The regime has made its business to turn into a fateful day the vast opposition rally planned for next Thursday September 1st. The regime has a lot to lose on that day, but it made sure that its losses would be greater than necessary. And, personally, at this point I do not see how the regime could rake any gain.
It all started when the opposition tired of waiting for a Recall Election date decided to mount a massive protest against Maduro's regime, that is, demanding his exit as soon as possible. Of course, the chosen way is to hold a Recall Election before January 10 2017. The opposition to Maduro has nothing to gain from any unconstitutional settlement of the political crisis: all polls give the opposition soaring numbers since last December stunning electoral victory. Besides, even if the opposition did not enjoy a 70+ against Maduro and wanted to do a stunt, how would it do that? The Venezuelan opposition has been deprived of arms, newspapers, TV, and even of its politicians as many are in jail.
The regime knows all of this, certainly. It also can read polls. And it knows that outside of the likes of Cuba or Nicaragua it has no international support left, at least of the kind that would speak favorably of Maduro. Even supposed allies like Putin or Correa are, well, rather discreet in their praise, if any.
The battle for the regime is lost. They are unwilling to change the economic system, to open up. As such the economy will keep spiraling down and soon there will be outright bouts of near starvation with all the political mess that comes along. The laws of the economy are finally speaking up in Venezuela and there is no hope that the only economic policy left for the regime, oil at 80 USD a barrel, will happen in the near future. And never mind its personnel as Venezuela is the only country we know of where its interior and security minister cannot travel out of the country least Interpol grabs him and sends him to a trial in the US. Needless to recall the awaited fate of other regime's luminaries.
Faced with what is predicted to be the largest anti regime rally since 2002/2003 the regime decided against the wise move: let it happen and ignore it the best you can, using this as a demonstration that democracy is not dead in Venezuela. Instead it has chosen the worst way to prove that this is indeed a dictatorship.
All sorts of means to block the rally are attempted, too long to list. Here follows the main ones.
- Threats of all type, verbal menaces from higher up in the regime
- Outright fascist firing of public employees that dare criticize in any way the regime's results (examples here, here and here)
- Forbidding Al Jazeera journalists from entering the country to cover the events
- Forbidding any private flight, even drones, until September 5, so that there would be no evidence of the large turnout, as if roof tops were not enough to establish that anyway. And it does not matter as the opposition announced it will fly drones anyway (so I can illustrate for you the mood)
- Blocking access to Caracas for the possibly 100+ thousand people that will show up from all parts of the country
- After months of absence reopen food fairs like Mercal so as to try to divert folks from the march to go and get some of the scarce food. Though it is not clear if it is just counter propaganda planted by the regime.
- Call for its own counter rally downtown Caracas to block the opposition possible march there
- Promises of all sorts for Caracas, all to be done by Christmas
- All sorts of conspiracy theories as to the opposition wanting to reedit April 11 2002 (from the hands of the Empire in the North, of course)
Etc...
But the worst assault has been on Voluntad Popular, the political party of Leopoldo Lopez, the cause celèbre of political prisoners. For the last week there has been an onslaught against the leadership of the party, from accusing the mayor of El Hatillo of smuggling arms, to take San Cristobal mayor from his sick bed in the middle of the night to send him to jail, to outright kidnapping of militants. The vindictiveness of the large concerted attack on Voluntad Popular is simply amazing. Other political parties are not buying: they know they are next. And the OAS least raised its tone as its secretary has issued, in Spanish for now, a long letter which resumes all fo the above and can be read as a stern warning against the regime.
We must wonder what is the regime seeking. Can it be so clumsy? Is there some master plan behind?
I am afraid that the regime seeks an act of violence that it can provoke easily itself by sending under cover to the rallies Thursday delinquents that will pretend to pin on the opposition a violence that the regime will have started itself. That would explain all of the conspiracy theories blurted these past few days and the arrest of Voluntad Popular leadership which will presumably bear the brunt of the accusation. The ridicule for the regime's cause that Voluntad Popular would have committed the crimes AFTER their incarceration does not seem to have been considered. But that is not the point.
A desperate regime is building a narrative to justify its September repression in the eyes of the followers it still has. In short, the regime is preparing itself to cut loose from the civilized world and drive into oblivion the Venezuelan populations just as the Cuban one was pushed down to nothing within months of the arrival of Fidel in 1958. All seems to point out to that strategy, from ignoring the OAS to put in jail Voluntad Popular leadership, the most active in the streets, the one that apparently must be threatening the most chavismo.
Let's not forget that the loudest voices inside chavismo are the ones most likely to go to jail as soon as they set foot outside of the country. They have nothing to lose anymore. Hence...
Which does not mean they will succeed and as they fail, well...
Showing posts with label leopoldo lopez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leopoldo lopez. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 August 2016
Tuesday, 29 March 2016
Onward the final constitutional crash: amnesty law and high court reform
The Easter lull came and went without making much of a difference. The "calima" suffocated us in Caracas while the country went on a standstill to try to spare a few meters from the water gauge of the Guri dam, before El Niño, and regime's utter incompetence, forces a shut down of 50% of the country's electricity.
But the country is back at work, as much as it is possible, and the National Assembly has started the road to open confrontation not only with the executive, but on the true meaning of the Venezuelan constitution, as this one may be.
A few minutes ago the National Assembly voted the final version of the amnesty law which aims, among other things, to free political prisoners incarcerated in kangaroo courts. An amnesty is needed since there is no way to get a truly fair trial in Venezuela these days.
But this law, which intents is also the start of some form of national reconciliation by forcing every side to face the reality that justice is in the hands of the executive (even though this cannot be said in the law), is far from being applied and Leopoldo Lopez is not out of jail yet. Maduro's regime has announced that he will not sign the law, that it will not be applied. Presidential veto power is limited in Venezuela, at best a delaying tactic. Thus within days, with or without the signature of Maduro the law will become the law of the land. Maduro can only stop this law application if the high court TSJ rules it to be unconstitutional. This is certainly the case as the TSJ has always managed to find any "unconstitutional" way to make a given an unconstitutional one, even if the means used is itself unconstitutional. Repetition intended.
Which brings us to the second point of this entry: after the vote the national Assembly went straight ahead in the modification of the laws describing how the TSJ is designated. The aim is to find a way to go around the latest crop of appointees who got their job through unconstitutional ways to allow for the pre-electoral packing of the court. Yes, it is that naked but then again the TSJ submission to the regime is that naked: nobody remembers when was the last time that the state/regime lost a case in court.
In short, the regime is going to be placed in front of this dilemma: either accept the revision of the latest appointments so those can be made according to the original intent of the law, or accept an expansion of the TSJ members so that there is at least dissenting opinions. A dilemma the regime will refuse by declaring that legal reform unconstitutional, even though it will violate the very own regime jurisprudence that was itself a constitutional violation. This is how things work in Venezuela: several wrongs are required to improve the odds of making a right.
In a way it is irrelevant whether the regime will release Lopez from jail, or allow for a limited dissent at the TSJ. It is quite clear now that the regime faction aligned around Maduro and Cabello will go out of its way to avoid any move that could undermine its power and drive through regime change, a change that would find soon in jail Maduro, Cabello, Ramirez and scores of other corrupt and abusive office holders.
The regime has made it abundantly clear that it will not let the new National Assembly function as it should be. The TSJ has already gutted its control authority. It is finding a way to avoid votes on financial resources (which may be difficult at the Assembly has already stated that credits not approved by the Assembly do not put the state under the obligation of repaying them). More blockades to the Assembly are not obvious yet as its election is, after all, still recent. But the tone is set: the TSJ will provide what the regime cannot get through the Assembly.
Since the regime has embarked into such a course to void the National Assembly then this one has no choice but to face down the confrontation by voting on legal laws (redundancy intended) to dismantle the regime. Either the regime will have to back down or it will have to come up to terms with its own dark intentions and, well, proceed once and for all to the "autogolpe", self-inflicted-coup á la Fujimori once upon a time in Peru.
For the regime going all the way to a constitutional crisis is a gamble. Not only the Amnesty Law and the TSJ reform are politically unacceptable for the reduced chavista hard core, but more laws in the work (on recall elections and referenda) are even less acceptable. The political cost, here and abroad, maybe simply to high for the regime to pay. Times are changing, Obama visited Cuba, Argentina is gone and Kirchner is not able to make the opposition that some thought she would be able to do. In Brasil the corruption of Lula is now public knowledge. Talk of applying the democratic charter agaisnt Venezuela is now open talk. But what is worse for the regime is that there is no food nor medicine, and soon there will be no electricity besides providing homes with a very few hours a day, forget about energy for production. Amen of the political capital lost abroad: the regime has no political capital left to spend at home.
Common sense would make the regime start negotiating a political solution to start taking measures to avoid the nation's collapse. But it seems that Maduro et al are seeking actively such collapse as there last desperate gambit to retain power.
La politique du pire, they called it in the agonizing French Ancien Regime.
But the country is back at work, as much as it is possible, and the National Assembly has started the road to open confrontation not only with the executive, but on the true meaning of the Venezuelan constitution, as this one may be.
A few minutes ago the National Assembly voted the final version of the amnesty law which aims, among other things, to free political prisoners incarcerated in kangaroo courts. An amnesty is needed since there is no way to get a truly fair trial in Venezuela these days.
Aprobada en 2da discusión la #LeyDeAmnistia pic.twitter.com/2ztnDWC7aq— María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) March 30, 2016
But this law, which intents is also the start of some form of national reconciliation by forcing every side to face the reality that justice is in the hands of the executive (even though this cannot be said in the law), is far from being applied and Leopoldo Lopez is not out of jail yet. Maduro's regime has announced that he will not sign the law, that it will not be applied. Presidential veto power is limited in Venezuela, at best a delaying tactic. Thus within days, with or without the signature of Maduro the law will become the law of the land. Maduro can only stop this law application if the high court TSJ rules it to be unconstitutional. This is certainly the case as the TSJ has always managed to find any "unconstitutional" way to make a given an unconstitutional one, even if the means used is itself unconstitutional. Repetition intended.
Which brings us to the second point of this entry: after the vote the national Assembly went straight ahead in the modification of the laws describing how the TSJ is designated. The aim is to find a way to go around the latest crop of appointees who got their job through unconstitutional ways to allow for the pre-electoral packing of the court. Yes, it is that naked but then again the TSJ submission to the regime is that naked: nobody remembers when was the last time that the state/regime lost a case in court.
In short, the regime is going to be placed in front of this dilemma: either accept the revision of the latest appointments so those can be made according to the original intent of the law, or accept an expansion of the TSJ members so that there is at least dissenting opinions. A dilemma the regime will refuse by declaring that legal reform unconstitutional, even though it will violate the very own regime jurisprudence that was itself a constitutional violation. This is how things work in Venezuela: several wrongs are required to improve the odds of making a right.
In a way it is irrelevant whether the regime will release Lopez from jail, or allow for a limited dissent at the TSJ. It is quite clear now that the regime faction aligned around Maduro and Cabello will go out of its way to avoid any move that could undermine its power and drive through regime change, a change that would find soon in jail Maduro, Cabello, Ramirez and scores of other corrupt and abusive office holders.
The regime has made it abundantly clear that it will not let the new National Assembly function as it should be. The TSJ has already gutted its control authority. It is finding a way to avoid votes on financial resources (which may be difficult at the Assembly has already stated that credits not approved by the Assembly do not put the state under the obligation of repaying them). More blockades to the Assembly are not obvious yet as its election is, after all, still recent. But the tone is set: the TSJ will provide what the regime cannot get through the Assembly.
