Why Venezuela cannot be fixed

 I was planning this second post long ago, following my crude description of why Venezuela remains messed up in spite of all the regime propaganda. But on occasion procrastination pays and I can start with recent items telling us what type of wondercrap Venezuela is.

First the new economic zones (ZEE). This is the latest at attracting foreign investors offering them all sorts of fiscal favors, and other favors that better remain nameless for the time being, but surely one would be by exempting those investors with having to follow labor laws. The delirium goes as far as including in these zones the Tortuga Island that will be transformed in an international tourists pole with airport and all.  I happen to know La Tortuga. It is small, barren, waterless, no natural harbour worthy mentioning, etc, etc. Yes, it is beautifully wild with scuba diving offerings. But if you imagine Tortuga with ten resorts and golf courses, well, there go the corals. Nothing will remain, the island is too fragile for even a single resort. The idea behind that cockamamie plan is for laundering money away from scrutiny, creating at best a secluded retreat so that regime higher ups can go partying among themselves.

The other item was to give Iran gazillions acres of land so they can produce food to bring home. That the country side is devastated, that the Venezuelan agricultural worker has lost long ago its punch and skill, that we lack food enough that giving land to Iran, that is just crazy. Again, there is something else at play there. There is ALWAYS something else at play when chavismo announces big undoable plans. A secret base for Iran comes to mind.

And of course, we are now in November and no one is speaking about this anymore. 

From this items you get already the gist of this blog entry: there are no conditions in Venezuela today to discuss any rebuilding plan.  Assuming of course that within the regime here are people able to draw a realistic reconstruction plan. This is a short list of the main obstacles you will face to develop almost anything productive in Venezuela.

1. The general infrastructure is obsolete and in severe disrepair. Be it roads or electrical distribution, it does not work and the regime seems unable to fix it except in some points of utmost necessity for them, not for the populace. To build and run something is a major effort requiring that you bring in your own electricity generating system, for example.
2. The sanitary situation is simply nasty for foreigners. From run down and resource poor hospitals to the increasing scarcity of decent tap water, life is difficult. Very difficult.
3. The legal system is a joke. If you invest you never know when some government agency will knock at your door trying to see what they can extort from you. Or you can yourself get a single protector to whom you'll pay a regular stipend. The law is not your friend, it is your foe.
4. Which brings us to the security of the people working for you. As bad as ever. Your top management will need armored cars and perhaps even body guards.
5. So you say lets work with locals, they are used to it. What locals? 6 millions and counting have fled the country, including a cohort of skilled professionals.  You are going to have trouble hiring competent mid management.  As for lower ranks in your business hires, do not be too optimist. 20 years of chavismo have created a despondent worker, that thinks only about rights and that the bosses are tyrants. Then again enough are starving and desperate that you may manage to have them do all sorts of nasty jobs. Note: I am not saying that Venezuelan workers are bad, just saying that building a decent team is not going to be easy.
6. And of course considerations such as the environment, protection from messy neighbors and the like you can dream on.

I'll stop there, enough said for to make my point: Venezuela cannot be fixed as long as chavismo remains in office. There is no means, no skill, no will for that. The country is drifting from an improvisation to another with the sole objective to control population and allow the caste of "revolutionaries" to live the high life in Caracas since too many of them would be arrested were they to leave the country.  Oh yes, there are a thing or two you can do with that caste, a.k.a. boliburgueses, but you better be sure that you will have a very high return on your investment and no moral compass least you get taken for a ride and pockets emptied.

No need to hold your breath on oppo/regime negotiations

 A few days ago I was writing about the regime apparent willingness to consider that maybe, it was an hypothetical hypothesis that well, you know, we may talk to someone in Guaido's office to see if we could borrow the pencil sharpener.....

