A kleptocracy starts facing reality?

In the past few weeks a few strange signs have been happening for a regime that supposedly has all controls in hands. A regime that has made a point to sabotage any negotiation, to deny the existence of its political opposition, a regime ready to do anything for its survival has given timid signs of negotiating. Before you get your hopes up keep in mind that until now the small concessions made are easily reversible without much damage toward the inner base of the regime.

These first sign was related with Covid, in spite of the heartless approach of the regime towards its victims. Namely it was about agreements to obtain help for Covid testing and vaccines. This is still a work in progress but that the regime accepted to hold discrete talks with the opposition was already something.

Then a couple of days ago some US citizens, directors at Citgo, were released from their Caracas jail to be held in their homes.  These men were held as hostages against the Trump sanctions. But it did not work. Sanctions held.

And a greater surprise was the acknowledgement by the regime of some of its crimes. Selected few of course, but those that had quite an echo outside of Venezuela. Though these admissions were limited on context, just as "worthy of further examination". But that the regime accepts to even talk about these crimes is progress.

The biggest surprise may have been the agreement between the World Food Program and Venezuela. See, both Maduro and Guaido appeared with its chair, David Beasley. BOTH had their tweet pic. And thousand of Venezuelan children may soon receive lunch at school, hopefully lowering the dropout rate.

Tremendous breakthrough in #Caracas! @WFP will soon establish operations to provide school meals to 1.5 million of the most vulnerable children. All parties agree that we must always show up together for the people and the children of #Venezuela. Let's get to work. pic.twitter.com/LKuOpapgJj

— David Beasley (@WFPChief) April 21, 2021

En mí reunión con el Director Ejecutivo del Programa Mundial de Alimentos, @WFPChief, le agradecí en nombre de los venezolanos el esfuerzo para que el @WFP_es pueda iniciar operaciones en el país y se pueda combatir el hambre que padecen millones de venezolanos. pic.twitter.com/abtZPnDJJN

— Juan Guaidó (@jguaido) April 20, 2021

And then today's surprise, a new electoral board CNE has been named . Even though the regime could have had a 5 out of 5 names in it, it will be 3 chavistas and 2 opposition (well, we will see how much of an opposition they are). Clearly the regime is accepting to open up to elections that may have some meaning, though do not think that 2 out of 5 at the CNE is enough to ensure free and fair elections, far from it...

What gives? Rather than discussing the details of these developments let's look at the reasons why the regime is begrudgingly making marginal concessions.  Certainly there is the Covid crisis, the bankrut country, its economy in shambles, the loss of territorial control in large swaths of the country, sanctions and what not to force the Maduro gang to the table. But the regime has shown once and again its disregard for the well being of the Venezuelan people. The kleptocracy cum drug traffickers are strictly on survival mode in order to retain power at all cost. 

What gives in my opinion is Biden holding on the Trump line over China and doubling down on Putin. See, the regime has no notion on what state interests are: since Chavez all foreign policy was guided by the interests of Chavez.  But in spite of all its bravado, Trump expressed a bipartisan policy of confronting Russia and China. In his first 100 days Biden has talked tough on China and even called Putin a killer, pushing further that bipartisan agreement. The table has been set, the rivalry between China and the US is now #1 priority, with Putin close behind.

How does this affect Venezuela? Look at a world map and figure out how far from Beijing and Moscow Caracas is. And how close are Syria and Crimea to Moscow and how close the Indian and Pacific Oceans to essential Chinese trade routes. Neither China nor Russia will go to the front to defend Venezuela. In a real confrontation these countries have much more important priorities than Venezuela, a bankrupt and corrupt country whose only interest today is to be used to goad the US. Any LatAm country on the Pacific is way more important to China than Venezuela, and Venezuela simply too expensive for Russia to support non stop. This one, by the way, turns out to be not such a great ally of Maduro according to the limited supply of Sputnik V vaccine it is sending. But I digress.

Thus it is quite possible that someone inside the regime has realized that now automatic support from Russia or China is not guaranteed. Even Iran and Turkey may not be such reliable friends anymore. Time to shift gears? Maybe it is time to be serious about discussing some sort of arrangement with the US?

Becoming a failed state (2): the people

Excruciating cattle line for a white plastic rectangle

Last week end the regime was organization a census of sorts for people to sign up for “carnet de la patria”. The operation was on many Bolivar Squares of cities and villages, which are 90% of the time in areas of lower income status. That is, on Eastern Caracas, to give you an example, one would not see those lines. The objective is to codify under a single object all the now defunct social Misiones of Chavez. Defunct because there is no money and/or, they failed. But did the people signing up for the latest avatar knew what they were signing up for?


I was listening to an interview made to several people in the lines. One thought that it was some kind of census and people were required to sign up regardless. Another one did not know either but had heard that it would bring some material advantages “beneficios” so he had to sign up just in case. There was the one that wondered whether it was a new social program. Not forgetting the naïve one stating that the new card would stop abuse and corruption. Etc… Nobody knew exactly what the thing was about. All had an interpretation according to their need or wishes. And there had to be of course the chavista to the bone that said that this was the very last line that el pueblo had to stand in for, that thanks to the revolution and Maduro this was the final solution to all our woes. Or something of the kind, I am trying very hard to forget that after 17 there are still people like that.