Since the regime has embarked into such a course to void the National Assembly then this one has no choice but to face down the confrontation by voting on legal laws (redundancy intended) to dismantle the regime. Either the regime will have to back down or it will have to come up to terms with its own dark intentions and, well, proceed once and for all to the "autogolpe", self-inflicted-coup á la Fujimori once upon a time in Peru.
For the regime going all the way to a constitutional crisis is a gamble. Not only the Amnesty Law and the TSJ reform are politically unacceptable for the reduced chavista hard core, but more laws in the work (on recall elections and referenda) are even less acceptable. The political cost, here and abroad, maybe simply to high for the regime to pay. Times are changing, Obama visited Cuba, Argentina is gone and Kirchner is not able to make the opposition that some thought she would be able to do. In Brasil the corruption of Lula is now public knowledge. Talk of applying the democratic charter agaisnt Venezuela is now open talk. But what is worse for the regime is that there is no food nor medicine, and soon there will be no electricity besides providing homes with a very few hours a day, forget about energy for production. Amen of the political capital lost abroad: the regime has no political capital left to spend at home.
Common sense would make the regime start negotiating a political solution to start taking measures to avoid the nation's collapse. But it seems that Maduro et al are seeking actively such collapse as there last desperate gambit to retain power.
La politique du pire, they called it in the agonizing French Ancien Regime.
Wednesday, 20 January 2016
Where to start?
The economic emergency decree?
As readers already know this decree is a fraud and cannot be accepted as presented. The Assembly knows it is a vulgar trap to try to put the blame of the crisis on the opposition (which will not work chavismo is misreading the whole thing badly). So the opposition will examine the decree, and will reject it based on some of its glaring lacks suggesting politely that the regime reviews it.
Then we will see what happens. The only good thing that may come from this confrontation is that it may be a fake one used while the real negotiations take place behind closed door.
Presidential commission to solve the crisis?
Yesterday Maduro summoned hundreds of people to an act at the Teresa Carreño, once upon a time the show room of Chavez. Now Maduro need to summon people to fill it up. This being said the top of the private sector still alive was requested to attend, and came. As if they had another option. And out of the proceeding Maduro named a few commissions where an occasional objective person was sit. These commissions are supposed to draft the measures around 9 motors of the economy to get us out of the crisis,.
Nobody explained where the dollars would come from.
I am not holding my breath.
Is Merentes an oriental sheikh?
The scandal defraying tabloids is that Merentes beach home has been robbed. He was alleviated for 300.000 USD, about 50.000 euros and a few expensive watches. Nothing more. The robbers need not break in, they had the keys and wore masks as they had been told about surveillance cameras, The first question is of course: what the fuck is the president of the Central Bank of Venezuela doing with 300.000 USD in his beach appartement? Does he not know of a safe bank where to deposit that?
But it gets better: Merentes is not pressing charges, Records are diligently erased and what we know comes from press investigations who get the police sorces to speak, Apparently Merentes is a patron of his hometown of Naiguata. Many surgeries, home fixing, pot holing come through his intercession. The medical part is more interesting as it seems that several of surgeries were not of a nature to save a life threatening condition. Young girls under age got significant "enhancements" and became mistresses of Merentes for a short while. I suppose until the next one was fully healed. It is possible that the silence, perhaps even accomplice, of the parents was bought.
And Merentes would have been robbed several times but this time it was a little bit too much and he could not hide it as well. One of the girl, probably a favorite lasting more than the usual even got a set of the keys for convenience so she could get ready for action as soon as Merentes arrived from Caracas.
The question here is which is the worst criminal offense: pedophilia or smuggling illegal amounts of foreign currency that he helped himself out from the Central Bank reserves. In Venezuela morality and ethics are distorted.
Torture of women?
IF all of this was not bad enough get ready for the worst. In her latest visit to Leopoldo Lopez in jail his wife, Lilian Tintori, and Lopez's mother were sent to a different room where they were forced to get naked in front of their kids. Lilian was on the rag and she had to take it off and show to a guard. The director of the center a little while later published an evangelical psalm. He is a christian, you know.
It is to be noted that such a physical abuse made with an excruciatingly lengthy care by female guards (it is my own personal experience that female military are in general way worse than the male ones) is designed to also create psychological damage and it is hence a form of torture.
And that is exactly what happened, OAS secretary Almagro condemned what was done to Lilian Tintori. Though if you read a pro chavismo canard like Panorma, they do cite the tweet of Almagro but in the title you read "reproach", not condemn. Note: Almagro is not the lone international voice criticizing. Only the regime seems to ignore the gravitas that Lilian Tintori has gained.
Conclusion?
The regime is going to keep its show and dance until the end, and at any chance it will play dirty. There are already fake videos presented by Cabello trying to exculpate the commandeer of Ramo Verde where Lopez is jailed.
There are certain red lines that the regime simply cannot accept to yield on: an amnesty law; punishing an abusive military; impunity for high officials is a must; the economic crisis is going to be solved by us and no one else, even if we created it which everyone of course knows they cannot solve anything anymore; the USD are ours to do as we please.
Now, tell me, where do we start dialogue there?
--------------------
The tweet from another president supporter to Tintori: Laura Chinchilla
As readers already know this decree is a fraud and cannot be accepted as presented. The Assembly knows it is a vulgar trap to try to put the blame of the crisis on the opposition (which will not work chavismo is misreading the whole thing badly). So the opposition will examine the decree, and will reject it based on some of its glaring lacks suggesting politely that the regime reviews it.
Then we will see what happens. The only good thing that may come from this confrontation is that it may be a fake one used while the real negotiations take place behind closed door.
Presidential commission to solve the crisis?
Yesterday Maduro summoned hundreds of people to an act at the Teresa Carreño, once upon a time the show room of Chavez. Now Maduro need to summon people to fill it up. This being said the top of the private sector still alive was requested to attend, and came. As if they had another option. And out of the proceeding Maduro named a few commissions where an occasional objective person was sit. These commissions are supposed to draft the measures around 9 motors of the economy to get us out of the crisis,.
Nobody explained where the dollars would come from.
I am not holding my breath.
Is Merentes an oriental sheikh?
The scandal defraying tabloids is that Merentes beach home has been robbed. He was alleviated for 300.000 USD, about 50.000 euros and a few expensive watches. Nothing more. The robbers need not break in, they had the keys and wore masks as they had been told about surveillance cameras, The first question is of course: what the fuck is the president of the Central Bank of Venezuela doing with 300.000 USD in his beach appartement? Does he not know of a safe bank where to deposit that?
But it gets better: Merentes is not pressing charges, Records are diligently erased and what we know comes from press investigations who get the police sorces to speak, Apparently Merentes is a patron of his hometown of Naiguata. Many surgeries, home fixing, pot holing come through his intercession. The medical part is more interesting as it seems that several of surgeries were not of a nature to save a life threatening condition. Young girls under age got significant "enhancements" and became mistresses of Merentes for a short while. I suppose until the next one was fully healed. It is possible that the silence, perhaps even accomplice, of the parents was bought.
And Merentes would have been robbed several times but this time it was a little bit too much and he could not hide it as well. One of the girl, probably a favorite lasting more than the usual even got a set of the keys for convenience so she could get ready for action as soon as Merentes arrived from Caracas.
The question here is which is the worst criminal offense: pedophilia or smuggling illegal amounts of foreign currency that he helped himself out from the Central Bank reserves. In Venezuela morality and ethics are distorted.
Torture of women?
IF all of this was not bad enough get ready for the worst. In her latest visit to Leopoldo Lopez in jail his wife, Lilian Tintori, and Lopez's mother were sent to a different room where they were forced to get naked in front of their kids. Lilian was on the rag and she had to take it off and show to a guard. The director of the center a little while later published an evangelical psalm. He is a christian, you know.
It is to be noted that such a physical abuse made with an excruciatingly lengthy care by female guards (it is my own personal experience that female military are in general way worse than the male ones) is designed to also create psychological damage and it is hence a form of torture.
And that is exactly what happened, OAS secretary Almagro condemned what was done to Lilian Tintori. Though if you read a pro chavismo canard like Panorma, they do cite the tweet of Almagro but in the title you read "reproach", not condemn. Note: Almagro is not the lone international voice criticizing. Only the regime seems to ignore the gravitas that Lilian Tintori has gained.
Conclusion?
The regime is going to keep its show and dance until the end, and at any chance it will play dirty. There are already fake videos presented by Cabello trying to exculpate the commandeer of Ramo Verde where Lopez is jailed.
There are certain red lines that the regime simply cannot accept to yield on: an amnesty law; punishing an abusive military; impunity for high officials is a must; the economic crisis is going to be solved by us and no one else, even if we created it which everyone of course knows they cannot solve anything anymore; the USD are ours to do as we please.
Now, tell me, where do we start dialogue there?
--------------------
The tweet from another president supporter to Tintori: Laura Chinchilla
Sólo los COBARDES, son valientes contra los indefensos. Estamos con @liliantintori#Venezuela #ultraje #repudio pic.twitter.com/6yvI4h3mMh— Laura Chinchilla M (@Laura_Ch) January 19, 2016
Saturday, 9 January 2016
A confusing but clarifying week
With the National Assembly swearing-in show and the collateral that came next Venezuela has experienced one of its most confusing weeks - but maybe one of its best ones-
The thread at the N.A. is simple. Chavismo could not find a way to stop its coming Götterdämmerung. So they came, saw and left. They could not avoid their first encounter with a free press in about a decade. Some of the questions were truly embarrassing like when a journalist was finally able to stand on the way of Cilia Flores and ask her about her narco-nephews. Not her nephews in jail in the US awaiting trial, but her NARCO-nephews, straight. This is what happens when you ignore and insult the press for so many years: they get so frustrated that they lose any sense of measure or respect. And poor Cilia, the "first fighter", the wife of president Maduro, had to pick up her pace to escape.
But this bringing down of Cilia was just the beginning of an iconoclastic binge. In the early morning next day the new chair of the N.A. Ramos Allup brought down all the portraits of Chavez that overwhelmed the decor. For good measure he also had brought down the computer created image of Bolivar out of his 200 year old remains. This necrophiliac endeavor from Chavez had become the new official portrait of Bolivar although there is a an existing portrait which was approved by Bolivar himself.
This carefully orchestrated act of Ramos Allup had the desired effect, an overreaction of chavismo which will cost it dearly. It included a lengthy military show in cadena (forced simultaneous broadcast on ALL networks and radios) to "desagravio" redress/repair the insult made to Bolivar even though the bulk of the actions was in defense of Chavez who is, apparently, more insulted than Bolivar.
It is hard to imagine that the totalitarian mentality of these people could be exposed so well in such short notice. General Padrino wanted to impress on us that the computer Bolivar was now encrusted deep into the heart of all of us. How could it be otherwise, he implied. And this meant that Bolivar was insulted through insults to Chavez as the favorite "insigne" son of Bolivar (even if he never got 50% of the electorate to vote for him, even with his higher scores in votes cast). That there is no food or medicine after Chavez is not making a dent in these people who keep their idols up. Hence the brilliant move of Ramos Allup, starting to tear down that mental construct that is blocking any progress for the country.
More details emerged to confirm that need. The mayor of Caracas announced that the whole city will be papered over with copies of the discarded portraits. Funds for that will apparently not be a problem. As to where will he find the paper and ink for that endeavour remains to be explained. Other chavistas suggested that all chavista households should have well displayed Bolivar and Chavez, a new version of the yellow star I suppose for those who do not harbor the "insigne" badge.