And then we got Guaido making a rather dramatic statement as to be willing to ask for lifting a few sanctions AFTER the regime shows positive concrete signs of serious negotiations with preliminary results. In a Tweeter thread I posted on that:

(1)This could be a major development. @jguaido offers a global negotiation of measured give and take. In short: as the government allows more freedom, decent elections and international help free of regime control the Guaido opposition may ask for a progressive lift of sanctions https://t.co/qFCXuy0J7p

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) May 12, 2021

And then we have Maduro accepting to negotiate through the EU and Norway intermediaries, though adding a suitable set of insults towards Guaido. It is to be noted that according to Ultimas Noticias, a pro regime newspaper, he cited a misleading Tweet from EFE, the Spanish press agency where it says that Guaido has proposed to eliminate sanctions. Guaido never said that, and at any case he would ask for a partial suspension of sanctions AFTER the regime makes concessions first. Then again EFE has not much credibility when reporting on Venezuela, only too often to burnish the image of the regime.

While we are discussing pro regime news outlets, Ultimas noticias writes that Jorge Rodriguez, head of the "novel" national assembly will negotiate once the opposition has beaten its mea culpa. That is, he wants the opposition to acknowledge its mistakes and crimes, that there should be no amnesia __ and then we negotiate. One has to admire the ability of chavismo to commit all sorts of crimes, including those against humanity, and pretend that the real criminals are others. The chutzpah of these guys will never cease to surprise.

Lets pass on the fact that the regime is the one most interested into lifting sanctions since those ones are largely directed at people inside the regime hierarchy, where their ill acquired riches are often blocked on off shore accounts. They want the loot back....

Maduro and Rodriguez are contradicting each other? The regime has not made up its mind? Can it make up its mind?

Whatever it is we must understand that the only ones willing to do a serious negotiation are those in the opposition. This one has not only something to gain out of successful negotiations, but it also cares about the humanitarian crisis inside the country. Or at least it cares way more than the regime who is still unwilling to establish a coherent vaccination plan against Covid, for a burning example. Yes, that is right, Venezuela is now dead last in the number of vaccines applied. Any time soon a Venezuelan variant is about to appear!!!!!

For the regime on the other hand the lone objective of negotiation is to give in as little as possible so that its leadership gets to recover its funds and travel outside to spend them in "la vida alegre". Period.

Needless to say that I am not holding my breath whatsoever.

Iran gasoline in Venezuela: tragedy or bad joke

This nice PDVSA worker, all dressed in red of course, cheers and waves the flag as Iranian tankers reach Venezuela to deliver gasoline.

What is wrong with this picture?

To begin with, the worker is a fraud, he represents a state oil company which once upon a time was a world class company and that the chavista revolution has run to the ground. It went exporting oil and gasoline eons ago to now being unable to supply the Venezuelan market, resorting to the lone country willing to sell gas to Venezuela: sanctioned Iran.

Let's continue. The bolivarian revolution, liberator of minds and spirit has sunk so low that it now glorifies a theocracy which among other things holds the death penalty, separates genders, prosecutes minorities and and tramples varied human rights. All is ABSOLUTELY against the original purposes of chavismo.  But then again, the "revolution" is long been gone, whatever that was. 

But they all wear masks and gloves, which I hear are missing in public hospitals. But I digress.

What matters beyond this cheap show of avowed failure is that the Iranian gasoline has been a failed show: nobody really cared.  No tanker was pirated or sunk in high seas. No problem. The US was coherent with its sanctions: food, medicine and stuff like gas can pass. period. End of propaganda.

In Venezuela the regime hoped for a confrontation, and so did part of the opposition desperate for the Marines to land. But on May 22 I was tweeting, in Spanish, sorry, that nothing would happen, no matter the cheap escort show the Venezuelan army planned and did when the tankers reached Venezuelan waters. Nobody apparently thought that if the US of A was going to sink a tanker it would have done so in high seas. But I digress again.

3 EEUU tiene que ser coherente con el extento de sus sanciones. Por lo tanto no va a parar los tanqueros iranies. A menos que busquen un casus belli con Iran; y ese sería malísimo. Hay mejores.
4 ni que traigan 10 tanqueros se arregla el problema. La escasez regresará siempre.

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) May 21, 2020

So gasoline from Iran made it.  Nobody knows how it will be paid for, though we all suspect it will be from the scarce gold reserves left and the Blood Gold from the devastated Bolivar state.

