friendly and legitimizing Raúl Castro, has failed miserably. The Europeans and latinamericans have historically aided and abetted these horrible regimes, blindly setting up the conditions to have their societies destroyed. And if this doesn't change, in 50 years we will be in a dark age, dictatorships and pseudo democracies everywhere, controlling us with technology and taking humanity into hell.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:01 PM

    I've been following your blog for several years. During Offshore Technology Conference in Houston earlier this month I made a point to observe the PDVSA booth/display. Clearly a junket trip for the dozens around the Venezuela pavilion. Did not see one Venezuela name tag at any of the technical sessions over 4 days. Prayers the remaining agony will be short-lived.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Boludo Tejano5:11 PM

      Did not see one Venezuela name tag at any of the technical sessions over 4 days.

      It doesn't surprise me that Chavista-run PDVSA would use this as a junket trip. Have you attended OTEC before the Chavista takeover of PDVSA (2002-2003)? If so, did you observe Venezuelan name tags at the technical sessions at a time before Chavez took over PDVSA? My guess is that given the professional performance of PDVSA before Chavez took it over ( and fired 20,0000 PDVSA strikers), you would have seen Venezuelan name tags at technical sessions.

      Delete
  3. Boludo Tejano5:05 PM

    It is interesting that passports hit the news yesterday. The GOV denied Capriles use of his passport to go to the UN to denounce Venezuela. The US denied entry to the US for 8 Venezuelan Supreme Court (TSJ) justices. Tit for tat.

    When the GOV complains about the "embargo" against Venezuela, which has taken the form of denying entry and confiscating US-held assets of certain Chavista officials, pointing out the GOV's denying Capriles use of his passport rather squelches that complaint.

    Yesterday was definitely a newsworthy day for Venezuela, and Daniel covered it.

    I discovered a news aggregator from the UK which appears to be somewhat faster than Google News in reporting relevant articles. NewsNow.UK:Venezuela

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That agregator looks good. Thanks.

      But if it includes Prensa Latina it might as well include blogs......

      Delete
    2. Anonymous6:19 PM

      Is there a way to filter out the Prensa Latina entries, as one can do with some advertisements.
      Antonio

      Delete
    3. Boludo Tejano9:00 PM

      But if it includes Prensa Latina it might as well include blogs......
      It does have some limited coverage of blogs:

      Earlier today
      MUD Understands There’ll Be No Transition Without Amnesty Caracas Chronicles 05:07
      The Chávez Hypothesis: Vicissitudes of a Strategic Project CounterPunch 03:57


      It is of note that the two moonbat lefty sites mentioned here - Prensa Latina and Counterpunch- do not allow comments. A high school peer of mine writes occasionally for Counterpunch, but not on Venezuela.

      I don't see any way to screen out Prensa Latina. Google News similarly has Prensa Latina and Venezuelanayisis as "news" sources. Which reminds me of the old Soviet joke about there being no news in Izvestia and no truth in Pravda. Or was it the other way around?

      Delete
  4. Anonymous6:07 AM

    Read somewhere that it is not only assets freeze in US, restrictions of use of US Debit and Credit Cards also...

    moses

    ReplyDelete



  5. Opposition March in Caracas Broken Up; 62 Treated at Local Hospitals

    CARACAS – The massive opposition demonstration in Caracas on Wednesday ended with 62 people injured, three of them by gunfire, said the health director for the capital municipality of Baruta, Enrique Montbrun.

    In remarks to private Globovision television, the physician said that Baruta health centers had attended to 62 people who had suffered injuries due to the “repression” by the police of the opposition protest.

    He said that of the injured, three were hit by gunfire or “high velocity projectiles,” 15 were “directly struck by (tear gas) canisters,” 11 were wounded by buckshot, 17 inhaled tear gas and “the rest were burned,” although he went on to say that all the injured were “out of danger.”

    ReplyDelete

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