Meanwhile Ramos Allup forges ahead and went alone to Quinta Crespo market for his week's groceries, to the great wonderment of el pueblo not used to see chavista nomenklatura shop on their own (even if he had to leave in a hurry after red storm troopers arrived). Whatever criticism people throw at Ramos, and many are from the opposition itslef, we must thank him for breaking a taboo. The idolization of Chavez will never be the same.
The government thread is briefer: they have lost the capacity to set the political agenda and their race is to keep up with what the MUD and R.A. do. I am not going into the expected Greek chorus that want already to nullify the N.A. and jail R.A. I am just going to look at what happened at Miraflores. There Maduro named a new cabinet which kept military in the main positions, and the ones that move the most money. Some cryptic moderates under the guise of people with experience in the private sector were appointed. And to balance it all a social sciences major with nebulous ideas on economy and zero experience is the alleged new star.
But the new cabinet is more interesting through what is missing: some of Cabello heavy weights even though he still has his wife as tourism minister. Some see in that a real weakening of Cabello who, stripped of his power base at the N.A. and the refusal by the army to follow him in a coup on December 6, may be just on his way out. Perhaps even as a token offering to the DEA in a near future? All is possible but I also concur that Cabello's day are counted unless he finds new support that these days could only come from forgiveness of an opposition that he has brutalized for too long. In a way Cabello aura of invincibility is another icon that was brought down this week. After all since December 6 he was threatening and threatening and yet in the end he had to surrender the N.A. seat and could not stop its first measures, ridiculing himself by threatening the N.A. to leave it without funding.
As the first true week of the Assembly looms we may expect more surprises, the more so that it seems resolved in promoting first an amnesty law which could be the final showdown into forcing the regime to compromise,or to surrender. The final release of Leopoldo Lopez in the streets maybe too much for the regime to endure without breaking down. We will see.
 |
| Saddamization |
The thread at the N.A. is simple. Chavismo could not find a way to stop its coming Götterdämmerung. So they came, saw and left. They could not avoid their first encounter with a free press in about a decade. Some of the questions were truly embarrassing like when a journalist was finally able to stand on the way of Cilia Flores and ask her about her narco-nephews. Not her nephews in jail in the US awaiting trial, but her NARCO-nephews, straight. This is what happens when you ignore and insult the press for so many years: they get so frustrated that they lose any sense of measure or respect. And poor Cilia, the "first fighter", the wife of president Maduro, had to pick up her pace to escape.
But this bringing down of Cilia was just the beginning of an iconoclastic binge. In the early morning next day the new chair of the N.A. Ramos Allup brought down all the portraits of Chavez that overwhelmed the decor. For good measure he also had brought down the computer created image of Bolivar out of his 200 year old remains. This necrophiliac endeavor from Chavez had become the new official portrait of Bolivar although there is a an existing portrait which was approved by Bolivar himself.
This carefully orchestrated act of Ramos Allup had the desired effect, an overreaction of chavismo which will cost it dearly. It included a lengthy military show in cadena (forced simultaneous broadcast on ALL networks and radios) to "desagravio" redress/repair the insult made to Bolivar even though the bulk of the actions was in defense of Chavez who is, apparently, more insulted than Bolivar.
It is hard to imagine that the totalitarian mentality of these people could be exposed so well in such short notice. General Padrino wanted to impress on us that the computer Bolivar was now encrusted deep into the heart of all of us. How could it be otherwise, he implied. And this meant that Bolivar was insulted through insults to Chavez as the favorite "insigne" son of Bolivar (even if he never got 50% of the electorate to vote for him, even with his higher scores in votes cast). That there is no food or medicine after Chavez is not making a dent in these people who keep their idols up. Hence the brilliant move of Ramos Allup, starting to tear down that mental construct that is blocking any progress for the country.
More details emerged to confirm that need. The mayor of Caracas announced that the whole city will be papered over with copies of the discarded portraits. Funds for that will apparently not be a problem. As to where will he find the paper and ink for that endeavour remains to be explained. Other chavistas suggested that all chavista households should have well displayed Bolivar and Chavez, a new version of the yellow star I suppose for those who do not harbor the "insigne" badge.
Meanwhile Ramos Allup forges ahead and went alone to Quinta Crespo market for his week's groceries, to the great wonderment of el pueblo not used to see chavista nomenklatura shop on their own (even if he had to leave in a hurry after red storm troopers arrived). Whatever criticism people throw at Ramos, and many are from the opposition itslef, we must thank him for breaking a taboo. The idolization of Chavez will never be the same.
The government thread is briefer: they have lost the capacity to set the political agenda and their race is to keep up with what the MUD and R.A. do. I am not going into the expected Greek chorus that want already to nullify the N.A. and jail R.A. I am just going to look at what happened at Miraflores. There Maduro named a new cabinet which kept military in the main positions, and the ones that move the most money. Some cryptic moderates under the guise of people with experience in the private sector were appointed. And to balance it all a social sciences major with nebulous ideas on economy and zero experience is the alleged new star.
But the new cabinet is more interesting through what is missing: some of Cabello heavy weights even though he still has his wife as tourism minister. Some see in that a real weakening of Cabello who, stripped of his power base at the N.A. and the refusal by the army to follow him in a coup on December 6, may be just on his way out. Perhaps even as a token offering to the DEA in a near future? All is possible but I also concur that Cabello's day are counted unless he finds new support that these days could only come from forgiveness of an opposition that he has brutalized for too long. In a way Cabello aura of invincibility is another icon that was brought down this week. After all since December 6 he was threatening and threatening and yet in the end he had to surrender the N.A. seat and could not stop its first measures, ridiculing himself by threatening the N.A. to leave it without funding.
As the first true week of the Assembly looms we may expect more surprises, the more so that it seems resolved in promoting first an amnesty law which could be the final showdown into forcing the regime to compromise,or to surrender. The final release of Leopoldo Lopez in the streets maybe too much for the regime to endure without breaking down. We will see.
Tuesday, 27 October 2015
The banality of evil, Caracas style
Tonight I twitted this:
In English: Listening to {prosecutor} Nieves I keep thinking of Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil.
One of the top prosecutors in the Leopoldo Lopez show trial has defected to the US and is now saying that the whole operation against Lopez was a scam, that the intention was to put him away for the election of 2015 and more. In fact Nieves went as far as to say, more or less, that the order to arrest Lopez already existed before the events for which he was finally arrested in February 2014.
Franklin Nieves was tonight in the top CÑNe rating show of Fernando del Rincon. Mr. del Rincon rocketed from a CNNE anchor to his own nightly talk show, Conclusiones, as a consequence of his daring reports on Venezuela through the first half of 2014. He has become the journalist to go for any trouble in Latin America, and the specialist on Venezuela, much loved by the opposition, and much more reviled by the regime.
I am not going into the details of what Nieves said (for those who read Spanish you can visit my Tweeter time line of Tuesday night). In short, he stated that all the evidence against Lopez was fabricated, that he received orders to prosecute anyway on those fake evidences, that all knew about that in the regime, that Diosdado Cabello himself was supervising the first orders and that he fooled the Lopez family in making them believe that if Lopez surrendered nicely a deal would be reached. He accused directly Maduro and Cabello and some of the top officials at the state prosecuting office in such a way that the regime will have to do better than just using the worn out line "he is a liar, paid by the nemesis of the revolution" (which he may well be for all that I know, but that is not the point). There is a situation now that will make supporting the regime almost impossible for some of its allies.
No, my interest is elsewhere. First, let's us start with the one with easiest access: why is the US covering for all those defectors? Is it a strategy to encourage them to defect the regime so as to build a case against its corrupt narco officials? In that case, how come indictments and active prosecutions are not coming through faster? In short, why are the US giving some (minor) credit to some of the accusations the regime hurls at them? I am writing that because informed people know better, know that the regime is indeed a rotten corrupt system, that is not investigated by the US alone. But too many use the people's ignorance and misinformation, even inside the opposition, in such ways that it helps the regime case. I am also writing this so that readers realize that I am not in a blind rage as I type.
There is some confusing evil above, but there is real evil next.
What has struck me more was the composure of Nieves during the whole interview, even as del Rincon was trying not to break down under the shock of having all of his antidemocratic accusations against the regime thus validated.
That made me think of Hanna Arendt, the Eichman trial, the basic nature of totalitarianism the way she explained, creating "the banality of evil". At least Arendt was writing her seminal books based on people following orders. I suppose that concentration camp guards did not have access to Tweeter to get contrasting news to what the Reich told them everyday. Even if pathetic, the defenses of "I was just following orders" " I did not know" "Nobody told me anything, nobody knew" could make one doubt on occasion if the lines were pronounced then with an empty enough glance.
But with Nieves such excuses cannot apply. Nieves tonight told us he knew what he was doing all along was wrong, was a crime, was an abuse of Human Rights. He knew all along that the regime wanted Lopez jailed, found guilty while it figured out, I imagine, a final solution to the Lopez problem.
Nieves knew and yet he did. And I do not buy much his crocodile tears at seeing Lopez little girl go to the same school as the prosecutor's orphan maker girl being too much for him and making him decide to defect.
What was shocking tonight is that all the actors were following orders, indeed, but knowing full well that the orders were wrong. In the end it does not really matter whether Cabello is the one that gave the original order, what matters here is that the chavista regime has been a totalitarian regime for quite a while as the behavior of the people at the nation's prosecution office show. This is way beyond debating whether the regime can be described as a dictatorship. This is a neo-totalitarian system as I have long ago coined it as a tag for some of this blog entries.
In the end one is left perplexed in trying to figure which is the worst evil. The ones giving orders? The ones executing it? The ones confessing to them without much trouble? And thus it all becomes banal.
PS: interview now up for those who understand Spanish
Oyendo Nieves me la paso pensando en Hanna Arendt y la banalidad del mal. #ConcluFiscal— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) October 28, 2015In English: Listening to {prosecutor} Nieves I keep thinking of Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil.
One of the top prosecutors in the Leopoldo Lopez show trial has defected to the US and is now saying that the whole operation against Lopez was a scam, that the intention was to put him away for the election of 2015 and more. In fact Nieves went as far as to say, more or less, that the order to arrest Lopez already existed before the events for which he was finally arrested in February 2014.
Franklin Nieves was tonight in the top CÑNe rating show of Fernando del Rincon. Mr. del Rincon rocketed from a CNNE anchor to his own nightly talk show, Conclusiones, as a consequence of his daring reports on Venezuela through the first half of 2014. He has become the journalist to go for any trouble in Latin America, and the specialist on Venezuela, much loved by the opposition, and much more reviled by the regime.
I am not going into the details of what Nieves said (for those who read Spanish you can visit my Tweeter time line of Tuesday night). In short, he stated that all the evidence against Lopez was fabricated, that he received orders to prosecute anyway on those fake evidences, that all knew about that in the regime, that Diosdado Cabello himself was supervising the first orders and that he fooled the Lopez family in making them believe that if Lopez surrendered nicely a deal would be reached. He accused directly Maduro and Cabello and some of the top officials at the state prosecuting office in such a way that the regime will have to do better than just using the worn out line "he is a liar, paid by the nemesis of the revolution" (which he may well be for all that I know, but that is not the point). There is a situation now that will make supporting the regime almost impossible for some of its allies.
No, my interest is elsewhere. First, let's us start with the one with easiest access: why is the US covering for all those defectors? Is it a strategy to encourage them to defect the regime so as to build a case against its corrupt narco officials? In that case, how come indictments and active prosecutions are not coming through faster? In short, why are the US giving some (minor) credit to some of the accusations the regime hurls at them? I am writing that because informed people know better, know that the regime is indeed a rotten corrupt system, that is not investigated by the US alone. But too many use the people's ignorance and misinformation, even inside the opposition, in such ways that it helps the regime case. I am also writing this so that readers realize that I am not in a blind rage as I type.
