Kalends of September for chavismo, or so it seems

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...

So, are we invaded or not?

One maddening thing about being overseas is dependency on tweeter to try to follow what is really going on in Venezuela. Except for the honorable mention of El País in Spain the rest of the world has, understandably, more important matters to deal with than a suicidal asshole of a country. And yet even French TV, the all news channels that is, find time between the ridiculous "Nuit Debout" with their spoiled trade unions protests and Egyptian  mystery planes to cover recent Venezuelan events.


The point here is that no one seems to believe anymore what the regime says. True, there are some like PODEMOS in Spain who unable to hide their past financing by Chavez are still defending the regime or at least remain silent. But the fact of the matter is that Venezuela is an embarrassment for all, for having let it go so far or for having supported it so long. All want it to go away. At least this is the impression I get.

And why would it be otherwise?

Maduro publishes a super-duper emergency decree controlling everything under the sun. The National Assembly turns it down. The high court TSJ declares it constitutional, which it is not, and the way it was turned down by the Assembly was so constitutional that even the TSJ could not directly assail it. So now, for the love of the deity, I am not sure whether the decree is applicable or not. Though apparently there is a state of commotion or something at play....  You tell me.

Saturday the military exercises to defend Venezuela took place. We saw pictures of soldiers? militia? wearing Cuban flags, wielding sticks in lieu of rifles for a gran total of "troops" larger than D-day operations, if we are to believe tweeter wits. Meanwhile no one nowhere reported of any troop concentration unless you count an AWACS doing its routine drug traffic control over the Caribbean as the preparation of massive US Marine landing. If Uribe is raising an mercenary army against Maduro he learned well from the FARC on how to hide it.

But the cherry over the cake of ridicule was added by Maduro himself who with anti invasion military maneuvers, threat of coups, internal commotions, left Saturday to promote scientific and commercial exchanges with Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

Huh?

These islands have not much to offer Venezuela, and Venezuela even less back. However Maduro goes there for one and only one reason, to start a campaign to ensure he will retain at least a third of the OAS vote he needs to stop the application of the Democratic Charter on Venezuela. If Jamaica and Trinidad vote for the sanctions the small islands will follow and Venezuela will be an official pariah state. Brazil and Argentina lost there is only some cash left to buy these island votes, cash coming from killing a few Venezuelans from malnutrition and lack of medicine. But who cares?

That much we can understand. Coups, revolt and invasion  are all smoke screens to distract the Venezuelan hoi poloi. What really matters is revolutionary respectability, and places where to hide when the time comes.

The Hague is starting to look too good for some in the regime........







.

Time's up

UPDATED: unknown to me as I was typing this overseas, Maduro was in cadena announcing a new emergency decree rendering moot the National Assembly and annuling Recall Election efforts for all practical purposes. In short confirming all that I wrote below.
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I have the feeling that the fall of Dilma in Brazil is going to speed up the conclusion of the Venezuelan farce. For the Narko-Cubano-Colonial regime action is required before the Temer presidency gets a chance to settle in. Not that the odds are with Temer, but Raúl and Maduro simply cannot take the chance.

I do not agree on the way that Dilma was pushed out. The nominal excuse was silly. But that she richly deserved what was coming her way, she did. What sealed her fate was naming Lula minister to protect him from prosecution. Such a breach of ethics makes any sitting president unfit for office. They, Brazilian congress, simply decided to act on what was in the mill and the lack, so far, of popular support for her and Lula show that "o povo" has a hard time to rally, or at least is not convinced that keeping Dilma in office is going to improve its lot.

Temer and his new cabinet are far from inspiring confidence. But if you have bothered reading the hisstory of Brazil you will know that they are used to such shifts and that they will likely give him a few weeks, maybe months. After all there is the technicality that Dilma may win her trial and be reinstated within 6 months though the impeachment tally makes that highly doubtful.

This being said the Castros and Maduro/narco-military have lost their main support. The head of Odebretch is in jail, provisional president Temer may chose, or not, to ventilate corruption cases to silence Lula and Dilma as needed since he is the one with the key to the files now. Even a return of Dilma cannot guarantee the strong support of yore.