The opposition could not do a thing but at least it announced that were they in charge, the would find the credits to buy 40+  tankers a month, regularize gas supply within two weeks and fix in a short time whatever can be fixed of the Venezuelan refineries.  

Of course, this way the opposition did score a point indicating that 5 Iranian tankers are not enough to cover the needs, which we can see from day one of the tankers arrival. Corruption and extended gas lines were kept. The price of gas was jacked up from 0,00000... USD to 50 a cents a liter, little bit less than 2 $ a gallon. Plus of course what you pay the Nazional Guard to let you access the gas station and other miscellaneous expenses.

Because yes, without a doubt, the gas distribution scheme was designed to favor corruption, directed mostly to the army that can get pretty much what it wants and resell it at any price it wants (I was told by some friends that they paid as much as 4$ a liter at the peak crisis time).

When we will be able to write real history books, t4his Iran gas thing will mark one of the low points. But a high point in corruption, certainl.

The bridge of shame

The picture below has been flying all around the world from different angles.

Chavista hell hole far in the horizon

It is one of the most perfect symbols of the crap that chavismo has always been, just exacerbated these days.

Reviewing the "10 de enero" myth: the end of the road

Three weeks ago I was commenting how dire the situation was as the fateful date of January 10 approached. Today things are clearing up and we may get surprises.

First, a brief recall.
1) An illegally elected Maduro on May 20 needs to be sworn in by the National Assembly.
2) the NA powers have been voided by the high court TSJ in an illegal way. No law passed by the NA is valid. Yet the swearing in itself is not a law and thus there is no way to annul the NA on that prerogative. 3) Maduro will not go to the AN for swearing in because not only he cannot do so legally but he cannot appear to be caving in to the NA legitimate demands.  You could talk about the Mexico wall deadlock, but you ain't seen no nothing compared to the deadlock here since 2015.
4) The NA cannot compromise with Maduro because his election was outside of the constitutional requirements, both in date and organization. If a fraction of the opposition would break away to make a new majority pact with chavismo representatives (absent since late 2015) it still would be illegal and that portion of the opposition would have no chance ever to get votes in future elections.

From official terror to article 350 - 4) that hamletian moment

The opposition MUD is subjected to tremendous challenges, all coming from the fact that they need to face off a criminal narco-state without any help from the outside police.

Why the world is not acting on Venezuela knowing very well that it risks receiving a refugee wave of millions is the subject of another text. Never mind that if the regime manages to hold power at the cost of a dictatorial communist "constitution" and thousands of deaths this will set a bad precedent for regimes dreaming of such a perpetuation outcome, like Bolivia, the FARC in Colombia, Nicaragua, to name a few of the wanna-.be rogue systems in Latin America.  The fact of the matter is that the latest failure of the OAS to even come up with a mild declaration is the confession of a world that has lost the notions of good and evil, navel gazing, worried about how to sustain a welfare state that will reward them politically. Times have changed.

From official terror to article 350 - 3) the country chavismo wants

If chavismo is divided it remains nevertheless that they all share a common vision of the country: we will never be out of office; we will create an opposition we like; we will share only a few things with that likeable opposition; we will erase it as needed and start anew; 90% of power and money at the very least will always be for us.  Then again, when you look at the pictures from this week end military ceremony you do realize that "Caracas, we have a problem".

In here I have pointed out a few details on that picture. Maduro went to an army base, isolated from the general public as the crowd was selected (long gone are those Chavez ceremonies at the Carabobo battle field on June 24 when "el pueblo" was welcome with open arms).

Dialogue ante-mortem

I am going to comment a short note by Carlos Ocariz, the mayor of Eastern Caracas, a masterpiece of political conciseness. This will explain perfectly why there is no hope that a dialogue can ever happen between the regime and anyone else.

Al Vaticano, mediadores y pueblo de Venezuela. pic.twitter.com/tEqms2ZRxb

— Carlos Ocariz (@CarlosOcariz) 30 de noviembre de 2016

Translation, step by step, with my comments.

A new geography of chavismo [Updated]

When political movements suffer a major set back they either go extinct or they reorganize for better days. This means that inside factions shift, balances change and the result of these glissando will be extinction or renewal. With events these last two weeks we can start seeing how this is shaping.

