From official terror to article 350 - 6) Luisa and Leopoldo are nothing

On rare occasions in spite of all my daily turmoils I do sense a certain elation. As an history buff I am keenly aware that I am in the middle of History, with a capital H.  Be it when I listen to grenade explosions in Caracas from my patio, or whether I am gassed directly, be it Leopoldo being "freed" or whether Diosdado (and others) announcing that they are about to take arms to defend the revolution, there is no need to have extrasensorial powers to gather that something big is taking place.

How have we reached such a point?

Bewilderment

This is the feeling since I came back. First, I could not believe the visible degradation in supplies in a mere ten days. Today I did my first grocery shopping with my usual non regulated price items and it was, I kid you not, at least 25% above what I paid last time. More worryingly, since I still can afford for the time being, my deli was out of all but the strict basics. That is, no salami, no biscotto ham, etc...That already meager shelf when compared to more civilized countries was simply empty.

But the bewilderment was stronger as I started catching up with the politics. Oh my, oh my....

Preparing the OAS Panama summit, at Raul's good will

Now, before anyone says anything I am a great fan of Andres Oppenheimer from the Miami Herald whose columns and books on Latin America are a must read. But his latest OpEd piece has a je ne sais quoi off.

At first glance his argument is impeccable; Obama should use the next variety of meetings in the Americas to start a rapprochement with some of the countries in difficulty, mainly ailing Brazil (the biggie is OAS in Panama April 10) . Certainly since September 11 the US has been distracted from Latin America and others have step in to pick up the slack, namely China buying and pushing up the commodities market.

Venezuela is done for; it is not me saying it, it is Raul Castro

The news today is of course Obama deciding to renew ties with Cuba after about 50 years of embargo and what not. I will not even bother to put up a link, just open your Google News section.

I am not going to argue the pros and cons. One thing is clear and it is that the embargo has not worked, has furnished the odious Castro criminals with an excuse that they have milked beyond the udder. Yet the failure of the embargo was not the idea per se, but the way successive weaklings applied it, speaking tough when the Miami Cuban vote was needed, forgetting about it as soon as they were sworn into some elected office. Clearly something had to be done and I am too busy, too overwhelmed by my own life and home problems to give you the opinion of my crystal ball about the well founded of that initiative of Obama, or any other possible one.

The Phantom of Miraflores

There is no doubt about it, not only Maduro is in denial but he has a plan. That the plan is written by Cubans willing to gamble on outright repression is inconsequential. That the plan has any chance of success is beyond the point. That chavismo itself will not support it is the least of his worries.

Floating, falling, sweet intoxication

Right now all indicators are in free fall.

Maduro in Cuba, mutual ass kissing with Fidel Castro, orders clearly implied

It is kind of impressive that as I was writing on the start of rationing in Venezuela Maduro had a surprise quick trip to Cuba, our colonial master. So many messages...  Let's start with the picture.

What is wrong here?

Could it be the first lady a.k.a. the "first fighter" sitting attentively demure in front whereas we would have expected either Fidel or Nicolas?

Could it be that all attendants are wearing the de rigueur white shirt of Cuban higher ranking officials?

Could it be that the house of a "revolutionary" seems rather well appointed, in the style of cozy Latin Bourgeoisie? And with modern finishes to boot.

Let's look now at the information available.

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.

Venezuela seeking the status of pariah state?

UPDATED
Is it what Venezuela is seeking? To become a pariah state and thus play the role of victim the way Cuba plays albeit being probably the country with the highest ratio per capita of concentration camps in the world? Let's see.

In the wee hours of the night the police descended on a series of camping grounds set at several public locations, you know, like the Occupy Wall Street camps. Though we can be pretty sure that the idiot left is not going to defend these camps for freedom set up by Venezuelan democratic students. So now we have at least 243 more students jailed.

Moises Naim explains how Fidel and Cuba took over Chavez and Venezuela

It is Maundy Thursday and I am tired after a very difficult week. Fortunately Moises Naim publishes a complete and brief summary on how Fidel Castro sucked the brain out of Chavez making this one transform Venezuela into a Cuban colony. Long time readers of this blog knew that, of course, but it is the first time I see this so explicitly printed in major media, title included: "Cuba fed a president’s fears and took over Venezuela".

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).

Cuban revenge on anti Cuba day

Well, I did not think that my two posts of last night would be connected within a few hours. This morning areas of Caracas have been taken over by the army and Maduro announces among other things that ration cards are a reality.

Let's start first what pushed the regime over to commit yet a new provocation. Yesterday I wrote about the protest march I followed from Las Americas to Chuao. The main march was from Chacao to Chuao and there is that panoramic image below.