There is some confusing evil above, but there is real evil next.
What has struck me more was the composure of Nieves during the whole interview, even as del Rincon was trying not to break down under the shock of having all of his antidemocratic accusations against the regime thus validated.
That made me think of Hanna Arendt, the Eichman trial, the basic nature of totalitarianism the way she explained, creating "the banality of evil". At least Arendt was writing her seminal books based on people following orders. I suppose that concentration camp guards did not have access to Tweeter to get contrasting news to what the Reich told them everyday. Even if pathetic, the defenses of "I was just following orders" " I did not know" "Nobody told me anything, nobody knew" could make one doubt on occasion if the lines were pronounced then with an empty enough glance.
But with Nieves such excuses cannot apply. Nieves tonight told us he knew what he was doing all along was wrong, was a crime, was an abuse of Human Rights. He knew all along that the regime wanted Lopez jailed, found guilty while it figured out, I imagine, a final solution to the Lopez problem.
Nieves knew and yet he did. And I do not buy much his crocodile tears at seeing Lopez little girl go to the same school as the prosecutor's orphan maker girl being too much for him and making him decide to defect.
What was shocking tonight is that all the actors were following orders, indeed, but knowing full well that the orders were wrong. In the end it does not really matter whether Cabello is the one that gave the original order, what matters here is that the chavista regime has been a totalitarian regime for quite a while as the behavior of the people at the nation's prosecution office show. This is way beyond debating whether the regime can be described as a dictatorship. This is a neo-totalitarian system as I have long ago coined it as a tag for some of this blog entries.
In the end one is left perplexed in trying to figure which is the worst evil. The ones giving orders? The ones executing it? The ones confessing to them without much trouble? And thus it all becomes banal.
PS: interview now up for those who understand Spanish
Friday, 11 September 2015
Regime gains? Opposition gains? Lopez gains?
The guilty verdict on Leopoldo Lopez was expected though one would have thought that the maximum penalty would not have been decided. At any rate, guilty or free, the decision yesterday by the regime to tell judge Barreiros to condemn Lopez is not going to change much on the events to come. What it does convincingly is marking the moment where the regime stops gingerly crossing over the line between dictatorship and the totalitarian state. Gingerly no more.
Anything but freeing Lopez would not have improved the international regime standing now at junk bond level. Any condemnation, no matter how short the sentence, was equally unacceptable because a guilty verdict on thought crime is unacceptable in civilized world. Any guilty verdict is the clear statement of the regime that politicians will be dealt with through "crime" sentences to ban them from office. Who needs a gulag when a mere sentence disposes of your opponents for a few years in jail and for a life time once out?
So, why is the regime risking such an international condemnation, even though it does not seem to care about that a bit, as witnesses the Colombian border crisis?
Any gain perceived by the regime is strictly internal, safe the historical apologists from Red Ken to the ineffable Eva Golinger. I suppose that now they will be able to state without batting an eye that Lopez is guilty. And it will work to a point. All outside in Venezuela have a sense that justice in Venezuela is not great. But few can grasp how perverted the system is. Thus when a propagandist at Russia Today like Eva Golinger states that Lopez is guilty and has been condemned to 14 years of jail even if you have a doubt about the Venezuelan judicial system you will think that surely Lopez must have done something even if the sentence is overly harsh. A meager compensation when you consider that the Eva Golingers of the world are now quite discredited outside of the few dark caves where they seek refuge.
The "benefits" must be strictly internal, thus. Which may they be?
As an electoral ploy it can only mobilize better the hard core of chavismo. Yesterday a colectivo did attack a peaceful protest resulting with one death through cardiac failure. But the renewed radicalization of the nut wing of chavismo has the advantage at improving the options of the "bring in the vote" machine. Plain coercion as before has not worked in 2013, now chavismo needs actual threats and ferrying of timorate electors. At best this may help chavismo limit the hemorrhage of votes but it will not help them gain new electors. Attitudes like yesterday castigating civil protests or chanting the hopes that Lopez gets 400 year sentence do not make you new friends.
As a demobilizing tool for the opposition it has a limited use. At best it will scare some opposition leaders that do not want to go to jail, but the bulk knows quite well that they must keep the fight because the slammer is their destiny sooner or later. I think personally that condemning Lopez is in fact an incentive for the opposition voter to be more active. But the Cuban inspired regime applies old recipes in a new world of Twitter.
As a tool to create violence and thus get an excuse to suspend elections is far from certain. So far there is no evidence that the opposition will resort to violence. Lopez himself is calling for peace and electoral activism as the best and fastest way to get out of jail, and annul the unjust sentence.
Clearly I see no real advantage for the regime in condemning Lopez to 14 years. The international commendation has been quite vocal today, faster than usual. Peace still reigns in Venezuela and I do not see much spontaneous chavista celebration...
The only advantage that I can see is internal to chavismo. Someone had to make a show of force to prove to one faction that he is the boss. I, for one, have a hard time imagining that Cubans demanded this from Maduro, or at least with a much shorter sentence. Doing so must be the way to announce that we have entered totalitarianism, officially. The other suspect is Diosdado Cabello who, besides his resentment against anything educated smart and fancy, may have wanted to condemn Lopez to blame this on Maduro.
Whatever it is, those who participated in that show trial have put their names first in the list of those who will need to suffer through a Venezuelan Nuremberg when the day shall come. I do not want to be seen as a poseur by using the N word, but the crimes committed by the regime this recent weeks qualify the holders to a trial at The Hague. Period.
There is only one winner yesterday: Leopoldo Lopez. Write it down.
Anything but freeing Lopez would not have improved the international regime standing now at junk bond level. Any condemnation, no matter how short the sentence, was equally unacceptable because a guilty verdict on thought crime is unacceptable in civilized world. Any guilty verdict is the clear statement of the regime that politicians will be dealt with through "crime" sentences to ban them from office. Who needs a gulag when a mere sentence disposes of your opponents for a few years in jail and for a life time once out?
So, why is the regime risking such an international condemnation, even though it does not seem to care about that a bit, as witnesses the Colombian border crisis?
Any gain perceived by the regime is strictly internal, safe the historical apologists from Red Ken to the ineffable Eva Golinger. I suppose that now they will be able to state without batting an eye that Lopez is guilty. And it will work to a point. All outside in Venezuela have a sense that justice in Venezuela is not great. But few can grasp how perverted the system is. Thus when a propagandist at Russia Today like Eva Golinger states that Lopez is guilty and has been condemned to 14 years of jail even if you have a doubt about the Venezuelan judicial system you will think that surely Lopez must have done something even if the sentence is overly harsh. A meager compensation when you consider that the Eva Golingers of the world are now quite discredited outside of the few dark caves where they seek refuge.
The "benefits" must be strictly internal, thus. Which may they be?
As an electoral ploy it can only mobilize better the hard core of chavismo. Yesterday a colectivo did attack a peaceful protest resulting with one death through cardiac failure. But the renewed radicalization of the nut wing of chavismo has the advantage at improving the options of the "bring in the vote" machine. Plain coercion as before has not worked in 2013, now chavismo needs actual threats and ferrying of timorate electors. At best this may help chavismo limit the hemorrhage of votes but it will not help them gain new electors. Attitudes like yesterday castigating civil protests or chanting the hopes that Lopez gets 400 year sentence do not make you new friends.
As a demobilizing tool for the opposition it has a limited use. At best it will scare some opposition leaders that do not want to go to jail, but the bulk knows quite well that they must keep the fight because the slammer is their destiny sooner or later. I think personally that condemning Lopez is in fact an incentive for the opposition voter to be more active. But the Cuban inspired regime applies old recipes in a new world of Twitter.
As a tool to create violence and thus get an excuse to suspend elections is far from certain. So far there is no evidence that the opposition will resort to violence. Lopez himself is calling for peace and electoral activism as the best and fastest way to get out of jail, and annul the unjust sentence.
Clearly I see no real advantage for the regime in condemning Lopez to 14 years. The international commendation has been quite vocal today, faster than usual. Peace still reigns in Venezuela and I do not see much spontaneous chavista celebration...
The only advantage that I can see is internal to chavismo. Someone had to make a show of force to prove to one faction that he is the boss. I, for one, have a hard time imagining that Cubans demanded this from Maduro, or at least with a much shorter sentence. Doing so must be the way to announce that we have entered totalitarianism, officially. The other suspect is Diosdado Cabello who, besides his resentment against anything educated smart and fancy, may have wanted to condemn Lopez to blame this on Maduro.
Whatever it is, those who participated in that show trial have put their names first in the list of those who will need to suffer through a Venezuelan Nuremberg when the day shall come. I do not want to be seen as a poseur by using the N word, but the crimes committed by the regime this recent weeks qualify the holders to a trial at The Hague. Period.
There is only one winner yesterday: Leopoldo Lopez. Write it down.
Tuesday, 8 September 2015
A slow fuse major embarrassment at Foreign Policy
There is an unwritten rule when dealing about information on Venezuela and chavismo: when you try to be objective you always end up with egg on your face. Respected magazine Foreign Policy is feeling the pinch and risks much discredit for its poor managing of a situation coming from a hatchet job text pretending to set the record straight on Leopoldo Lopez.
The offending article was written by Roberto Lovato for Foreign policy: "the making of Leopoldo Lopez". I am not going much into the details of that article nor for the reasons on Foreign Policy reasons to commission such an article from someone that was found to be, after the fact, a collaborator of Telesur. This network is the propaganda vehicle of chavismo. Not that there is anything wrong to pay for a propaganda network, so is FOX in the US. But the point here is that you do not commission an "objective" article from someone working with a network which has for mission to criticize in any possible way, true or false, the Venezuelan opposition to the regime. Might as well trust FoxNews for a fair article on, say, Hillary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders for that matter).
The first mistake of Foreign Policy was to actually dare to have an objective piece on a political prisoner. As if this were possible in Venezuela or elsewhere. A political prisoner by nature is a victim and one cannot be neutral or objective on a victim.
The second mistake, was not to dig a little bit more on Lovato's background, the kind of mistake that the former editor, Moises Naim, would not have done. Moises Naim, a Chavez opponent before this one was elected first, has never been criticized on its seriousness and use of true facts when arguing his criticism of the bolivarian farce. The surprising demonizing of Lopez was promptly noted for its deep inaccuracies and twisting of "facts", never mind the use of hearsay on Lopez. We can already observe that Foreign Policy has sensed the problem by appending 7 "updates", something which I am willing to bet is unheard of for other pieces, or is at least a rare phenomenon.
But that was not enough. The evidence of the hatchet job piece by Lovato has forced Foreign Policy to publish a rebuttal article from Leopoldo Lopez lawyer: "The other side of Leopolodo Lopez". I am not going to enter on the details of that piece either. The reader can read both and make up his or her mind on that matter. However I cannot fail to observe that Lovato was granted a reply in that article, a luxury that has not been accorded to critics of the Lovato piece.
On this reply by Lovato I will comment. He is not forthcoming on his partisanship and writes disingenuously that "My story is about López’s political history, particularly as it relates to events surrounding Venezuela’s 2002 coup attempt.". Reading that piece you will see that it is about much more than that and aims at casting a shadow on Lopez with more than just 2002. He also has the gall to call my estimated colleague Juan Nagel to his defense as if he were praising the article when this one is quite clear that it is a necessary read to understand how the chavista mind sees Lopez. He even writes "it is not a hack job" which in my book, is far from justifying the use of the word "hailed" by Lovato.
