A way out for Venezuela: a peaceful way out for a dictatorship?

Speculating how this nightmare will end is just that, speculation. The more likely exit will be a surprise, a never seen move.  Remember that this is XXI century socialism turned into XXI century dictatorship in spite of Twitter, Facebook and what not. It will be followed by either a XXI century totalitarian state, a civil war (Syria?) or XXI century new democracy (Tunisia?).

That XXI adjective is more relevant than what you think.

Mirada descarnada a la invasión gringa

Esto lo escribo en cristiano porque los gringos saben muy bien que Trump es un bocón. No que en un futuro más bien lejano no nos suelten 4 drones encima, pero simplemente ellos tienen otros asuntos más urgentes que atender en este momento. Aquí les estoy escribiendo a unos cuantos venezolanos que se retuercen en agonía y jolgorio (de ambos bandos) ante un putativo desembarco de Marines.

Antes que todo, cualesquiera sean los fundamentos de una invasión a mi patria, eso significa guerra, poder arbitrario para los dos ejércitos, daños materiales y psicológicos inconmensurables. Siendo profundamente anti-militarista no puedo suscribir a cualquier guerra aunque desafortunadamente hay que aceptar que en ciertos casos no hay opción. Ejemplo, contra ISIS.

Tarecking CNN

This week has been a spinning nausea and we are only Wednesday evening. As of today we have a vice president accused of drug trafficking and fake passport emission, resulting not in an investigation but in closing CNN Spanish version.

Let me start with the obvious: when the Department of the Treasury of the United States indicates that your vice president is under investigation for MANY acts of drug trafficking there are only two options left for the president (of Venezuela or any other country). For Option one you fire, or at the very least suspend, your vice-president/prime-minister while investigations are undertaken. In Option two you break relations with the US, close the embassy of the US, call back all your staff in the US because obviously the US are liars and you cannot tolerate such a slandering of your principal politician.

Neither one took place. Instead the messenger was shot and the Spanish version of CNN was forced out of its cable broadcasts in Venezuela.

The Venezuelan Narco State is getting an international definition

The Wall Street Journal published yesterday the first comprehensive account on the multiple investigations in the USA on Venezuela's drug traffic links, and possible long term consequences of those. In Spanish here for free for those who do not have subscription in English. Short English Reuters note here. (1)

National Assembly President,
soon on the "most wanted list"?

Of course there is nothing new here for those who have been following closely Venezuela here. Already ABC in Spain has run into trouble for accusing Diosdado Cabello to be the head of the main drug cartel of Venezuela. What is noteworthy in the WSJ work of Cordoba and Forero is the compilation nature of the thing, of not unnecessarily stressing the role of Cabello. The implications are frightening: the tentacles of drug trafficking that Chavez allowed go much, much deeper than what anyone may suspect, even today.

Du côté de chez Dieudonné

XXI century Animal Farm

I have started to read "À la recherche du temps perdu" a labor that probably will consume the rest of my life. But worthy, as I think it will give many a post title idea. For this first inspiration I though that if one would ever want to write an anti-Proustian opus, one where vulgarity and low instincts would reign supreme, Bolivarian Venezuela would offer a mine of ideas for characters and plots. And Diosdado Cabello could easily be the main character. Or at least a Baron de Charlus that went really, really bad. Some would say that the pigs at Animal Farm would be a better literary allusion when talking about Diosdado Cabello, a case strongly made through some telling pictures. Let the reader chose the version.

The point is that Diosdado Cabello made major headlines this week. It seems that the regime has reached such a degree of totalitarian corruption that people are simply outright deserting and asking witness protection programs. After all, when you deal with drug dealing mafias, this is the least you should demand. Which is what a certain Leamsy Salazar decided to do with a few folks. See, after having been one of the top security for Chavez, he was asked by Cabello to work for him once the demi God returned to the bolivarian Olympus. Apparently Leamsy did not like his fall from Elysium to Hades and is currently rattling about Cabello at the DEA.

A brief history of "colectivos"

Colectivos can be this tacky...

With the recent murder of representative Serra and the summary dismissal of Interior Minister Rodriguez Torres "colectivos" have assumed durable front news status. Heck, there is even a Wikipedia page on them, which is curiously critical considering the constant work that the regime propaganda machine does to edit permanently unfavorable comments in the people's encyclopedia page.

Still, that page is lacking on significant background and historical development, and could be neutered soon. Thus a blog post may be of help (1).

