Venezuela dialogue bust and its chain reaction

As expected the "dialogue" between the narco dictatorship and the civil opposition went nowhere.  Yesterday the chair, Dominican Republic president, said euphemistically that talks were adjourned for the time being, letting ooze slightly his disappointment at not having been able to help the regime get what it so sorely wanted. On the other hand the chosen mediator of the regime, former Spanish premier Zapatero, could not hide its bitterness at his failures, and revealed his profound bias by threatening the opposition for not signing down.  At least we gained something, Zapatero is now out of any negotiation after his words yesterday.

Valencia

Lots of things going on. One, a couple of weeks ago was a trip to Valencia.

A thank you note to President Barak Obama and Senator Marco Rubio

I suppose that it will seem weird to read that I am thanking at the same time both sides of US political divide. Or that, for that matter, I am picking Senator Rubio over, say, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. But please, bear with me, those will be, at the end, mere details.

What you have achieved in Venezuela, the Senator and his allies by forcing passage of a sanction law against Human Rights violators in Venezuela, and the President by finally applying it to 7 serious cases (and more to come?), is quite remarkable even if right now the casual observer may think it to be a diplomatic disaster for the US. Like many an historical good and well intentioned initiative from the US this one came out in a rather clunky presentation and on the surface seems to have united Latin America around its atavic anti US posture. Some even say that Maduro is reinforced, that the opposition received a patriotic blow that could endanger the electoral results of this year. All this is irrelevant.

El facilismo intelectual de Carlos Raúl Hernández

Hay un artículo de opinión en El Universal de hoy que quisiera comentar de manera breve. Se trata de un escrito de Carlos Raúl Hernández donde lo que choca es un facilismo intelectual para evitar sus responsabilidades, algo mas bien indigno del momento que vivimos.

The week Venezuela awoke to its ruin

February is for some reason a rather agitated month in Venezuelan history. In the last 25 years we have three memorable Februaries, the first one with el Caracazo, the second one with Chavez failed coup and now this one with a mix of Caracazo and coup, but a coup given by the regime against democracy, an "autogolpe" if you wish, self-coup. And let's not forget other fateful Februaries like the one Chavez got reelected for life, or another one with major floods.

Adrift

The question here is who is most adrift in Venezuela today, the regime or the opposition?  The crisis that started late January in Tachira has spread as no other crisis has spread in Venezuela since "el caracazo" when looting happened in all major cities, to varied extent for sure, but enough to leave a memory.

This time around is not about looting, is not about kicking Chavez out, it is about a country that sees a devastating economic crisis ahead and the implied final loss of hope.  Failure to understand that is a major handicap in trying to speculate on "what next?".

Troubled dictatorships are predictable, Maduro's goes that way

I am on CNNE (en Español) because there is no news on Venezuelan TV worth watching, or a cadena by Maduro even less worthy. Besides, these days CNNE transmits a lot of the Maduro stuff, least they get cut off from the cable grid like it happened to NTN24 from Colombia last Wednesday. At least, if they cut the protests report from CNNE they will also shut down the only outlet for Maduro ramblings outside Venezuela (does anyone outside of the chavismo international lumpen watch Telesur?). Thus CNNE just transmitted about 10 minutes of Maduro expose of his new plan for peace. And the only thing I can come up with is that dictatorships in trouble are ever so predictable.

Does Maduro love animals better than people?

Wanna be my kitty?

Maduro's regime has decided today to create free veterinary clinics for street dogs and stray cats, to control the price of pet food and what not. What is wrong with that picture?

Very simple: there is not enough food for humans, public hospitals are collapsing, there is plenty of scarcity of basic medicines, etc, etc...  But Monica Spear was assassinated and that was a public opinion atomic bomb, at home and abroad. So there was the urgent need to do something, ANYTHING and Mision Nevado was launched. Included a Maduro adopting a stray cat that looks quite unhappy and that luckily for him maybe the last time it sees Maduro before being sent to some handler.