What would Brazil do if there were a massive constitutional and human right violation in Venezuela? If Brazil goes against Venezuela it is likely that Uruguay will follow and Mercosur will be unanimous in its condemnation.  Once Peru election is held in June even Unasur would go against Venezuela (and the recent hurried support to Dilma by Unasur secretary, the highly discredited puppet Samper, betray that worry).

Thus the time for Castro to give the order to Maduro, and/or the narco-military to take the initiative to dissolve the national assembly once and for all is now. It is still possible that the OAS could fail to get enough votes to apply the democratic charter to Venezuela after Maduro acts. But once Temer decides to act against Venezuela, with the support of Macri in Argentina, the US and Canada, Mexico would follow. Small countries then will chose the big countries against a flat broke violent Venezuela and game over: Venezuela would be a pariah state and go the way of Cuba out of regional organizations.

But with the narco-military still in charge. Or that is the plan anyway.

And thus it is the time to act for them, the thugs, now, before Temer even has a chance to look at Venezuela. All that has been going on since last Monday points that way.

The plot sickens thickens (add some OAS salt to correct taste)

In brief. The National Assembly today did not hold its scheduled session for lack of quorum: nobody showed up. This is strange because opposition MUD representatives hold a majority large enough to seat on their own, quorum assured.

Maduro's gauntlet?

The thing is that the constitutional crisis/coup is in full swing and all sides needed to take stock and prepare the next move. So, as to not add more oil on the fire, nobody showed up and there was no legal battle on whether the N.A. session was duly cancelled.

What is going on is very simple and comes from many previous posts: the regime is hell bent on annulling the new assembly. To begin with it needs to fire enough MUD representatives so that the opposition loses its 2/3 supernumerary which could jeopardize the number 1 asset of the regime: 100% control over the judiciary branch directed through the high court, TSJ.  This TSJ is composed of assorted goons with a less than stellar career when not implied in previous crimes. This detail is important as we will see later.


Thus the regime is in a battle for survival implying that justice will not looking into their criminal deeds and ministers are not subjected to hearings, and the money sent to Cuba is not audited, etc. etc.

The fight between the TSJ and the N.A. has,apparently,according to some folks, another component: a battle between Maduro and Cabello.

President Maduro would be under Cuban orders to find a provisional modus vivendi with the opposition. In Havana they know about maths and they probably realize that a new electoral option is not a good idea. While they come up with something they need Maduro to sing and dance, legally, so not only Venezuela keeps sending some cash to Cuba but long enough for the Castro to speed up any arrangement they need to complete with the West.

On the other hand former N.A. head Cabello, leader of the nouveau corrupt rich group "bolibourgeois" and the army portion doing sweet business and assorted narco traffic has on December 6 lost a lot of his "political base" (for lack of a better word to describe mafia groups active in politics). Since it is more than likely that Cabello may not be able to leave ever again Venezuela since there is too real a risk to be arrested by Interpol at some airport, he needs to feel safe at home. Thus any agreement between Cuba, and Maduro, and the army, and whatever, needs to go through his approval, an approval that can only be granted if Cabello preserves a more than significant power quota.

Unfortunately for Cabello some of his rivals have smelled blood in December and think that the time to get rid of him has come. So Cabello has to rely on the only sector where he has immediate strong support: the TSJ. Cabello certainly does not control all of the TSJ but all of its members have potential problems with real justice. That is, when real justice comes again to Venezuela it is fair to say that at the very least 80% of the current members will have to account for their actions. Already we have had two justices that preferred to leave the country in a hurry with a one way ticket. And other whose silence is growing.

It is thus easy for Cabello to use his blackmailing power on some of the judges to emit favorable rulings to HIS cause, and force the acquiescence of the other judges, even if silent. That such rulings also favor many inside chavismo that are not in the Cabello faction is a mere bonus point for Cabello.