Carvajal 1, Welfare State 0, US of A offside, El Nacional -1

So, as I was afraid, Carvajal was released, and faster than I expected.  I must confess that for a while I thought the Dutch would be firmer, and at least negotiate something solid back for them. Why, the infamous plane blasting would have put enough outrage in its leaders to show resolve! And yet in my first two entries on the subject I was careful to note that there was still a stretch to see Carvajal rot in an US jail.

The Netherlands King visits the naked emperor of chavismo

But the Dutch are the Dutch, they are not principled like Scandinavians, they are not reckless like Latins. Business is ALWAYS business with them, nothing personal. At home they are paragon of civic attitudes and virtue. They will save Anne Frank while in Indonesia the natives did not miss them when the Japanese invaded. In the end they lost both but that is another story.

And let's face it, why would the Netherlands go to war with Venezuela over Aruba? Over what looks now like a botched DEA job? Did they not send Willem and Maxima to see Maduro last November? The only European head of states in a long time willing to breathe the foul air of Caracas.....

Another "Oh Dear!" moment: Hugo Carvajal is arrested in Aruba

UPDATED AGAIN. Scant reports yet, little official confirmation but it seems that indeed Hugo Carvajal has been arrested in Aruba while he was awaiting his diplomatic placet from Dutch authorities to become Venezuela's consul in Aruba. This, my friends, can be a turning moment!

An editorial to illustrate with facts fascism in Venezuela

I rarely translate stuff now, courtesy of Google translate, but this editorial of Cesar Miguel Rondon in his own web page (built when he was banned from TV) is worth commenting. Keep in mind the post on Maria Corina Machado being stripped of parliamentary immunity. Note, the editorial is strictly for Venezuelan use so I will need to explain a few things. The main interest is that it reflects the mood of horror setting among us. and as things are as I was working on there I learned the arrest of San Cristobal mayor, Daniel Ceballos. Quite the timing.

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It seems impossible but every day one is more struck by horror, struck by indignation. I read full of stupor what is on the front page of El Nacional (1): The seven students arrested in Ciudad Guayana monday were hospitalized becasue of the abuse they suffered during her arrest - that strong must have been the beating up that they had to go to the hospital afterwards - they were also forced to eat excrement, and they were also robbed. Yesterday in a tweet they were talking about a girl, who besides this unacceptable torture, the humiliation that resides in being forced to eat excrement, shit, they also tried to rape her. In the middle of this horrific scenery the National Assembly decided to name a Commission for Truth.

Hard blues to shake off

Explanation in text

I have to admit that I have a hard time to recover from the news of the last two weeks. And my deep blues comes in part from that Cassandra syndrome that affects me on occasion. People minimize what I say or feel and I am, unfortunately, proven right later, but too late for any good or any comfort. There is always a Clytemnestra to put our kind out of our misery.

The two news that bear heavily on me are the 1.3 tons of coke through a regular Air France flight, and the looting of a truck over the dead body of the driver. I think that these news were covered barely adequately but I fail to sense a feel of outrage, even among readers of this blog. I read here and there stuff that can be summarized as follows: "there has always been looting in Venezuela" or "Air France, Water Spain, Truck Mexico, same difference". It is not. I see those two events as seminal examples on how bad, and doomed?, Venezuela may be.

The Venezuelan narco-state caught pants down in Paris: a price to pay

I need to come back to this 1.3 tons of cocaine seized in Paris airport because I think it is as clear an example for all to see on how deep into narco-statism we have descended, and how the rest of the world knows it and deals accordingly.

Airplanes ferrying drugs and pseudo presidents out of Venezuela

Valls, French Interior Minister, receiving
Venezuelan exports to Paris

This week the post Chavez regime has made it into aeronautical news big time. On one hand it tried to make up an international scandal upon a presumed US denial of air space overflight, and on the other an Air France flight coming from Caracas was carrying over 1 ton of high grade cocaine estimated at 200 million euros street value. In both cases the heirs of Chavez look their worst.

Let's start with the aerial flyby that was not.

Apparently Maduro would have us believe that the nasty US did not want him to fly over Puerto Rico. But now that some of the dust settled it looks that the maneuver was a clumsy one to try to paint the US as evil, a maneuver that has all the looks of conspiracy judging how fast the friends of Maduro supported him: Evo and Correa. Neuman at the New York Times gives the full details, including the unnecessary detour over Puerto Rico when seasoned travelers to Paris from Caracas know they fly over either Guadeloupe or Martinique, according to the winds. The AP also echoes the doubt about how much of the "incident" was messy Venezuelan organization or deliberate entrapment to score an easy point. Interestingly the scene also revealed once again that Venezuelan presidents travel though Cuban planes, perpetuating the mystery as to whatever happened to the two presidential airplanes of the country, the inherited one from pre Chavez and the custom made airbus that costed gazillions and yet flew only a very few years with Chavez on board.