All in all this does not damage Mr. Lovato credit in pro Chavez groups where his article has been widely used for propaganda. It is an unnecessary attack on what is a political prisoner whose history of victimization by the regime has reached as far as vindication from International Human rights courts and organizations. In the end it is a discredit on the editors of Foreign Policy and a new proof that objectivity when dealing with rogue regime is a doomed farce.
Update: Mr. Lovato also seems to have worked for outright Chavez propaganda outlets.
The offending article was written by Roberto Lovato for Foreign policy: "the making of Leopoldo Lopez". I am not going much into the details of that article nor for the reasons on Foreign Policy reasons to commission such an article from someone that was found to be, after the fact, a collaborator of Telesur. This network is the propaganda vehicle of chavismo. Not that there is anything wrong to pay for a propaganda network, so is FOX in the US. But the point here is that you do not commission an "objective" article from someone working with a network which has for mission to criticize in any possible way, true or false, the Venezuelan opposition to the regime. Might as well trust FoxNews for a fair article on, say, Hillary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders for that matter).
The first mistake of Foreign Policy was to actually dare to have an objective piece on a political prisoner. As if this were possible in Venezuela or elsewhere. A political prisoner by nature is a victim and one cannot be neutral or objective on a victim.
The second mistake, was not to dig a little bit more on Lovato's background, the kind of mistake that the former editor, Moises Naim, would not have done. Moises Naim, a Chavez opponent before this one was elected first, has never been criticized on its seriousness and use of true facts when arguing his criticism of the bolivarian farce. The surprising demonizing of Lopez was promptly noted for its deep inaccuracies and twisting of "facts", never mind the use of hearsay on Lopez. We can already observe that Foreign Policy has sensed the problem by appending 7 "updates", something which I am willing to bet is unheard of for other pieces, or is at least a rare phenomenon.
But that was not enough. The evidence of the hatchet job piece by Lovato has forced Foreign Policy to publish a rebuttal article from Leopoldo Lopez lawyer: "The other side of Leopolodo Lopez". I am not going to enter on the details of that piece either. The reader can read both and make up his or her mind on that matter. However I cannot fail to observe that Lovato was granted a reply in that article, a luxury that has not been accorded to critics of the Lovato piece.
On this reply by Lovato I will comment. He is not forthcoming on his partisanship and writes disingenuously that "My story is about López’s political history, particularly as it relates to events surrounding Venezuela’s 2002 coup attempt.". Reading that piece you will see that it is about much more than that and aims at casting a shadow on Lopez with more than just 2002. He also has the gall to call my estimated colleague Juan Nagel to his defense as if he were praising the article when this one is quite clear that it is a necessary read to understand how the chavista mind sees Lopez. He even writes "it is not a hack job" which in my book, is far from justifying the use of the word "hailed" by Lovato.
All in all this does not damage Mr. Lovato credit in pro Chavez groups where his article has been widely used for propaganda. It is an unnecessary attack on what is a political prisoner whose history of victimization by the regime has reached as far as vindication from International Human rights courts and organizations. In the end it is a discredit on the editors of Foreign Policy and a new proof that objectivity when dealing with rogue regime is a doomed farce.
Update: Mr. Lovato also seems to have worked for outright Chavez propaganda outlets.
Friday, 4 September 2015
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.
I think the regime will condemn Leopoldo Lopez. They are crazy enough to do that and make Lopez the "great" leader of the opposition. Capriles has been fading steadily and even went into ridiculous having to fight a silly battle on Tweeter to pretend that he did not say what he said on some of the fallout of the Colombian border crisis. Maria Corina Machado seems to have realized that Primero Justicia and AD, and others, prefer to keep chavismo at Miraflores before giving her a chance at anything. Thus she seems to have decided to support Lopez until better days come for her. Henri Falcon is now fatally flawed as he is trying to position himself as a transition figure that would allegedly draw in a chavismo dissidence. And there is no one else, really, that can even pretend at disputing the leadership to Lopez.
Whether the leadership of Lopez is what the country needs is now irrelevant. The regime not only has made this to happen, but it is speeding up the final outcome by its inability to face to the economic and political crisis of Venezuela. Recent polls are lapidary and even "pro Chavez" pollsters give a double digit advantage for the opposition, big enough that one can hardly see a way for the regime to reduce it. Somewhat it will shrink some as the campaign goes on but 2 years of mismanagement and long lines for a little bit of food and toilet paper cannot be forgotten easily.
The regime has tried all sorts of tricks to distract public opinion and try to create excuses that would allow it to at the very least postpone elections. The latest attempt, by manufacturing a crisis with Colombia is going nowhere. The alleged victory at the OAS was notable not by its narrowness but by the fast shrinking influence of Venezuela there. Next crisis vote and the regime will lose at the OAS. After a weak to dismal initial reaction of Colombia's president Santos, this one has taken successfully the initiative. The "defeat" at the OAS has allowed it to criticize Brazil for its lack of leadership and to wave away the UNASUR empty shell, an humiliation for it considering that an Colombian ex-president is at its helm. Then he went to the border with lots of international guests to hold a cabinet meeting with the victims of Venezuela's abuse. Then the foreign minster Holguin described with details the duplicity and web of lies weaved by the regime in its failed propaganda.
In contrast not only Maduro has failed to call an equivalent meeting on the Venezuelan side, knowing full well that he would be booed loudly, but the wannabe conquering hero went to China to ask for survival cash for the elections of December. In short, the border crisis seems to have brought him zero benefit on the Venezuelan side.
What is left to do for the regime? This one cannot afford to lose elections because a real government will send a few of its members to jail. So a new crisis has to be created and what better than giving Leopoldo Lopez a maximum sentence. Heck! Why not have him murdered in jail to see if the opposition rise in protest so it can be brutally crushed and elections outright cancelled.
That would be a terrible mistake for the regime, the last straw internationally to force many into recognizing its rogue nature, and speed up the economic downfall: the easiest way to undo the regime, fast, without military intervention. The writing is on the wall. US Secretary of State has posed a few days ago with the wife of Lopez. Thomas Shannon, the political operator that posed with Diosdado Cabello a few weeks ago posed a few days ago with a second fiddle at Lopez party, thus equating him to Cabello in importance, a terrible insult for a narcissistic rogue like Cabello, The Spanish Senate has had a nearly unanimous vote to demand that the Spanish government do more for Venezuelan political prisoners. Last but not least, under internal pressure the weakening Roussef government has had to admit (accept?) that there is a need for international supervision for the December vote in Venezuela.
Truly, can the Venezuelan regime be so blind? It is, because it is a rogue regime, because Maduro obeys Cuban orders, because Cuba cannot give up under any pretense whatever alimony it still cashes from Venezuela. Because, very simply, it has run out of ideas and has only violence left in its belt.
In the end it does not matter. If Lopez is not condemned, and freed, the opposition gets a boost. If Lopez is kept in jail, the injustice will be too flagrant and the opposition not only will also get a boost, but it will get another one from overseas. My guess is that the regime will go ahead and condemn Lopez anyway in the belief that it will radicalize its base and bring out the vote. Or the violence.
I think the regime will condemn Leopoldo Lopez. They are crazy enough to do that and make Lopez the "great" leader of the opposition. Capriles has been fading steadily and even went into ridiculous having to fight a silly battle on Tweeter to pretend that he did not say what he said on some of the fallout of the Colombian border crisis. Maria Corina Machado seems to have realized that Primero Justicia and AD, and others, prefer to keep chavismo at Miraflores before giving her a chance at anything. Thus she seems to have decided to support Lopez until better days come for her. Henri Falcon is now fatally flawed as he is trying to position himself as a transition figure that would allegedly draw in a chavismo dissidence. And there is no one else, really, that can even pretend at disputing the leadership to Lopez.
Whether the leadership of Lopez is what the country needs is now irrelevant. The regime not only has made this to happen, but it is speeding up the final outcome by its inability to face to the economic and political crisis of Venezuela. Recent polls are lapidary and even "pro Chavez" pollsters give a double digit advantage for the opposition, big enough that one can hardly see a way for the regime to reduce it. Somewhat it will shrink some as the campaign goes on but 2 years of mismanagement and long lines for a little bit of food and toilet paper cannot be forgotten easily.
The regime has tried all sorts of tricks to distract public opinion and try to create excuses that would allow it to at the very least postpone elections. The latest attempt, by manufacturing a crisis with Colombia is going nowhere. The alleged victory at the OAS was notable not by its narrowness but by the fast shrinking influence of Venezuela there. Next crisis vote and the regime will lose at the OAS. After a weak to dismal initial reaction of Colombia's president Santos, this one has taken successfully the initiative. The "defeat" at the OAS has allowed it to criticize Brazil for its lack of leadership and to wave away the UNASUR empty shell, an humiliation for it considering that an Colombian ex-president is at its helm. Then he went to the border with lots of international guests to hold a cabinet meeting with the victims of Venezuela's abuse. Then the foreign minster Holguin described with details the duplicity and web of lies weaved by the regime in its failed propaganda.
In contrast not only Maduro has failed to call an equivalent meeting on the Venezuelan side, knowing full well that he would be booed loudly, but the wannabe conquering hero went to China to ask for survival cash for the elections of December. In short, the border crisis seems to have brought him zero benefit on the Venezuelan side.
What is left to do for the regime? This one cannot afford to lose elections because a real government will send a few of its members to jail. So a new crisis has to be created and what better than giving Leopoldo Lopez a maximum sentence. Heck! Why not have him murdered in jail to see if the opposition rise in protest so it can be brutally crushed and elections outright cancelled.
That would be a terrible mistake for the regime, the last straw internationally to force many into recognizing its rogue nature, and speed up the economic downfall: the easiest way to undo the regime, fast, without military intervention. The writing is on the wall. US Secretary of State has posed a few days ago with the wife of Lopez. Thomas Shannon, the political operator that posed with Diosdado Cabello a few weeks ago posed a few days ago with a second fiddle at Lopez party, thus equating him to Cabello in importance, a terrible insult for a narcissistic rogue like Cabello, The Spanish Senate has had a nearly unanimous vote to demand that the Spanish government do more for Venezuelan political prisoners. Last but not least, under internal pressure the weakening Roussef government has had to admit (accept?) that there is a need for international supervision for the December vote in Venezuela.
Truly, can the Venezuelan regime be so blind? It is, because it is a rogue regime, because Maduro obeys Cuban orders, because Cuba cannot give up under any pretense whatever alimony it still cashes from Venezuela. Because, very simply, it has run out of ideas and has only violence left in its belt.
In the end it does not matter. If Lopez is not condemned, and freed, the opposition gets a boost. If Lopez is kept in jail, the injustice will be too flagrant and the opposition not only will also get a boost, but it will get another one from overseas. My guess is that the regime will go ahead and condemn Lopez anyway in the belief that it will radicalize its base and bring out the vote. Or the violence.
Tuesday, 12 November 2013
From rabipelao courts to public lynching: a day of contradictions in the regime
A regime on overdrive to survive has no qualms exploring interesting ways to reach results and contradict itself as it goes, as often as needed. If you needed evidence that Maduro is grasping for straws, you get them in the last couple of days.