Weimar or Harare?

Or was that a suicidal note from the regime?

I wrote earlier about the recent "economic policies" of the regime. But I need to add the latest from today, the de facto privatization of the Central Bank of Venezuela, BCV, to Nicolas Maduro and his camarilla.

All is dissolving, slowly but surely

For reasons that will be elaborated in another post, I have been silent for two weeks. Not that it seems to have mattered much. I do not think Venezuela matters much anymore, there is protest fatigue just as there was protest fatigue after Ahmadinejad stole his reelection from Moussavi. The world tires fast, even though inside Venezuela protest and repression keep apace while in Iran they died eventually.

The fact of the matter is that I have nothing to add. What I wrote since last year is constantly proven right. Anything new is a mere rehash of a situation in full decomposition. The causes are the same, the outcome is to be feared. The only variables are those that affect the speed of the proceedings.

True, I could entertain the readers with deep analysis on why the car production in Venezuela is now near zero, on why inflation has forced the regime to double the circulation of the highest banknote (barely worth 2 USD today), on the latest presidential assassination attempt (and counting, as Tal Cual lists it as the 13th on Maduro alone), an attempt based on obviously forged E-mails that the attorney office takes seriously. Would those articles bring anything new?

All is the same.

On one side there is thug regime, whose factions are fighting between each other for the shrinking marks of power and the "peau de chagrin" that the national income has become. As the crisis aggravate, as it is becoming more and more difficult for the mobsters at Miraflores to agree amongst themselves on any issue except survival, the repression can only become worse.

The latest show must be understood at the subliminal level, not at the ridiculous attempt to fabricate charges to jail a few more opposition politicians. That show was dedicated to the lumpenest of the chavista lumpen, those that cannot perceive any issue in their lives outside of serving the regime, those that can kill for that and thus need no rational reason to do so. They just need a reason and the regime obliged.

On the other side there is an opposition that still cannot make its mind up even though the mayoral election of San Cristobal and San Diego showed the way: stern protest until the regime knuckles down. The more repressive it gets, the more it loses support. Even chavistas in these cities for the first time crossed the line directly, without an "abstention" phase first.

Stern protest do not mean rioting aimlessly in safe areas. Stern protests mean making no concession on the regime, means stopping any negotiation farce until the regime proves its good will, means calling a spade a spade, and a dictatorship a dictatorship. Stern protests mean making the regime thoroughly responsible for the mess we are in, and ever expanding one.

After a month in Caracas I came back to San Felipe last Monday. I had to stop several times until I found a small bottled water. There are no munchies besides "Cocosette" or the chemical tasting "Samba". One place had also awful Nestle milk chocolate. Salty snacks limited to tostones, when available. The last Burger King on the road closed. Areperas were low on choices to fill up your arepas. The only soda still abundant seemed to be Pepsi. Even though I dared travel on a Monday, the worse traffic day on roads, I encountered no significant problem. It has been years that I made Caracas San Felipe on a Monday in less than 6 hours. This time it took me 4.5 hours.

Can anyone think that anything I may add to this post will make it more enlightening?

Getting ready for 2014 (2): chavismo today and its options

Describing chavismo today is a little bit like trying to describe a secretive dictatorship which has a lot in the open.  It is that schizophrenia of sorts that makes it difficult to see what is really going on since we can never tell what is real from the fluff sent to confuse us.  If we keep it simple we can still try get a picture of the group, essential if we want to understand its motive and guess its options for 2014.

Maduro first "power" decision is a show of weakness

I am dumbfounded. Not only because I just barely managed to open the blog dashboard for the first time today and I do not know whether this post will happen, but becasue I caught by mistake Maduro's cadena announcing what a president usually announces first, his new cabinet.

Well, let's start by the obvious: a new cabinet it ain't.

Fascistoid Bananarama in Venezuela

This week we got ample proof that we are indeed a true banana republic.  I will pass on the latest attempt at creating Tascon List III as I will come back on that later.  I will just point out that the attempt was so badly botched that I have to believe that they actually wanted to botch it because they really did not want to follow Chavez instructions.

I will pass on the series of cadenas since yesterday, where Chavez have spent most of his time insulting, INSULTING the opposition and its candidate.  The guy is certifiable, why insist?

I will pass on the latest antisemitic bout which is an omen of worse to come.  And if I pass on that it is because the alluded party missed today a great opportunity to criticize the Chavez foreign policy as the UN massively voted for condemning Syria's regime, Venezuela voting against the resolution.  Capriles is going to have to grow up as a candidate and realize that there are more things to do for a president than fixing potholes.

But today I cannot pass on the oil spill of Monagas which has left 3/4 of its people without access to drinking water for maybe a month.  An oil spill that could have been prevented, an oil spill that could have been controlled earlier but was not because the guys were off to Caracas to celebrate February 4th parade.  What does Chavez do?  Certainly not go there to support its people, and even less mention it these days in any of his cadenas.  See, Chavez could not care less about his people, he only cares about his political survival which now can only be gained though insults and blackmail.  And by the way Monagas is the state which voted the most for Chavez in 2006, with 71%.  Good for them!