The truth on the weeks after (elections YV-11)

So tomorrow we vote. And what will happen next?

Food lines in Venezuela are getting worse

And this morning I filmed one.

It was in Macaracuay, in front of a small shopping center called CC Macaracuay which has the misfortune of its grocery store (former C.A.D.A.) become a public shop, Bicentenario after the expropriation of EXITO chain. I drove in front around 7:30 and the line was much bigger. Driving in front again around 10 AM I was so surprised at the remaining extent of the line that I filmed it.

Zeitgeist at Arapito

This holiday period had to provide us rich evidence on the country's degradation, none as telling as the mass robbery at Arapito beach.

Arapito used to be one of the paradise beach Venezuela had decades ago, even featuring in European tourism posters. I still remember going there as a kid as a stop over on the road to Cumana, our annual vacation outing then. Since then mass tourism has come, but not of the good type. Thinning coconut trees, greasy spoon stands, noisy crowd on holidays. I certainly will not spoil my fond memories by going back there, the more so after the mass robbery that took place yesterday.

Got a local problem? Hide it by jailing a Venezuelan opposition leader

So let's review the regime's problems just this week,

What if there were internal elections and nobody came? It is exactly what happened this Sunday. The regime's political facade, PSUV, held internal elections. Some inside PSUV dare to claim something like 7 million members (more than the votes they get at general elections). Cooler heads inside the PSUV satisfy themselves with 5 millions. More realistic observers do not go much further than 2 millions.  Whatever it is, the participation may have not reached the half a million. That the regime refuses to give numbers "because we do not want the enemy to know exactly how many we are" is a true confession of the paucity of enthusiasm inside the PSUV.  In fact, even Telesur manages a triumphant article without giving a single number of votes. They say there were more than 400,000 candidates, really, which would allow us to believe that there must have been at least the same number of votes. No?

Mensaje al chavismo anti democrático y torturador

Veo eso en Twitter, proviniendo de una reunión del Grupo de Madrid, conformado por ex presidentes de cualquier país democrático.

Expdtes. del mundo piden a Maduro liberar inmediatamente a Leopoldo Lopez pic.twitter.com/OoXGiEViMm
— Místerpopo celestial (@antenax2) November 25, 2014

Los presidentes al lado de Carlos Vecchio son, de izquierda a derecha: Pastrana, Quiroga, Toledo, Hurtado, Calderon, Lagos y Lacalle (no aparecen pero si firman la carta Arias y Cardoso). Si bien algunos son de la derecha democrática, Lagos es socialista chileno y ni Hurtado ni Toledo ni Cardoso se pueden colocar en la derecha. Ademas, sea cual sea sus preferencias políticas, TODOS han sabido entregar el poder a sucesores democraticamente electos, después de elecciones de verdad. Y sin los abusos electorales ni las trampas que ustedes convirtieron en rutina del CNE.

Can Venezuelan "ruling" party PSUV avoid division?

Red tide coming?

UPDATED
I suppose that one week ago writing about the opposition MUD trying not to fall in the sinkhole was going to bring karma to hit me with writing a post about the PSUV fate. Indeed one week without writing brought me today in front of the PSUV holding internal "elections" for its political congress starting in a very few days (July 26) (1).

I am not going to go into the diatribe of obvious low electoral participation (the PSUV has only itself to blame for reporting unrealistic high membership numbers, far higher than its actual average voting record). I am not going to go into all the electoral propaganda to make the country believe these elections are meaningful (Globovision looked today like a more behaved state TV propaganda). No, the true meaning of these elections is what it is trying to hide outside of the electoral contest.

Chavismo and Maduro have their version of "La Salida"

Something funny happened with my last post in Spanish: it got more hits than an English written post and more G+ than usual (note: I have no idea what G+ truly is good for, it just appears with the posts). Yet few comments, as it happens with my Spanish written posts. Still, since a reader asked me to translate it, I am forced to reply that no, it cannot be translated because it has portions that are really designed to humor a Venezuelan audience (like the Flores family placement system), not to mention that humor, even if diffident, is not easy to translate. But I can post a rewrite, an English summary of sorts.

