A way out for Venezuela: the post Duque election effect

The time has come to discuss what could be done about the Venezuelan narko kleptokracy. And the election of Ivan Duque in Colombia today does affect the possible outcomes.

At the Colombian border, with the symbolic barrier, from left to right: ex president Pastrana,
with hat; ex president Uribe, hat in hand;  Marta Lucia Ramirez, the new vice president of
Colombia and on the Venezuelan side Maria Corina Machado.  The A+ list
of the democratic Latin American right. Piñera of Chile is in thought on that picture. May 14.

Miscellanea

A few things.

Venezuela as a permanent problem

Now that all objective observers have concluded that this is a military narco kleptocracy, what are we going to do about it? This is keeping many people awake at night, but not enough of them. Andres Oppenheimer writes today a piece that underlines that dealing in Venezuela is an urgent matter, that times works in favor of Maduro.  He makes fair points and space limit probably did not allow him to develop. But that is where blogs come in handy.

A ¡NO! for reason

I have read so many idiots in the last three hours that I am forced to write about the Colombien plebiscite of today. Never mind that it will also have consequences for Venezuela.

When you go on vacation to Cartagena and think you
have been whitewashed by your travel agent

I heard "Brexit again! Trump next!"
I read the NYT being shocked
I see people wondering how could Colombians be so stupid, ungrateful, war loving folks!?

So let´s bring some of that hubris down, shall we?

First, the idiots doing amalgam. Today's vote in Colombian is not remotely close to the conditions of Brexit or Trump. Colombia is a, partially, warn torn country where everyone knows first or second hand the consequences of decades of a FARC guerrilla cum narko organization. Most people who voted in Colombia knew full well what they were voting for even if using the same facts led to different choices. With Brexit and Trump we have people that do not have enough problems in their real lives and are thus looking for new ones.

Is the sentence on Leopoldo Lopez relevant?

No, this is no bait title. Whether Leopoldo Lopez is freed or condemned today has become almost irrelevant for the coming history. As I type this a small crowd of opposition leaders (small on purpose, by the way) is barred from the court building where the final sentence on Leopoldo Lopez is supposedly to be pronounced at any minute. And whatever the result is, even if I learn it as I type, it does not change much the coming text.

Note to Obama and Santos: appeasing thugs NEVER works

The Venezuela-Colombian border crisis should have been a fantastic opportunity to put the Venezuelan narco-regime on notice. Instead it serves as show case on how the appeasement policies of Obama and Santos are sinking fast.

And it all came to that

Almost as a rule the end of revolutions and their ersatz is equally appalling. True revolutions like the French one (9 Thermidor) or the Russian one (Kulak starvation) have a moment that mark the end of ideal and the bloody start of a very long path to stability. Ersatz are lucky if they have a semi grand moment but as a rule end up in ridicule if they are lucky (Peron). But some end up in infamy, betraying any possible justification they had at their start. This is the case of this fakest of all revolutions, the bolivarian of Chavez which is slowly petering its way to infamy.

Closed border, people in check. Why?

I suppose some would make a case for April 2002 as "the grand moment". But it was not, a mere failed coup and a failed Restoration which yielded a shit faced Chavez that decided to surrender to the Castros in Cuba to get what he really wanted: life presidency. It worked, he died in office.

"Worse than a crime, a mistake"

We just learned that Lorent Saleh, a vociferous student activist against the Chavez regime has been expelled from Colombia to Venezuela. I have no doubt that Lorent Saleh crossed the line in Colombia on what political activities a foreigner can undertake there. I am certain that there might be justified reasons for the Colombian government to ask him to leave the country.

But there is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for the Santos government to expel him to Venezuela where Lorent Saleh is subjected to political persecution.

Maduro 3 Santos 0?

So Santos just won his reelection. I am not too optimistic for a good second term. So many things can go wrong when you have such a false start for a very complicated process with a neighbor that wants nothing better but you to fail.  The more so when the neighbors seems to be scoring several unexpected goals, a little bit like the hefty surprise victory of Colombia over Greece yesterday by 3-0.

Crucial elections everywhere, dramatic conclusions! Shame and pride for all!

Today we had dramatic elections in three areas of the world and curiously, I can put them together in a way that they relate to Venezuela! Not necessarily directly but bear with me.

Dreams of constitutional repression

That ever self serving pseudo panacea of our sub continent, calling for a constitutional assembly to solve problems that politicians have no resolve to deal with directly, is being invoked all around. After all, the brilliant example of Chavez who called for a constitutional assembly to solve Venezuelan problems is there for all: not only he did not solve any of his country problems, but he made them worse, and he certainly did solve the financial future of his relatives and friends, ending himself as a president for life.

These weeks we heard from different points a call for some form of constitutional assembly, and in all cases it comes from a group of people that are unable of unwilling to have their way and thus want to use the mechanism.  Let's not be afraid of words here, what they all want really is a soft, legal repression, that will silence down those that are not allowing them to get their way.

NATO nattering nags Brazil

I could have never wished for a post to be validated so fast, a week later.  Last Saturday I was wondering about what part of the Capriles visit in Bogota may have been linked to Colombia sending a message to UNASUR, and Brazil its puppeteer. This week Colombia added more, much more, by its renewed desire to associate itself with the North Atlantic defense organization, NATO.  This of course sent the Venezuelan regime in an uproar and its associate in Bolivia to call for a UNASUR meeting against the danger of NATO invading our subcontinent I presume. When in fact all of this is further proof of a very deficient Brazilian foreign policy.