Let's start with the title. This morning I was writing that Maduro was proposing/ordering kangaroo courts to send the owners of stores he does not like faster to jail. But tonight I have to write that he wants now "el pueblo" to take the initiative and seize looters. There are many problems with this. First Maduro recognizes that the looting problem is big enough to deserve a stronger response when 24 hours ago it was mere isolated incidents. Second, if rabipelao courts are good enough for Daka's owners why not send looters to the same courts? The answer to these contradictions is that Capriles went on record saying what we already all knew from pictures in twitter: the looters are directed by PSUV operatives. And I add since there is no way to prove it at this point, that this is the way chosen by the regime to pay these operatives in view of the dirty work required from them until mid December.
Another fascinating contradiction is that after having started the worst wave of looting in Venezuela since 1989, and by far, Maduro today asked people to come and invest in the country. In a day, by the way, where Venezuelans bond dropped as the international trust in the country is about junk bond status. Can we assume that Maduro is stupid enough to contradict himself so blatantly so fast? Well, maybe, but there must be something else too.
As he was saying that, today we also learned that car battery manufacturers were intervened, that stores such as shoe stores were threatened, that looting started to reach small store owners, of the neighborhood quality. What gives? Possibly he wants to convey overseas that the only ones to worry are the Venezuelan businesses who are unreliable and should be replaced by foreign ones. But even this generous hypothesis from my part rings hollow because Maduro had the chutzpah to ask Venezuelan business people to bring back home the dollars they have stashed overseas, on the week where he mad private business lose millions of dollars that cannot be recovered ever. No, what Maduro was truly announcing was his economic vision, believe it or not: no more private business in Venezuela besides the big ones in association with the regime. I will note that someone commented to me today that the regime is going to have to nationalize now Daka and related because the owners are not going to refurbish the stores or the inventory; that this was a logical step because after having ruined agriculture and manufacturing the last stand of private business was commerce and banking. And banking he does not need to move against because the regime is the main driver of cash through the system and thus banks will not rise against the regime.
And yet there is another major contradiction but of a more subtle nature to understand. Today finally the Nazional Assembly managed to get rid of one of the opposition representatives which through the viciousness of Venezuelan politics will be replaced by a safe pro Maduro vote (though rumor has that he has been extorted though his properties in Monagas to make sure his future votes are the ones wished for; such as the two other opposition votes brought to chavismo though due extortion). This beyond undemocratic maneuver is to get Maduro the wished for enabling law to deal with corruption and economics. But does he need it? And this is where the contradiction lays because this week with the looting and the announcement of the kangaroo courts, and that he will limit what a business can make in earnings, Maduro is doing already what he would do with the enabling law. Clearly he does not need it. Or does he?
Let's read two of Leopoldo Lopez tweets today:
The internal conflict inside the regime is not only political. There is a confrontation between mafias fo power and drug traffickers with high public servant badges.
Leopoldo says on twitter what no air-wave media will allow him to say because such is the extent of censorship that the regime has gone out to ask that the word "looting" is not pronounced. And with that he puts his finger on the true pressing concerns of Maduro, concerns that he can only solve with an enabling law that gives him powers to deal with his internal enemies, not the democratic opposition that he is already screwing fine without any extra law, thank you!
To get rid of any opposition muscle it is enough to apply Marxist theories of end to private property. Now the private sector has been so weakened that a reaction like 2002 is not only impossible but the victims of governmental abuse remain silent, will not even publish a bland press communique least the regime damages more than their properties: their families and their lives. But to get rid of tribal factions inside chavismo.........
These contradictions and actions of some of the regime spokespeople (Cabello is strangely subdued in an occasion where he should be giving a declaration a minute) mean something else: Maduro has allied with the radical wing of chavismo and he is trying to make a legalistic coup against the other factions of chavimso. The coup is not against democracy and the opposition, that one was done in 2010. The coup in progress is one against a chavista group which will imply by force that Venezuela will become a Marxist country where oil revenue makes life somewhat mess miserable than in other Marxist countries like Cuba or North Korea.
Then again the coup may be coming from Maduro's own entourage who is pushing him to make such idiotic decisions so as to get rid of him sooner than later.
Let's start with the title. This morning I was writing that Maduro was proposing/ordering kangaroo courts to send the owners of stores he does not like faster to jail. But tonight I have to write that he wants now "el pueblo" to take the initiative and seize looters. There are many problems with this. First Maduro recognizes that the looting problem is big enough to deserve a stronger response when 24 hours ago it was mere isolated incidents. Second, if rabipelao courts are good enough for Daka's owners why not send looters to the same courts? The answer to these contradictions is that Capriles went on record saying what we already all knew from pictures in twitter: the looters are directed by PSUV operatives. And I add since there is no way to prove it at this point, that this is the way chosen by the regime to pay these operatives in view of the dirty work required from them until mid December.
Todos los focos de saqueos,anarquía,caos,son dirigidos por el psuv para después decir que somos nosotros,alertas!All flash points of looting, anarchy chaos are directed by the PSUV and then they will blame it on us. Be alert!
— Henrique Capriles R. (@hcapriles) November 12, 2013
Another fascinating contradiction is that after having started the worst wave of looting in Venezuela since 1989, and by far, Maduro today asked people to come and invest in the country. In a day, by the way, where Venezuelans bond dropped as the international trust in the country is about junk bond status. Can we assume that Maduro is stupid enough to contradict himself so blatantly so fast? Well, maybe, but there must be something else too.
As he was saying that, today we also learned that car battery manufacturers were intervened, that stores such as shoe stores were threatened, that looting started to reach small store owners, of the neighborhood quality. What gives? Possibly he wants to convey overseas that the only ones to worry are the Venezuelan businesses who are unreliable and should be replaced by foreign ones. But even this generous hypothesis from my part rings hollow because Maduro had the chutzpah to ask Venezuelan business people to bring back home the dollars they have stashed overseas, on the week where he mad private business lose millions of dollars that cannot be recovered ever. No, what Maduro was truly announcing was his economic vision, believe it or not: no more private business in Venezuela besides the big ones in association with the regime. I will note that someone commented to me today that the regime is going to have to nationalize now Daka and related because the owners are not going to refurbish the stores or the inventory; that this was a logical step because after having ruined agriculture and manufacturing the last stand of private business was commerce and banking. And banking he does not need to move against because the regime is the main driver of cash through the system and thus banks will not rise against the regime.
And yet there is another major contradiction but of a more subtle nature to understand. Today finally the Nazional Assembly managed to get rid of one of the opposition representatives which through the viciousness of Venezuelan politics will be replaced by a safe pro Maduro vote (though rumor has that he has been extorted though his properties in Monagas to make sure his future votes are the ones wished for; such as the two other opposition votes brought to chavismo though due extortion). This beyond undemocratic maneuver is to get Maduro the wished for enabling law to deal with corruption and economics. But does he need it? And this is where the contradiction lays because this week with the looting and the announcement of the kangaroo courts, and that he will limit what a business can make in earnings, Maduro is doing already what he would do with the enabling law. Clearly he does not need it. Or does he?
Let's read two of Leopoldo Lopez tweets today:
El conflicto interno del gobierno no solo es politico. Hay un enfrentamiento entre mafias de poder, narcos con chapa de altos funcionarios.
— Leopoldo López (@leopoldolopez) November 13, 2013
The internal conflict inside the regime is not only political. There is a confrontation between mafias fo power and drug traffickers with high public servant badges.
Quienes son los cadiveros? Publica la lista Maduro. Quienes son los directores d esas empresas? A quien responden en el gobierno?Who are those that who benefited greatly from CADIVI [currency control]? Publish the list Maduro. Who are the directors of these businesses? To whom where they linked inside the regime?
— Leopoldo López (@leopoldolopez) November 13, 2013
Leopoldo says on twitter what no air-wave media will allow him to say because such is the extent of censorship that the regime has gone out to ask that the word "looting" is not pronounced. And with that he puts his finger on the true pressing concerns of Maduro, concerns that he can only solve with an enabling law that gives him powers to deal with his internal enemies, not the democratic opposition that he is already screwing fine without any extra law, thank you!
To get rid of any opposition muscle it is enough to apply Marxist theories of end to private property. Now the private sector has been so weakened that a reaction like 2002 is not only impossible but the victims of governmental abuse remain silent, will not even publish a bland press communique least the regime damages more than their properties: their families and their lives. But to get rid of tribal factions inside chavismo.........
These contradictions and actions of some of the regime spokespeople (Cabello is strangely subdued in an occasion where he should be giving a declaration a minute) mean something else: Maduro has allied with the radical wing of chavismo and he is trying to make a legalistic coup against the other factions of chavimso. The coup is not against democracy and the opposition, that one was done in 2010. The coup in progress is one against a chavista group which will imply by force that Venezuela will become a Marxist country where oil revenue makes life somewhat mess miserable than in other Marxist countries like Cuba or North Korea.
Then again the coup may be coming from Maduro's own entourage who is pushing him to make such idiotic decisions so as to get rid of him sooner than later.
Tuesday, 5 November 2013
Voluntad Popular is ready for the major poltical leagues
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| Today's press conference at Voluntad Popular |
These past 4 years I have written about their growth, their initiatives, at least when these could be of interest for people living overseas such as the Venezuelans trying to vote in embassies and the help VP tried to bring them. Never mind writing often on the epic battle of Lopez against the regime attempt to block his political career, a battle he won in international courts even though the regime keeps playing a deaf ear to its international obligations. Then again, when has fascism paid heed to legality?
.jpg) |
| The true trilogy of evil: empty wallets (slang), high crime and scarcity of all, including toilet paper |
The headquarters of Voluntad Popular are bristling with activity, full of energy. And not only because in one month we have elections, I already had that impression a few months ago when they had just moved in and there were half of the folks I saw today.
What welcomes you when waiting for your host to fetch you is an exhibition hall. A long hallway that can also be used for other purposes is decorated this month with a selection of political cartoons from Zapata, Rayma and Edo. It is called "La Ventana", the window, as a place where prosecuted folks are welcome to expose, and other to come and look over and see what the regime would like to disappear.
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| Defending freedom of expression. |
This is, in short, the tone of the visit: the rather young and dynamic team working for Voluntad Popular leaves no stone unturned, from mere electoral activities to more intellectual pursuits, even if in a hurry. But we are a country in a hurry, in a hurry to leave behind chavismo, so I can relate. Contemplation must be brief and purposeful.
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| The call center |
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| Media Watch |
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| VP's hope |
The electoral campaign is monitored from several rooms. In the one below there are young designers trying to come up with all the necessary material.
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| Campaign creation room |
Last but not least, Voluntad Popular is finishing up its program and political concepts. The Orange book will be published soon and I saw the provisional cover. Well, they are still working on the set up but the good thing is that after months and years of discussion across the country with the many grassroots groups they are finally getting there. It is not useless to remind folks that VP was the first political party since 1998 to hold an internal primary. Chavismo had some but they forgot about the whole thing as soon as they observed that some dared criticize Chavez proposals. And the others are content in their pyramidal set up, if there is indeed a pyramid to be found for them. |
| Simonovis remembered |
To finish this post, let's talk about the press conference system of VP. I receive on my mail regularly, at least once a week, a press communique of the weekly agenda. It is about the response of VP to a particular situation. It may be held in the press room of the headquarters or somewhere else, in particular if it is locally related to a given campaign. But the most salient feature if you ask me is that the official position of VP is not always announced by Leopoldo Lopez. In fact, there is great care taken to promote as many voices from VP as possible and many spokespeople are formed by giving these press conferences and holding the questions. VP may be the creation of Leopoldo Lopez when he left his original associates but he has had the wisdom to make the party a real political group, a confluence of ideas and interests.
