Becoming a failed state (3): reversible?

We seem to agree that Venezuela is either already a failed state, or about to become one. It has a rather wretched populace. It has loss of institutions. It is unable to agree on anything. It is pretty much bankrupt, bankrupt as in getting out of the hole will take a generation or more.

The question is thus the way out of a failed state. From the reasons discussed before it seems unlikely that there is an easy way out of the dire straits we are in. And the prospect for things to get worse is not a prospect, it is a reality. Why?

Tumeremo

The story that has been unfolding in the mining region of Bolivar state is yet a new low for the bolivarian regime. all corruptions, all abuses, all cruelty seem to have somehow managed to meet there.

I am not going to go into details. the executive summary is as follow.

Alek Boyd tells us how he was robbed of his lap tops, and only them

Two days ago Alek Boyd, well know to our readers, suffered a break in at his home in London. Interestingly the only thing they took away was his lap tops. Money, cash, passports, remained behind. Just the lap tops. Since he has been a long time investigator of the Chavez regime corruption this blog asked him a few questions.

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We have been surprised to learn that even in London methods like those used in Venezuela to harass opposition are applied. Could you briefly tell us what happened?

Basically, one and/or a group of subjects of my investigations must have felt that breaking and entering into my flat, and stealing a couple of laptops would send a chill down my spine, and I would be silenced, or blackmailed with the information potentially retrieved. For years chavistas and their associates have been sending death threats, have launched smear campaigns to tarnish my reputation, have tried to hack my website and email accounts, have initiated ridiculously spurious legal cases against me, have attacked my family, all with the purpose of shutting me down. In their infinite ineptitude, they truly believe that the methods they use in Caracas can be extrapolated to any other place, without consequences. But they keep miscalculating, and erring.

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).

Returning home for Dummies

What can I say? Never did I see so many changes in Venezuela after a mere three weeks absence. In fact, the shock of the first few days was so big that I refused to update my database on politics and the like. Even today as I type I am far behind the details. And yet they do not matter: the big picture has become bigger for me after four weeks outside.

My first shock was the grocery store when I went to refurbish my refrigerator. The prices went noticeably up in one month for the stuff I buy. There was no imported goods. Of course, among the goods available there is all sorts of imported stuff re-processed in Venezuela. After all we are importing now at the very least 60% of our food (estimates vary, I am giving you the bottom line). What I mean is that you could still find an occasional treat, like some average Italian pasta, or an overpriced jar of raspberry jam. This is now all gone. And it has not been replaced, even by sub-par Venezuelan production.

Post it notes from the front lines

7 stars.......

I did come back to Caracas last Saturday but had to deal with private issues that stopped me to join any of the large scale protests of these past days. Which did not stop from taking a few notes that may interest you guys.

I suppose that I should start with the "guarimba", our tropicalized, venezuelanized, version of your old barricade.  I have mixed feelings about the use of guarimbas. I mean, if you are going to go for overthrowing the regime and decided to block, say, the Miranda, or Fajardo, or Libertador and push your way up to the Baralt or Bolivar avenues, I see their use. But what I saw in El Cafetal area is way more of a cathartic nature than any harm it may do against the regime.

Let's ask Occam to come shave Venezuela

I am bewildered by the amount of analysis coming on Venezuela's situation, some reviving old canards such that it is only a handful of rich kids, to other turning Caracas as a Kiev upon El Güaire. Amen of the emotional debate that range form a secession by Tachira state to silly non violence extremes that would have us believe that freedom  is not worth the death of a single soul. There are all more or less wrong because they all are getting drowned in the details of the horror and/or provocations that have invaded Twitter as the only communication we have left in Venezuela. What makes things worse is that not only Venezuelans have to rely on Twitter, but journalists too.

I think it is time to go back to some basics, away from unnecessary complexity.

Some tweets of the day, 24F

This one claims that in that official vehicle came these goons to set fire to a private building garage door.

The week Venezuela awoke to its ruin

February is for some reason a rather agitated month in Venezuelan history. In the last 25 years we have three memorable Februaries, the first one with el Caracazo, the second one with Chavez failed coup and now this one with a mix of Caracazo and coup, but a coup given by the regime against democracy, an "autogolpe" if you wish, self-coup. And let's not forget other fateful Februaries like the one Chavez got reelected for life, or another one with major floods.

No rest for the wicked inflationers

Not going back on the delays and manipulation of the November and December inflation number but the regime published the January one. It is 3.3%. Most countries have annual inflation below that monthly number. But that was not really the worse news, if you assume that 3.3 to be genuine. The worst item was the scarcity item, at 28%. That means that if you go to your local grocery store with a list of 10 items the odds that 3 of them will be missing are very high. And missing not in brand or quality, just missing. I know, I was caught almost in the mid of a food riot this afternoon when Brazilian chicken arrived at my local store, and it was taken over by people not from the area (I heard them, one even giving directions to the store) carrying ONLY cases of chicken in their carts, waiting for their pals to arrive before they reached the cashier (4 chicken per person it was). Good thing I do not eat chicken, and even less the Brazilian variety we get here, waterlogged and fat.

Think about that, 3 common household items out of 10 in your shopping list are going to be missing on any day. And maybe having to fight for the other 7.

Don't understand violence in Venezuela? A few pictures for you

Let's start with a fabulous cartoon (hat tip PB)

From Electrodomesticonacht to electrodomesticowoche?