Welcome to the Bolibanana Republic of Venezuela

The proud flag of the Bolibanana Republic of Venezuela

Long time readers of this blog might remember that on occasion I have qualified the Chavez regime as a reactionary regime.  In Venezuelan standards a reactionary regime means looking back at our military past of caudillos who imposed their will at, well, will.  This vision of a past that was never quite what the reactionaries of today think it was, but it includes a mythical Arcadia of coffee, cocoa and banana plantations that kept everyone happy.  Needless to say that even if that vision had a kernel of reality, it was applied to a country which did not reach the 2 million people and such a vision could not satisfy today's country of 30 million people, while being possibly the most urbanized of Latin America.

Well, I was wrong in stressing that the military caudillo was the motor of the reaction: it has now an agrarian component, when our beloved bloated leader wants us to become a banana plantation for Russia, a reactionary tzarist empire in the making if you ask me.

Calumniar calumniando: el arte de Germán Saltrón

Pues vean ustedes, la ansiedad del gobierno en cuanto a la Corte Interamericana de Derechos humanos, CIDH, me obliga a escribir una tercera entrada en cristiano. ¡Tres en tres días!

Resulta que nuestro amigo Germán Saltrón cuyo aporte democrático ya resaltamos el domingo pasado quiso agregar mas a sus credenciales.  Dijo así no mas, sin parpadear siquiera (digo yo porque para tener cara tan dura se necesita botox) que si la decisión de la CIDH en el caso de las inhabilitaciones no favorece al régimen venezolano, pues la CIDH se haría cómplice de promover la corrupción en el continente.

"Si la Corte Interamericana le da la razón a Leopoldo López estaría violando el principio de la Convención Americana contra la Corrupción y eso pondría a la Corte en una situación muy difícil (...) Darle la razón a Leopoldo López es propiciar la corrupción"

Así, sin anestesia.

Pues examinemos el argumento.

Making mail run on time

Mail in Venezuela has always been bad but in the last couple of years it has gone from bad to useless.  I cannot tell you how many problems I have had with some people outside of Venezuela that cannot understand why a letter will take at the very least a month to reach me.  But today was just too much...  I went to my POBox to check it out after a week absence.  And there were 5, FIVE, issues of Scientific American.  FIVE fucking issues arrived at once! For a monthly magazine!

Police Violence in Venezuela

The repressive nature of the regime can be clearly seen in the picture below.

Police brutality at a Caracas soccer game

You may wonder why I say that?  For many reasons.  One if the violent language of chavismo which eventually leads the police, tightly controlled by chavismo now, to believe that it can do as it pleases.  Think about the consequences for the future.

Tour de France and silly land distribution schemes

Since Direct TV cut me off from the French TV world signal I have to rely on a trip to Caracas to watch some of the Tour this year.  And it is as magnificent as ever, the filming crew becoming better if possible.

For some strange reason this year I am more obsessed in trying to find a pothole, any pot hole, along the hundred of miles of road.  Living in Venezuela where you have now major potholes regularly in the middle of our main highway, the ARC, I just cannot understand why the French do not have a few here and there....

Also, what is the story with all those clean roads, garbage-less, trimmed grass?  And how do they have so many chateaux, of all sizes, of even questionable interest, so well kept when here we do not even bother in keeping up one of Bolivar's homes?  The lack of graffiti on every wall, the lack of iron bars on most windows also do bother me....

SADA, SICA and more ways to rob a hard working corporation: Cargill and Polar the latest victims

Yesterday the Chavez government stole 120 tons of food stuff from Polar (in English here).  Today it stole 173,000 liters of cooking oil from Cargill.  Both robberies were perpetrated by the same Nazional Guard General, Bohorquez, who lamely says that the seized items will be sold in Barquisimeto through the recently nationalized EXITO hypermarkets, and of course the Mercal/PDVAL system.  That these unjustified seizures will benefit the Barquisimeto people while bringing food shortages to those living around who depend on the Barquisimeto warehouses for their supply does not seem to perturb Bohorquez.  He simply says:

"Presumo que hay acaparamiento, que hay boicot a fin de evitar que éstos productos llegue a la familia venezolana" [I] presume that there is hoarding, that there is boycott to prevent these products items to reach the Venezuelan table.  [that guy does not even know the difference between boycott and hoarding, another example of chavismo general willful ignorance of word meaning]

Then again this is a country where the Caracas people are spared the electricity shortages which mean more severe shortages of light outside of Caracas than what they should be called for; but i digress.

How was this possible and why?

Cuban doctors defect from Venezuela, or when even Cuban supervisors fall to Venezuelan corruption practices

Least the devaluation news would not be enough to illustrate how fast Venezuela is falling apart.

Update on mall closings: when improvisation is a state policy

Today shopping centers and malls were in havoc: the government yesterday gave sign of backtracking from its December decision and nobody knew really what was going on.