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| Presenting the poster. |
The highlight of the presentation I would say was to once again ridicule Maduro. For him being so worried about Twitter removing 6000 fake accounts out of his 1 million plus followers is equivalent to a teenage girl tantrum, according to Lopez. Again, more evidence that Maduro is located between pusillanimous and ridiculous. The ever repeated leitmotiv that no matter what corruption is denounced, there is NEVER a big fish toppled by it was not forgotten.
The communication machinery, a concern from the very start by Lopez and Voluntad Popular, is smooth and quick to respond. When I was starting to put together this post I received already the summary of Lopez intervention and this video which is quite chilling if you understand Spanish. There is a clear expose of what is the real "evil trilogy" of Venezuela, shortages, corruption, violence, etc...
The web site of Voluntad Popular, a work always in progress in real web sites, is full of news, videos and how to join it. But you can also follow or visit @VoluntadPopular to see pictures of all the constant activities of the group across Venezuela, some impressive considering the small locales they visit. They also report with pictures on the nasty stuff they find around. You can also follow @leopoldolopez who happens to have 100,000 more followers than @nicolasmaduro, interestingly. Real followers I would bet as Twitter does not seem in the need to clean up fake accounts with Lopez as it did with Maduro....
I am no political expert to judge how successful Voluntad Popular is, we will need to see if they get at least 15-20 town-halls next December. However after this visit I have a sense that whatever it is that VP is doing, it seems to be doing it right. And certainly the constant harassment the regime has against VP is proof that these young activists are having an effect.
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| Lopez has read VN&V |
To conclude, a picture I took during a short meeting I had with Lopez's team at the end of the visit, where he posed along the VN&V web page screen to greet readers of this blog.
Wednesday, 30 October 2013
How to hold an electoral campaign under Venezuela neo-fascism?
For long time readers of this blog the title should not come as a surprise. It has been long that I have rejected the democratic pretense of the regime as well as the one coming from those that still pretend to comment "objectively" on Venezuela. That is those who try to find a fig leaf of democracy, be they foreign journalists, bloggers or actual Venezuelan journos. As far as I am concerned we are in a military regime since at least late 2010, a regime which is turning openly fascist since late 2012. If you do not agree at least in part with me, then you have been wasting your time reading this blog.
On the fig leaf front there is an incipient electoral campaign for local elections this December. Indeed, there will be massive abuse and cheating from the regime. And yet there is little else we can do than go and vote, unless you are willing to wield your guns against the gang of thugs that hold Miraflores Palace hostage. The resolution will come only when chavismo will break up, violently, and self destruct. Perhaps sooner than later, but whatever the time frame is our participation in the election can only speed up the process.
This being said, let's look at the campaign which yesterday has taken a clearly fascist turn. I am not using the word communist, note, because the inspiration is from Cuba and Cuba is now under an aging fascist system. True communism would have never tolerated stuff like the general prostitution of jineteras at the fake luxury sea front of Varadero. By writing this I do not intend to state that one system is better than the other, merely that their vices are not the same in their quest for totalitarian control and equal meting out of misery.
To help you understand let's start with one of the three things that happened yesterday, the minor one if you will, but one that will help you understand better what happened in Caracas. The billboard above has showed up first yesterday in San Felipe, in at least three locations that I have noticed. It is Chavez heirs electoral strategy: Chavez. That is right, in the last 10 months Chavez heirs have NOTHING to show for their tenure so once again they resort to the only thing that has worked in the past, the image of Chavez.
The billboard deserves a speedy semantical analysis.
First, they use the "martyrdom" picture of Chavez, in his last 2012 campaign appearance, when he stood under the rain to inspire pity and maximize his appeal. His Che moment of sorts though it probably cost him a few days of life which I am sure he did not mind paying in his narcissistic egotism.
Second, it is addressed to ¡CHAVISTAS! Not you or me. They are not trying to get new votes due to their track record. They know better: they need to motivate the chavista lumpen that has been battered by inflation, scarcity, crime, lack of jobs, etc... to go and vote for them yet one more time. And thus the second line: to honor Chavez memory. Period. No other argument.
Third, since there is nothing positive to run on, there is the need to make a crass appeal to war, battles, heroism and what not, Chavez style again. And thus the slogan, "Unity, fighting, battles and victory!" empty, devoid of any single new idea. Very fascist if you ask me, where what passes as ideas are artificial constructs designed to polarize society in order not to discuss what could be the true solutions to our real problems. Or rather, since this is Venezuela, a banal but vicious thugocracy that uses selected simple minded fascisto/communist methods to hold to power so as to avoid the jail they deserve.
The bottom is the Warholian take on Chavez eyes and the party colors to suggest mass and unity (GPP, Great Patriotic Pole). Fluff!
When a "poltical" group has reached such depth of intellectual emptiness you cannot be surprised by the visceral moves they took yesterday.
The first one was a very clumsy attempt by foreign minister Jaua who pretends to be the true governor of Miranda. For memory, defeated by Capriles last December in spite of all the electoral abuse and blackmail and cheating, the regime named him special agent for the Tuy valley of Miranda which meant that he became an appointed parallel governor, probably with more money than Capriles to rule effectively the state that duly voted for him. Again, a neo-totalitarian contempt for democracy.
Sure enough siphoning money from one side to buy votes on the other created financial havoc and the Miranda workers decided to march in protest to force the central government to give Miranda its full share of the budget. Everybody knows of course that the regime will pinch every single penny it can against Capriles even if hardship for innocent follows. When you play dirty it helps not to have a bit of scruples. So Jaua started an infantile blockade of Caracas access through a pretend pro chavista protest against the "fascist" "coup mongering" march of Capriles. It was so clumsy that within a couple of hours it seems that Jaua was brought back to heel and the marchers could go present their demands.
That chavista fiasco was accompanied by yet a new scale up of the rhetoric. While Caracas was blockaded for a few hours somebody started placarding the posters below.
Now, this is extremely grave because it calls for the public lynching of the three top opposition politicians today: Capriles, Lopez and Machado. Any crazed chavista can feel that if he were to kill, or at least hurt one of them, he would not be punished. And even if we assume that a lose canon took such an mistaken initiative with these posters of hate, there is a video that clearly shows that Maduro is responsible, the inspiration (at the end of this post).
What these posters do, besides trying to imitate horror show aesthetic with the faces of the three, in particular the one of Capriles, is to place the blame for the current economic crisis on them. That is, a regime that controls everything, from the armed forces to any office regulating production claims that the three guys are able on their own to turn off the power grids of Venezuela, disrupt the general food distribution system, create the high criminal insecurity.
That is exactly what the Nazis did against the Jews after 1933.
Maduro encouraging public violence against opposition leadership. He uses the words "pueblo reconocelos" (9 sec) "trilogia del mal" (4 sec) "enemigos de la patria" (6 sec)
On the fig leaf front there is an incipient electoral campaign for local elections this December. Indeed, there will be massive abuse and cheating from the regime. And yet there is little else we can do than go and vote, unless you are willing to wield your guns against the gang of thugs that hold Miraflores Palace hostage. The resolution will come only when chavismo will break up, violently, and self destruct. Perhaps sooner than later, but whatever the time frame is our participation in the election can only speed up the process.
This being said, let's look at the campaign which yesterday has taken a clearly fascist turn. I am not using the word communist, note, because the inspiration is from Cuba and Cuba is now under an aging fascist system. True communism would have never tolerated stuff like the general prostitution of jineteras at the fake luxury sea front of Varadero. By writing this I do not intend to state that one system is better than the other, merely that their vices are not the same in their quest for totalitarian control and equal meting out of misery.
To help you understand let's start with one of the three things that happened yesterday, the minor one if you will, but one that will help you understand better what happened in Caracas. The billboard above has showed up first yesterday in San Felipe, in at least three locations that I have noticed. It is Chavez heirs electoral strategy: Chavez. That is right, in the last 10 months Chavez heirs have NOTHING to show for their tenure so once again they resort to the only thing that has worked in the past, the image of Chavez.
The billboard deserves a speedy semantical analysis.
First, they use the "martyrdom" picture of Chavez, in his last 2012 campaign appearance, when he stood under the rain to inspire pity and maximize his appeal. His Che moment of sorts though it probably cost him a few days of life which I am sure he did not mind paying in his narcissistic egotism.
Second, it is addressed to ¡CHAVISTAS! Not you or me. They are not trying to get new votes due to their track record. They know better: they need to motivate the chavista lumpen that has been battered by inflation, scarcity, crime, lack of jobs, etc... to go and vote for them yet one more time. And thus the second line: to honor Chavez memory. Period. No other argument.
Third, since there is nothing positive to run on, there is the need to make a crass appeal to war, battles, heroism and what not, Chavez style again. And thus the slogan, "Unity, fighting, battles and victory!" empty, devoid of any single new idea. Very fascist if you ask me, where what passes as ideas are artificial constructs designed to polarize society in order not to discuss what could be the true solutions to our real problems. Or rather, since this is Venezuela, a banal but vicious thugocracy that uses selected simple minded fascisto/communist methods to hold to power so as to avoid the jail they deserve.
The bottom is the Warholian take on Chavez eyes and the party colors to suggest mass and unity (GPP, Great Patriotic Pole). Fluff!
When a "poltical" group has reached such depth of intellectual emptiness you cannot be surprised by the visceral moves they took yesterday.
The first one was a very clumsy attempt by foreign minister Jaua who pretends to be the true governor of Miranda. For memory, defeated by Capriles last December in spite of all the electoral abuse and blackmail and cheating, the regime named him special agent for the Tuy valley of Miranda which meant that he became an appointed parallel governor, probably with more money than Capriles to rule effectively the state that duly voted for him. Again, a neo-totalitarian contempt for democracy.
Sure enough siphoning money from one side to buy votes on the other created financial havoc and the Miranda workers decided to march in protest to force the central government to give Miranda its full share of the budget. Everybody knows of course that the regime will pinch every single penny it can against Capriles even if hardship for innocent follows. When you play dirty it helps not to have a bit of scruples. So Jaua started an infantile blockade of Caracas access through a pretend pro chavista protest against the "fascist" "coup mongering" march of Capriles. It was so clumsy that within a couple of hours it seems that Jaua was brought back to heel and the marchers could go present their demands.
That chavista fiasco was accompanied by yet a new scale up of the rhetoric. While Caracas was blockaded for a few hours somebody started placarding the posters below.
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| Memorize their faces The trilogy of evil They take away your light They take away your food They take away your peace Enough violence |
What these posters do, besides trying to imitate horror show aesthetic with the faces of the three, in particular the one of Capriles, is to place the blame for the current economic crisis on them. That is, a regime that controls everything, from the armed forces to any office regulating production claims that the three guys are able on their own to turn off the power grids of Venezuela, disrupt the general food distribution system, create the high criminal insecurity.
That is exactly what the Nazis did against the Jews after 1933.
Maduro encouraging public violence against opposition leadership. He uses the words "pueblo reconocelos" (9 sec) "trilogia del mal" (4 sec) "enemigos de la patria" (6 sec)
Friday, 18 October 2013
A month and a half to play it out in Venezuela
For some, the local elections of December 8 are the last horizon. Crossing it successfully will mean the end of chavismo, at least as we have known it. For others all will be played as soon as the Enabling Law is published. Some think that a popular uprising is around the corner. Some think that it is all over. All are wrong, on these and other suppositions. That does not make me right because, well, I actually have no position. So, instead of trying to figure out a way out of this mess I should limit myself to try to evaluate the current situation. May the reader think whatever s/he pleases.
Whatever one thinks, one thing is certain, the next couple of months are decisive. Even if you think all has been played out, the coming weeks will decide the extent of the economic crisis and the extent of the repression we must suffer through 2014.