The point of that post was that the Giordani letter and its consequences highlighted that chavismo was possibly considering an exit out of a situation that they cannot control. Thus "the exit / la salida" to copy ironically the failed program of Lopez and Machado. Failed for the time being, but that is another story.

Why would chavismo consider an exit? Several reasons: they cannot control the economic crisis; they know their coalition of interests is unraveling; they know that too many of them will go to jail for their crimes (and there may be a need to select a few scapegoats); many of them would like to enjoy their loot, and would pay a reasonable price to be allowed to do so; and more. Clearly, this is impossible to tie it all up neatly and some changes will have to occur.

Versión de "La Salida" para los chavistas

La manera en que Giordani fue botado nos pone a pensar. Y pensándolo bien uno entiende que más allá de cualquier diferencia ideológica o de cualquier ilusión de cambio económico, lo que se esta gestando dentro del chavismo es "La Salida", pero de algunos de ellos, a disfrutar de lo que se han robado. Si algo ha sido confirmado estos días, aunque sea parcialmente, es lo que escribe Rafael Poleo desde hace ya bastante tiempo. Según Poleo un grupo dentro del chavismo ha decidido ir a la posición pragmática de negociar una salida. En este caso lo "pragmático" no significa un cambio de modelo, no significa mas democracia. No. Significa hacer los cambios necesarios para que los altos jerarcas puedan salir del poder de una manera "soft", y entregar el coroto a unos sucesores que cargarán con casi toda seguridad con las culpas. El cambio de Maduro de comunista barato a neo liberal de pacotilla solo puede explicarse con la decisión de Cuba de entregar Venezuela a intereses transnacionales a cambio de que él, y los Castro y unos cuantos más salgan ilesos, con una porción suficiente del botín acumulado para un retiro cómodo.

Para poder explicar y entender esto hay que entender primero cual es la situación del chavismo y de Venezuela.

Si a cada 11 le toca su 13, pues a cada 13 le toca su 12

El chavismo está hoy ¿conmemorando? ¿celebrando? o tal vez ¿añorando? el mes de abril de 2002, un desastre que les sirve de Playa Girón. Porque otra cosa no tienen para su épica sino ese desastre del cual se salvo Chávez de carambola. Bueno, cuando escribo "se" salvo quiero decir "lo" salvaron porque el estaba lloriqueando en sotanas y en la playita de la Orchila donde lo habían puesto su incompetencia y su inconsciencia. Pero por suerte para Chávez, la incompetencia del otro lado fue mayor, demostrando que las Fuerzas Armadas de Venezuela ya no son ni capaces de hacer un golpe, sea en 1992 o 2002.

El chavismo tiene un problema de épica ya que solo cuenta con los estentóreos intestinales de su héroe en el Museo Militar o en aquel túnel de tren del cual no quiero acordarme. Ni siquiera en su muerte pudo el líder crear un momento de épica, entregándose como lo hizo a unos extranjeros que lo aislaron antes de matarlo. Con el circo del funeral, sus poco iluminados lugartenientes no mejoraron el asunto, pasando luego directo a un trágico vodevil fascista que nos tiene a todos en ascuas, chavistas y no chavistas.

How much "save Castro!" is part of the agenda about Venezuela?

I have written on and off about how vital Venezuela has become for the survival of the Castro brothers, and maybe their system. In the latest mention of this I was listing LatAm countries whose leaders cannot bear the fall of the Cuban regime as it would be a blow of their raison d'être.  I need to come back on this with more emphasis after the words of Brazil's ex president Lula calling upon Maduro to create a "coalition" government to bring Venezuela out of its current crisis (in English here).

From a breeze to a storm for Maduro

UPDATED. The pace of events against Maduro has sped up through the week. From being annoyed by his preparation trip to the UN assembly and China it has become a badly reviewed trip top China, a dismal fiasco at the UN and now the questions about his birth have been whipped into a froth. There is open comment around that Maduro days are numbered as the army may be asking him to resign, not as a coup but because he was illegally elected president of Venezuela. And he has only his own idiocy to blame though the trigger may have been the narco activities of the Venezuelan state.

Let's recap some.