Huge rally Sunday in #Caracas; described as a march against Cuban interference in #Venezuela. pic.twitter.com/vZ5ZYacLIN via @mirtha556657
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) March 16, 2014

Scenarios for the post apocalypses

OK, now that I got your attention I got nothing. No one can. But it is time to state a few points that cannot be avoided in case anyone has a script to propose. In no particular order.

Telling details of a rotting regime: orders from Cuba

I cannot pass on two things that tell you what a decomposed (rotten already?) country we live in.

Our men in Havana: reporting to the colonial master

This has gotta be one of the most offensive pictures that I have seen in a long time:

The master and two of his trusted servants

This weekend, the more important figures of the Venezuelan state, the ones that have power, real power, were reporting to their colonial overlord, all together, in Havana. That the meeting took part, at least in part, at the airport so as to offer the excuse of "Look who just happens to walk by! Let's say hello!" does not diminish the crude reality that Venezuela is unbelievably a Cuban colony where the local appointees must go on occasion to report.

Pope and Chavez in Cuba

What to make of the rather hurried departure of Chavez for Havana this week end?  He did not even bother this time around to go through all the formalism.  He announced it on cadena and off he went.

What gives?

CELAC-anthus

Raul at the summit?

Sometimes stuff is still born, no matter how desperately the parents of the creature try to breathe life in it.  We saw such another sad spectacle this week-end in Caracas where, minus Lula, Chavez alone could not manage to give life to that silliness that was "born" a couple of years ago in Cancun: the CELAC or in English, the Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean States.

All was not wasted for Chavez, he got an ego boost, he repeated N+1 times that he was cured, he put up a show for the 30% of us that are congenitally unable to see any fault in him.  This being said the rest of Venezuela made fun of the whole thing, when not outraged not only at the expense but at the inconvenience for Caracas to hold such an event.  After all, Chavez went to the extent to cancel Baseball Venezuelan League games and give public workers the day off Friday in a desperate effort to unclog somewhat the streets of Caracas.  That did not stop a pot banging event of some resonance to take place in Caracas Friday at 8 PM.  Certainly he did not fool any foreign visitor because, you know, they get reports from the embassies including Consuls shot in the crime wave to scarcity of food and the hours lost in a car for any errand.

Chavez croaking? Well, maybe.....

UPDATED (twice).   Yesterday I was dismissing the situation of Chavez extended absence as at least part showmanship; but today I am forced, courtesy of a post from Gustavo, to rethink that things might be much, much worse than I thought.  I do not know how trustworthy is Gustavo's source, but the thing is that his "conspiracy theory" matches so many things so well that, that as Italians would say, si non e vero, e ben trovato.  And thus, even if this blogger is always reticent on reporting rumors, for once he will make an exception.

In short, Chavez would be suffering from a prostate cancer that has metastasized.

That colonial feel from Viceroy Chavez

I do not know about you but never have I felt as much a Cuban colony as I am feeling this week, and it is only Tuesday.  Not only now our orders come directly from Cuba where Chavez prefers receive treatment that he could perfectly receive at home, and probably of a much better quality, but his latest decisions reek of old style colonialism.

Enablers

There some people or countries who perfectly match any or all definitions of "enabler":

1.a. To supply with the means, knowledge, or opportunity; make able

b. To make feasible or possible

2. To give legal power, capacity, or sanction to

3. To make operational; activate

And some even go as far as matching the psychological meaning of "enabler":  

A family member, friend, co-worker, cleric or other person who, by being deeply concerned for the well-being of a substance abuser, facilitates the person's continued abuse by attempting to help the abuser–eg.: shouldering responsibility, making excuses for him or her, in fact encourages continued alcoholic or substance-abusing behavior.

What is happening in Libya today (or Venezuela for that matter) is yet another text book case of "enabling" in all of the senses above.  As a dual citizen I must start by blaming France as one of the main enablers of hard core repressive regimes, whether the president comes from Socialist ranks or the Gaullist ones.  The coddling of Mitterrand to many an African Dictator is known as much as Sarkozy's entreaties to Libya's Qaddafi once he threw a few million to clean up his act such as paying off a few of the victims of the planes he had shot down.  Was Qaddafi not allowed to plant his Bedouin tent on the Champs Elysees?

A Stalinist Dinosaur is visiting Caracas

The government has just passed a law that basically forbids any NGO to invite guest speakers such as Nobel Prize Mario Vargas Llosa.  But that will not stop the regime from inviting a Cuban vice-president, a dinosaur from the Stalinist past (and present?) of the island, so he can declare how wonderful is the enabling law voted last month.  When you see murderer Ramon Machado declaring in favor of something that has been rejected by a majority of the Venezuelan population you need to retreat to the "truth is stranger than fiction" to retain some of your sanity.