Suriname's Bouterse to preside over UNASUR, yet another fail for Brazil

I had just finished a post on Syria and checked twitter quickly. Alas, I need to write a second post....

Nelson Bocaranda confirms what this blog wrote in November 2012

In his Runrunes of today Nelson Bocaranada, regime prosecuted journalist, writes about an "incident" in Calabozo, Guarico State. Apparently the Colombian guerrilla FARC has set camp there and has started even shooting down security CICPC Venezuelan personnel that are investigating local crime. Meaning of course that the FARC in Guarico is already part of the local crime scene. Bocaranda also hints that when they discovered it was not local crime but guerrilla the agents may have been pulled back....

The Natives are restless: military abuse against Native Americans Pemon

Prisoner of the Pemon!!!!!

I had to wait to be ready to discuss the latest scandal of bolivarianism. And it is a big one. Imagine that: machete and small gun wielding Native Pemon of Bolivar state were able to take prisoner 43 Venezuelan soldiers of that powerful force designed to resit the onslaught of the Evil Empire through the use of sophisticated Russian weaponry.

It is a good thing that ridicule does not kill, otherwise we would have dozens of cadavers to pick up today, starting by a main ally of Chavez in the army, Cliver Alcala Cordones, a top brass in charge of the Southern Venezuela military area and also in the DEA list for links to drug traffic.  In fact initial reports said that Alcala Cordones was in the captive group. Whether he was does not seem to have mattered much on his mood as the picture circulating through Twitter shows us. The guy has been humiliated by the natives, and shows all the signs of the racist arrogance of too many Venezuelans towards natives, even inside the fraudulent revolution.

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.

La Planta as theater of the absurd: bringing out the inner criminal in the regime

The missing AR-15 of La Planta?

La Planta jail riot and eventual closure keep revealing the inner workings of the regime.  And it is not flattering.  After all, when you accept to "negotiate" with hard criminals, when you allow them to take their goodies with them, when you allow them to pick the seclusion center where they will be transferred, you only acknowledge one thing: you are of the same nature than the criminals you are "negotiating" with.  This was not a negotiation between the judicial system of the republic and inmates that may or may not have justified demands.  This was an agreement between two type of gangsters so as to diminish the public impact, in order to keep doing business.

And today the regime keeps giving evidence of being such a gang.  Not only with La Planta sequels but with the return of Loyo to office!

Required week-end blog reading

Do not miss the articles of this week end by Caracas Gringo about Aponte, Roger Noriega, and narcotics generals gunned down.  Or something of the sort, my head is still spinning.

Urgent murine update: Aponte Aponte flies to the US in a DEA plane

Yes, that is right, reported by BBC mundo itself: former "justice" Aponte Aponte who escaped Venezuela to Costa Rica has taken a flight to the US in a DEA plane.  Many questions are thus put forward:

Of rats and sinking ships: Aponte in Costa Rica

A little over a year ago I was writing about "justice" Aponte Aponte, promising him history's judgement.  This one came faster than expected as Aponte has now fled the country, and from Costa Rica promises to deliver to the DEA and other US agencies all sorts of compromising documents, presumably so that the US does not try to arrest him.  Let's resume briefly that latest affair that illustrates so well the stench emanating form the decaying Chavez regime.

Eladio Aponte Aponte made his career in the military justice system which like military music is not what it is supposed to be.  From there, when Chavez needed safe folks in his packing of the judicial system a few years ago, he jumped into the presidency of the penal chamber of the high court, TSJ.  Once in place obligingly he made sure that many political opponents would find their rightly undeserved punishment.

So far so good, you may say, par for the regime.  But that was not enough for the man.  When Makled, noted narco-businessman of the regime, was finally caught in Colombia we learned among other things that Aponte had issued him security and clearance badges even though by then the unsavory relationships of Makled were more than rumored.  Translation: Aponte was into just more than punishing opposition folks, he was into the narcobusiness.  I suppose that the regime thought that sending to the public opinion scaffold Aponte would be a token big enough to pacify international agencies fighting drug trafficking.  After all, many figures of the regime have opted for the well rewarded silence, or even light jail with silence.  Amen of an easy embassy job in a far, far away galaxy.  Aponte was disbarred a few weeks ago and did not even take the chance to go to the National Assembly to defend himself (the National Assembly in Venezuela names and removes justices under certain conditions).

Today we have learned that he not only has left the country, but that he is in talks with the FBI et al.  Times are changing my friends, and self-immolation for the micomandantepresidente is becoming a "how many of them I can take down with me".