It will all come with Orewellian speech (animals in a street situation, imposible to make a good translation of animales en situación de calle) and a proposed "canineathon" on TV. No words of course of the implied Mision Vegan and the liberation of cattle of all types, amen of taking care of street rats and other pests because, you know, they are animals too.

Maybe my calendar is wrong and we are already on April's fools day? Meanwhile I will buy a few bag of dog food tomorrow for my JRT. You know, just in case.

Los Gafos del 7

En estos días cual agobio nos hace escapar las portadas de los periódicos todavía nos llegan rumores, rumores de que otra vez el gobierno tomará las calles caraqueñas en día de trabajo para celebrar algo. Sin contemplaciones, condenándonos a colas, atracos por motorizados en colas, trabajo productivo perdido y más. Hoy, van a celebrar la elección de Hugo Chávez el 7 de octubre pasado. ¡Bien gafos son!

Van a celebrar el resultado de una elección amañada, fraudulenta a todo nivel, y que además fue una estafa a la nación porque presentaron, a sabiendas, un “candidato” que tenía sus semanas contadas. Hoy en día sabemos que si los votos de Chávez aquel 7 fueron posiblemente suficientes para ganar, se mejoró el resultado ya que también hasta los muertos votaron por ese que los iba a visitar muy pronto. Los que hoy se acercarán a tal o cual tarima celebratoria no solamente van a conmemorar el éxito del muerto, pero también todos los fraudes que este hizo para conseguir ese éxito, desde el obsceno ventajismo estatal hasta la ayuda poderosa de las alcahuetas del CNE. ¡Bien gafos son!

The society Chavez has left us: barbarians inside the gate

Women and men both trying to loot the truck. See all
the open boxes already spread around. They did not
come from a spray through the truck cabin....

For those idiotic enough to think that Chavez opened a new era and ushered in a new man: you are right but you are not going to like it.

This morning a truck broke the security barrier in a Caracas highway exchange and got stuck in the middle of the highway. The truck carried packs of frozen meat. It was 6 AM. Within minutes there were already people trying to loot the truck instead than trying to save the driver, who ended up dead later. The cops came and stopped for a while the actions. But since the Caracas main highway was paralyzed, motorbikes came from all around and started trying to rob all the unhappy drivers stuck in traffic.

At 9 AM about 300 bikers arrived and tried to overpower the police security people who had to call for reinforcement. Of course, the idea was to loot the truck...

The disaster blocked the whole city all the way until downtown (photo included in the link)

Millonas de Gladys Gutiérrez

Mas allá de la noticia siempre tenemos que estar pendiente de lo que representa en verdad. Por ejemplo, la multa que el Tribunal Supremo le impuso a Henrique Capriles en si es un escándalo, un irrespeto a los derechos humanos, y hasta un error ya que es fácil de pagar y le renueva su aura de mártir, dándole por lo menos un par de punto extras en las encuestas. Entonces, ¿Por qué lo hicieron?

Can the Venezuelan parliamentary opposition resist fascism pressure?

Heliodoro in his credibility salad days

We treated yesterday to yet another vaudeville scene from the Venezuelan parliament. Juan Carlos Caldera, a Primero Justicia representative that was chastised last year for accepting some campaign money from a pro Chavez "businessman", a.k.a. bolibourgeois, came out with yet a new recording of an inner chavismo conversation. Is anyone left without a bugged room or phone in the country?

Since I did not comment in detail the tapes from the Mario Silvagate, I certainly will not get into this one. Who knows, maybe Alma Guillermoprieto will do us the favor.  As usual what we heard was a mafia like talk about how to corrupt opposition politician.  But there was a twist in it: besides a state security agent and one of chavismo more prominent bolibourgeois, William Ruperti, there was an opposition representative! Heliodoro Quintero in the lists of Un Nuevo Tiempo, Zulia's state local party, was the participating in inciting Ruperti to give money to Caldera (which does not excuse him, by the way, since Ruperti money is toxic under any circumstances).