The country is in shock. Well, part of it anyway, the decent one to which I am sure I belong to. The other one, the chavista one and the "I cannot care less, dame lo mio", which is the stuff that electoral chavista majorities are made of, kept looting stores here and there, from Puerto La Cruz to Cabimas. For all the Maduro protest that he has nothing to do with the disaster he has started a stream of low burn looting here and there that he has only himself to blame. Furthermore, it is not that the regime seems unable to control the situation, it seems that the regime is unwilling to do so. Regarding the degeneration in values of the countries, well, we have Chavez to blame for it, turning the horror of the 1989 Caracazo into an acceptable chavista family values in 2013.

Not so random thoughts on Electrodomesticonacht

UPDATED
At 24 hours from the start of the festivities, we can put together a few thoughts.

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 society Chavez has left us: barbarians inside the gate

Women and men both trying to loot the truck. See all
the open boxes already spread around. They did not
come from a spray through the truck cabin....

For those idiotic enough to think that Chavez opened a new era and ushered in a new man: you are right but you are not going to like it.

This morning a truck broke the security barrier in a Caracas highway exchange and got stuck in the middle of the highway. The truck carried packs of frozen meat. It was 6 AM. Within minutes there were already people trying to loot the truck instead than trying to save the driver, who ended up dead later. The cops came and stopped for a while the actions. But since the Caracas main highway was paralyzed, motorbikes came from all around and started trying to rob all the unhappy drivers stuck in traffic.

At 9 AM about 300 bikers arrived and tried to overpower the police security people who had to call for reinforcement. Of course, the idea was to loot the truck...

The disaster blocked the whole city all the way until downtown (photo included in the link)

Snowed in Caracas

I hope you will forgive me the bad pun of the title but this is a little bit the feel these days. Under the blizzard of news, most more ridiculous than the preceding one, I feel like I am trapped, unable to write about anything. Where should I start? The Evo non event? That we have no money to import grains but the regime finds money to import chicken? That the Nazional Guard made a "mistake" killing a mother, one her daughter and sending the two other daughters to the hospital? That no one seems to care about these issues, many more worried about the latest regime announcement that we may get an extra 3000 USD for our trips, albeit at a much higher value than the 6,3 current official exchange?

My level of despondency about the country seems to be reaching new marks.....

Tensions flare

Nazional Guard happily tear gazing

I was busy this afternoon (more on that later) and there was/is a cadena for the proclamation of Maduro as the winner. Of course, in the purest fascistic-repressive tradition of April 11 2002, during the cadena repression had started at Plaza Altamira in Caracas as the two pictures shown in this post (lifted from Twitter). I personally think it is a mistake to start such street riots so soon when Capriles is calling for peace and quiet and to wait for his directions while looking very combative   But the sensation of electoral fraud is just too big, people are too upset and the regime is deliberately stoking those flames to get a reaction and justify more repression.

Chavismo paratroopers

So today about 300 hundred students tried to go to the CNE, Venezuelan electoral board, a.k.a Electoral Ministry, to present complaints and requests on the electoral abuse of the regime. Not that anyone was expecting Chavez election minister Tibisay Lucena to comply, but it would have been nice for a change that she dispatched a secretary to receive the letter. Or at least earlier than what she eventually did.

Karen and Carolina, our dictatorship poster girls

This week end we saw two incidents that reminded us how far into a dictatorship system we have been entered.  I know, I know, some may want to remind me that I can still type my blog (for how long?  bloggers and twitters have already been prosecuted in Venezuela), I can come and go out of the country (I cannot because I cannot tale my belongings with me), there are elections (but the results are voided as the regime pleases), there is still Globovision in the air (bot for how long, and only in Caracas and Valencia), etc...  Whether you like to admit it, Chavez regime is a XXI century dictatorship, the new breed where it is enough to control the judiciary to perpetuate oneself in office.  For those who disagree with me I kindly ask them to explain away the two stories that come next.

El chavismo como fascismo tropical, As Seen on TV por NatGeo

Ayer hemos presenciado otra vez guerra de pandillas violentas en el 23 de Enero. Y al final del día unos “colectivos” vinieron a sitiar Globovision en lo que seguramente se ha de volver una rutina durante la campaña, hasta que cierren el canal de una buena vez. Globovision les dio derecho a réplica aunque el mensaje de ellos tenía poco que ver con lo que Globovision había sacado al aire antes. Últimas Noticias de la Cadena Capriles (que casualidad, ¿verdad?) también fue increpada aunque su director, Diaz Rangel, se considere un afecto al régimen. No entro en detalles ya que esos reclamos oficialistas se han vuelto un ritornelo, pero si es necesario recordar que cualquier periodista de Globovision, o quién sea que sea agredido cada noche en La Hojilla, no puede ir a VTV para un derecho a réplica.

Últimamente no me ha dado por escribir sobre estos ataques. Ni escribí sobre el de Cotiza ni pensaba escribir sobre lo de anoche. Ya todo eso lo discutí hace tiempo y hasta predije que la frecuencia de dicha barbarie se incrementaría con la campaña. Pero esta mañana para el desayuno veo que mi Direct TV me grabó dos capítulos de una serie del canal Nat Geo “The Apocalypse: the rise of Hitler” y los vi tomando mi café. Esta serie debería de ser de vista obligatoria, con panel de discusión, para todos, TODOS, en Venezuela.