Capriles in Bogota, or yet more evidence of a failed Brazilian imperialist policy

There is no need to expand on the diplomatic fiasco that Maduro's "new" team has suffered from Bogota this week. What is more interesting to note is that were Brazilian foreign policy a success, it probably would have never happened. True, there is always some small room left to suspect that the whole thing was a Machiavellian manipulation of Itamaraty to have Santos do the deed, but how unlikely an explanation....

First, a short summary of the events.

The building up of a FARC/drug corridor in Venezuela

Miguel's text on Rodriguez Chacin candidacy for Guarico state forces me to finish this post I was pondering for a while. Miguel certainly describes well the character but he seems to have missed the bigger picture that is emerging.  For this I have drawn this very amateur map of what will Venezuela drug routes look like soon, and where the FARC will take temporarily refuge once the Havana talks between the Colombian government and the FARC conclude (1).

How chavismo plans to offer refuge to FARC.
In light mauve the zones in Colombia where FARC and ELN concentrate before crossing over to Venezuela.

Some days I want to cover the elections and most days I do not want to

I wrote a single post on the December regional elections hinting that I may not want to cover further than what I did, silly arithmetic prediction included. But the debacle in the chavistas candidate "nomination" process is so tempting...  then again the ongoing slow motion suicide of the opposition keeps apace so why bother covering what may be the final set up of the totalitarian regime of Chavez whose end can only come through open rebellion? Started by chavistas themselves, mind you!

Let's start with the chavista mess.

When FTA hurt you smack in your plexus

If you have any doubt that Colombia's perseverance in finally getting its FTA with the US you just need to read some of the words of a delirious Fidel today, quoted here in AFP.

"Veo con claridad, Hugo -le dije- que la Revolución Bolivariana en brevísimo tiempo puede crear empleo, no solo para los venezolanos sino también para sus hermanos colombianos, un pueblo laborioso, que junto a ustedes luchó por la independencia de América, un 40% del cual vive en la pobreza y una parte importante en estado de pobreza crítica"

I see with clarity, Hugo -I told him- that the Bolivarian Revolution in the briefest of time can create jobs, not only for Venezuelans but also for their Colombian brothers, a hard working people, who together with you fought for the independence of America, a 40%  that still live in poverty and a big chunk in critical poverty.

Let's not get carried away by comments on the obvious such as the bolibanana revolution sinking fast to the point of employment beating insecurity as the concern of Venezuelan people.  No, what is interesting here is Fidel trying to revive the troubles between Colombia and Venezuela (via FARC?), Fidel upset at the FTA and pressing for the reunification of Colombia and Venezuela presumably under the leadership of a mummified Chavez...

I am sure that the Casa de Nariño wince was actually audible....

Finally the US gets its act together on something: FTA for Colombia and Panama

Well, hopefully.

Obama finally sent to the Senate today three free trade agreements, two of them for Latin America: Colombia and Panama.  The first good thing he has done in a long time, and let's hope that it will become the first good thing Republicans will do in a long time by approving it.  Because if you ask me, the GOP House and White House Dem have been lately rather an embarrassment even though the GOP candidates believing in creationism and such shit scare me infinitely more than the wishy-washy White House.  Now we will see if serious people can break free of the blackmailing from AFL-CIO cum Tea Partiers and get down to real productive business.

Venezuelan immigration to Colombia

The immigration of Venezuelan to Miami is a known phenomenon.  Mostly, it is for retiring, for menial service jobs or those who already do business with the US and prefer to do it from Miami than from Caracas even if it requires flying to Caracas on a regular basis.  But this article in Semana from Colombia details how the hard working, productive class of Venezuela is starting to migrate en masse to Colombia, to Venezuela's great loss of course.

I'll see your Makled and I raise you a Lobo

Chavez, Santos and (OMG!) Lobo

One thing is certain: Colombians now take only cash with Chavez.  Once burned, you know, twice shy....

Chavez really, really wants narcocelebrity Walid Makeld back to Venezuela where a mock trial will silence, for a few weeks at least, all the narco charges pressed against some of the highest military ranks of the Venezuelan army, and who knows how many that are into the laundering system of Venezuela, made proficient through extensive washing of corruption dirty clothing.

So Santos had no trouble to force Chavez to seat down with cursed Honduras president Lobo and have the picture published, with a Chavez looking so ill at ease that for a brief instant I had some kind of sorry pity feeling for him.  But very brief, rest assured, as soon as I remembered that he has only himself to blame for all the blackmail that Santos and Colombia are putting him through.

San Pedro Alejandrino, as much a place of reckoning as ever

Post meeting update

Santos and Chavez are supposed to meet tomorrow at San Pedro Alejandrino, this most hallowed ground in Latin America, where Bolivar spent the last ten days of his life, near Santa Marta, hoping to recover somehow before he could board ship to Jamaica and Europe in his semi imposed self exile.

Why would this two enemies until a few hours ago anyway, meet there?  What should they meet to begin with?

Let's start with the reasons for the meeting .