How is that alleged battle playing out? For one thing it is not that visible even though Maduro has given signs that he may compose with the new N.A. Oh, ever so slightly, but to acknowledge that he would go to the N.A. for his State of the Union speech next Friday was already amazing! What Cabello does is the reverse, bring down to justice as many MUD representatives as possible, make the N.A. either irrelevant or illegal. And that would be that. Besides criminalizing some of the representatives let's not forget that there are still going on attempts at forming parallel communal assembly structures and just plain naked violence. For Cabello it is very simple, if he loses, he loses it all. You can understand that dialogue and mercy for him are not an option.

This is all fine but I do not subscribe in full. For one thing sinking Cabello could capsize all of the regime anyway. This is why the country has remained paralyzed for the last two years as no reform or mere initiative could be taken to solve our problems least a chavista faction got hurt in its interests. More importantly for me is the high fascist content of the regime. No matter what, in the end the temptation to kick the board may be too strong to resist regardless of public or international opinion. Fascists tend to be gamblers, you know. Or if you prefer another way to look at chavismo think about the story of the scorpion hitching a ride with the frog to cross the stream.

And that is why today's second letter of OAS Almagro to Venezuela is, well, a bomb in the pond.

If you recall OAS secretary Almagro wrote a lengthy 18 pages letter to Venezuelan electoral board decrying with perfect accurateness all the biased and unfair conditions for the electoral campaign of last year. That letter proximity to the election date had a clear role and compensated in large part the blockade of international observation enforced by the regime. It is fair to say that it helped the real result to be published.

Today Almagro published a 7 pages letter directly to Maduro, equally accurate, to show him that the world knows exactly what is going on in Venezuela. And later today Almagro noted the self sacrifice of the Amazonas state representatives accepting to remain on the side lines for a while as a major concession of the MUD, implying that it is about time the regime tames its crazies.

Camino d diálogo abierto por los legisladores d Amazonas pone el interés d #Venezuela primero y abre camino d distensión #CARTASGOEA #Vzla

— Luis Almagro (@Almagro_OEA2015) January 13, 2016

In that letter Almagro states that on his own volition he will need to call for the application of the Democratic Charter of the Americas if the regime persists in its attempt at voiding the expression of popular will. This is important because in the chavista mind such an initiative must come from a given country and all American countries are too scared to take the first step or too unsure as to who would follow. But times have changed (Macri in Buenos Aires, Dilma in the dumpster) and if Almagro takes the first step it will be much easier for the other countries to follow and a 2/3 votes for sanction to happen as Venezuela cannot pay off countries anymore.

The letter is too long to analyze in this already long enough entry. Suffice to say that it contains a careful legal analysis of the judicial power of Venezuela and its partiality towards the regime. And it writes, among other gems, that the TSJ ruling against the Assembly yesterday was a jump back to practices of the XIX century in Latin America (page 4). And Almagro goes as far as implying that the meager evidence used by the TSJ may have been a plain forgery (page 5).

Needless to insist that Almagro would have never written and sent and made public such a letter were he not to feel the clear support of a majority of OAS members. Chavistas do not understand that but that is how serious organizations function.

What will be the effect of Almagro's letter on the current crisis is not clear. After all the OAS is not going to send land troops. However one thing is certain, without the approval of a legal AND legitimate N.A. Venezuela's ability to borrow will be near null. And the severing of relations with many countries as a consequence of the application of the Democratic Chart would have further damaging effects on our tragedy. The beauty of it all is that the leaders of the fascist regime that would dare to go against the OAS would not be able anymore to leave Venezuela under threat of immediate arrestation at any airport where they land.

The question here is whether the people that have stolen less than Cabello, made minor crimes compared to those of Cabello, will accept to go down with him. After all many of the judges talking the talk these days could get away with only a couple of years in jail and then be able to enjoy a large chunk of what they have stolen. Why would they get life sentences like Cabello and a few narco generals demanding their protection?

That is where the real question in Venezuela is even though joints like the NYT would never dare publish such. But that is why you read blogs this far.