The general context is not too complicated, once you think about it. Chavismo is trying to resolve its internal wars and as such can only agree on the need to silence the opposition. The economic crisis deepens and the regime is unable to come to grips with it, and even less to find a faint solution. It seems that in spite of all of its efforts it cannot replicate previous election miracles of keeping the shelves full for at least the two months before the election so that people forget previous food shortages. But even if the regime were able to put food back on the shelves, the annual inflation for food items alone is around 70% so people will be displeased anyway. Basically all economic indicators are going red. I am at ground zero and I can assure you that every day it gets more and more difficult to produce anything, ship it, cash it, replenish stocks, meet payroll. I have had to resort to barter with my competition for raw material so we both do not go under.....
In this context chavismo has decided that the December vote is lost and that their hope is the Enabling Law. Through it, it will be able to produce yet more controls certain to fail, settle issues within chavismo that cannot be settled, make a mockery of the December electoral result though new measures to promote "comunas" that will destroy the influence of mayors and local councils soon to reach the opposition hands; and for good measure start jailing a few opposition leaders. Maduro has already singled out Capriles and Lopez, has accused Machado to be the chosen head of an interim regime, which guarantees that she will be cell mate of the first two. And we cannot discard that some last minute commotion will be generated so that elections are "postponed". Already the lengthy list of missed deadlines by electoral authorities, CNE, seem to indicate that they know this will be the case.
The regime is so decided to pass the Enabling Law that it has already started illegal repressive measures against two opposition representatives to remove them from the Assembly and secure a 99 votes vote. Be it in Spain or in Argentina, nobody is fooled: the high court, TSJ, is clearing the way for the regime to approve an unconstitutional law. And yet it may not be enough. The nervousness of Maduro is palpable. He has stopped travelling outside the country, missing the IberoAmerican summit in Panama which would have been crucial to reinforce his international legitimacy. He spends an inordinate amount of time in military barracks, convincing the army of his authority. Not that there is a coup in the making, the military is too fat and too corrupt. What the military wants is a regime able to solve pressing problems, that can avoid a social crisis because the Venezuelan army is no mood to stain its hand in blood for the sake of Maduro and his Cuban masters. Times have changed and they want to be able to travel freely to enjoy their riches acquired through Chavez buy out of the nation's integrity. It is not far-fetched to think that the army wants to retain the power that it enjoys today but through a more capable president than Maduro, a better covering fig leaf for our lack of democracy.
The opposition seems hypnotized by the prospect of the Enabling Law. Some like Maria Corina Machado want an all out defense, at all cost. Some like Capriles and the MUD do not seem to be overly concerned, so certain they are their strategy of winning on December 8. An OpEd person was right in pointing out that when Capriles says he would not recognize a law voted by less 99 he implicitly admitted that as long as the 99 magical number of Assembly votes is reached, even through coaxing and blackmail, he would accept it. His response should have been sterner and once again Capriles projects a wishy washy image that diminish his leadership in a time when clear answers and positions are required.
All in all the opposition seems to have been on the wait since last April. The decline of the country is a given and indeed in a sense it makes sense to wait for Gotterdamerung. But it should also be clear that the regime will not fall on its own, and certainly cannot be left alone to the military and the narco-generals to decide what to do with it. The opposition has a real risk to be irrelevant in the transition for its apparent lack of ideas and distaste for real confrontation.
It is not a matter of communication, of having lost the last critical TV network available, Globovision. The reality of inflation and food shortages is an ever present element of our lives, reminding people that this is not normal and that before Chavez we never had such an episode of recurring shortages. Also, that the opposition is silenced has the unwanted paradox that even the average chavista turns off official news: once the excitement of the insulting match is limited to one side, why bother? The problem of the opposition is that one starts to wonder whether it wants to reach high office, truly.
The lack of airwaves media has had a positive effect on the opposition. Coupled to local elections which take cohorts of candidates stomping the voting grounds, they are making much better and direct the contact with the crowds at a time where the chavista paid electoral help have no explications for the shortages except the ritual ones that have ceased to convince. When you stand for hours at the Makro of San Felipe, for hours, for at most 4 kilos of corn flour, and repeat next week, you may actually start wanting to see those dangerous marines to come. It cannot be worse than that these never ending lines..... And they will have dollars in their pockets, you know!
Whether we go to vote on December 8, whether we actually win, we may see this December as the final generational shift we have been waiting. Inside chavismo the "revolutionary" oldies will be confronted with the new base that was shunted in the candidate nomination process and that may be the single most important element in the electoral loss of chavismo in December. The silenced rank and filed chavista may actually be more democrat than the ones at the reins today, and as upset by the airwaves censorship as the opposition folks. Let's not forget that the official message does not reach much the hoi polloi since it is concerned more in glorifying Maduro than announcing real improvements in el pueblo situation. Constant propaganda has its limits.
For the opposition the generational shift is coming, even more if we have elections. There should be at least 50 new mayors and scores of new municipal council folks that have never held and elected office. It is quite possible that when the tallies are in at least half of the opposition new officials will be newbies, that developed their career skills under chavismo, that have just won their very first public office. And even many of those in charge today were unknowns in 1998. After December 8 the leadership of Capriles and the MUD will face a fresh new challenge just when it may have to get ready to assist the end of Maduro......
That is why I do not know what is going to happen exactly but why I truly think that the next two months are really going to be the real hinge between the Chavez era and whatever comes next. 2013 will have thus been the mere set up for the times to come, the necessary time to start forgetting the reality of Chavez, to learn for both sides that it is time to take back in our hands our destiny, or give up on it, as the case may be. 2013 was not a transition, it was an end. Transition is only starting, finally.
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| The almost daily morning line at Makro San Felipe. It is under the sun, people now carry umbrellas rain or shine. This a short one. Sometimes it is 4X longer, reaching the main avenue downhill. It is not the only line in San Felipe, but it is probably the most recurrent because Makro always get some item. |
Whatever one thinks, one thing is certain, the next couple of months are decisive. Even if you think all has been played out, the coming weeks will decide the extent of the economic crisis and the extent of the repression we must suffer through 2014.
The general context is not too complicated, once you think about it. Chavismo is trying to resolve its internal wars and as such can only agree on the need to silence the opposition. The economic crisis deepens and the regime is unable to come to grips with it, and even less to find a faint solution. It seems that in spite of all of its efforts it cannot replicate previous election miracles of keeping the shelves full for at least the two months before the election so that people forget previous food shortages. But even if the regime were able to put food back on the shelves, the annual inflation for food items alone is around 70% so people will be displeased anyway. Basically all economic indicators are going red. I am at ground zero and I can assure you that every day it gets more and more difficult to produce anything, ship it, cash it, replenish stocks, meet payroll. I have had to resort to barter with my competition for raw material so we both do not go under.....
In this context chavismo has decided that the December vote is lost and that their hope is the Enabling Law. Through it, it will be able to produce yet more controls certain to fail, settle issues within chavismo that cannot be settled, make a mockery of the December electoral result though new measures to promote "comunas" that will destroy the influence of mayors and local councils soon to reach the opposition hands; and for good measure start jailing a few opposition leaders. Maduro has already singled out Capriles and Lopez, has accused Machado to be the chosen head of an interim regime, which guarantees that she will be cell mate of the first two. And we cannot discard that some last minute commotion will be generated so that elections are "postponed". Already the lengthy list of missed deadlines by electoral authorities, CNE, seem to indicate that they know this will be the case.
The regime is so decided to pass the Enabling Law that it has already started illegal repressive measures against two opposition representatives to remove them from the Assembly and secure a 99 votes vote. Be it in Spain or in Argentina, nobody is fooled: the high court, TSJ, is clearing the way for the regime to approve an unconstitutional law. And yet it may not be enough. The nervousness of Maduro is palpable. He has stopped travelling outside the country, missing the IberoAmerican summit in Panama which would have been crucial to reinforce his international legitimacy. He spends an inordinate amount of time in military barracks, convincing the army of his authority. Not that there is a coup in the making, the military is too fat and too corrupt. What the military wants is a regime able to solve pressing problems, that can avoid a social crisis because the Venezuelan army is no mood to stain its hand in blood for the sake of Maduro and his Cuban masters. Times have changed and they want to be able to travel freely to enjoy their riches acquired through Chavez buy out of the nation's integrity. It is not far-fetched to think that the army wants to retain the power that it enjoys today but through a more capable president than Maduro, a better covering fig leaf for our lack of democracy.
The opposition seems hypnotized by the prospect of the Enabling Law. Some like Maria Corina Machado want an all out defense, at all cost. Some like Capriles and the MUD do not seem to be overly concerned, so certain they are their strategy of winning on December 8. An OpEd person was right in pointing out that when Capriles says he would not recognize a law voted by less 99 he implicitly admitted that as long as the 99 magical number of Assembly votes is reached, even through coaxing and blackmail, he would accept it. His response should have been sterner and once again Capriles projects a wishy washy image that diminish his leadership in a time when clear answers and positions are required.
All in all the opposition seems to have been on the wait since last April. The decline of the country is a given and indeed in a sense it makes sense to wait for Gotterdamerung. But it should also be clear that the regime will not fall on its own, and certainly cannot be left alone to the military and the narco-generals to decide what to do with it. The opposition has a real risk to be irrelevant in the transition for its apparent lack of ideas and distaste for real confrontation.
It is not a matter of communication, of having lost the last critical TV network available, Globovision. The reality of inflation and food shortages is an ever present element of our lives, reminding people that this is not normal and that before Chavez we never had such an episode of recurring shortages. Also, that the opposition is silenced has the unwanted paradox that even the average chavista turns off official news: once the excitement of the insulting match is limited to one side, why bother? The problem of the opposition is that one starts to wonder whether it wants to reach high office, truly.
The lack of airwaves media has had a positive effect on the opposition. Coupled to local elections which take cohorts of candidates stomping the voting grounds, they are making much better and direct the contact with the crowds at a time where the chavista paid electoral help have no explications for the shortages except the ritual ones that have ceased to convince. When you stand for hours at the Makro of San Felipe, for hours, for at most 4 kilos of corn flour, and repeat next week, you may actually start wanting to see those dangerous marines to come. It cannot be worse than that these never ending lines..... And they will have dollars in their pockets, you know!
Whether we go to vote on December 8, whether we actually win, we may see this December as the final generational shift we have been waiting. Inside chavismo the "revolutionary" oldies will be confronted with the new base that was shunted in the candidate nomination process and that may be the single most important element in the electoral loss of chavismo in December. The silenced rank and filed chavista may actually be more democrat than the ones at the reins today, and as upset by the airwaves censorship as the opposition folks. Let's not forget that the official message does not reach much the hoi polloi since it is concerned more in glorifying Maduro than announcing real improvements in el pueblo situation. Constant propaganda has its limits.
For the opposition the generational shift is coming, even more if we have elections. There should be at least 50 new mayors and scores of new municipal council folks that have never held and elected office. It is quite possible that when the tallies are in at least half of the opposition new officials will be newbies, that developed their career skills under chavismo, that have just won their very first public office. And even many of those in charge today were unknowns in 1998. After December 8 the leadership of Capriles and the MUD will face a fresh new challenge just when it may have to get ready to assist the end of Maduro......That is why I do not know what is going to happen exactly but why I truly think that the next two months are really going to be the real hinge between the Chavez era and whatever comes next. 2013 will have thus been the mere set up for the times to come, the necessary time to start forgetting the reality of Chavez, to learn for both sides that it is time to take back in our hands our destiny, or give up on it, as the case may be. 2013 was not a transition, it was an end. Transition is only starting, finally.
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