There we are not, at freedom

Long time I did not write a summary of what is going on. As usual there is a big yawn along as everything changes fast but everything is, in the end, the same: a gang of thugs will do whatever it is possible to retain power because they know what awaits them once they lose. Nevermind the culture of violence that goes with such mentality where only brute force is the argument. Negotiation? Only to gain time until I finally find a way to screw you once and for all.


This been said things are not going any better for the regime. True, the vice president and the communist minister of economy are saying that lines are lesser, that we are turning around a corner, that imports are on the rise since January, etc.  The reality is that indeed lines are lesser. See, supplies are lesser so there is no need to stand in line for stuff that will not come in. Shopping on weekends for groceries is great: since there are no deliveries anymore on Saturdays then what is left is for the people that have money enough to buy what the hoi polloi cannot afford. For the first time in years I am hitting again grocery stores on Saturdays (Sundays are, well, empty no matter what). As for the commie minister (he used to be a PCV member before jumping ship to Chavez), someone in his office should point to him that historically January has always been the lowest month for importation since the country is out of business until mid January. No dockers....

Politically the big fight remains the Recall Election before January 10 2017 since after that date a chased Maduro can name his successor, no election needed for the next two years. As I suspected long ago, it is not going to happen no matter what the opposition does. Too much at stake for the regime. Yet the good fight must be done in the off chance that a division inside chavismo allows in the end for the recall election; or,  better, we have Maduro resign before January 10 (which I think is what will happen if chavismo decides not to go full metal jacket on repression).

The strategy of the "legal" chavismo (and institutional military?)  is to wait as long as possible in the vain hope that oil prices go up just enough to resupply a little bit food shelves and thus make electoral defeat not a fact. Since production is not promoted and that economic repression is getting worse, I do not see how can this happen even if within one year oil were to go back to, say, 80 a barrel. But chavismo is entitled to dream too.

Meanwhile the "illegal" chavismo (and narko military?), the one that does not give a crap about appearances and that wants not only to get rid of the opposition but also of timorate chavistas, is forging ahead. The packed high court (never a dissenting opinion in the TSJ) has annulled anything the National Assembly does. The problem is that we need to vote next year budget and the constitution is quite clear in that it can only be approved through a National Assembly vote. We are sure that the TSJ will write something to annul yet a new sector of the constitution which for all practical purposes is only good enough to replace scarce toilet paper. The final head-on conflict must happen in the next weeks as the to-do list of TSJ before the end of the year is 1) annul the recall election proceeding 2) decide the budget 3) bar the nomination of a new electoral board 4) support legally repression and, why not, 5) disolve parliament without electing a new one.

While chavismo is desperately establishing a dictatorship without any popular support things outside are not improving for them either. The non aligned summit of last week was a fiasco as only a dozen of the 100+ head of state showed up. And we are talking here of Mugabe, Castro and other undesirable ones that have zero credentials on democracy. No luster from the summit except perhaps for some lumpen chavismo, part of it being carried to a refuge like tent city nearby the luxury hotels to provide Maduro with the adoring crowds he needs to prove his alleged popularity. Indeed, since Maduro was pot banged live in Margarita Villa Rosa community the regime takes no chances, from jailing as many as possible to bring its own sycophants along.

And I will pass on MERCOSUR giving an ultimatum to Maduro...

Thus repression keeps apace. What else could the regime do? We learned this early week alone that now Leopoldo Lopez is deprived of any light at night in his jail, that they search him and force him to undress uncounted number of time, etc...  all enough to deserve for the regime a boat load of human rights crimes trials against the regime. But the best example of regime fear and desperation came today.

Primero Justicia hired three guys to do a video on the situation and against repression. The army quickly jailed the three producers on treason charges and put the three civilians at the disposition of a military tribunal. So there you are (while the leadership of Primero Justicia is so far untouched by the army...)

RT | ANTES QUE LO CENSUREN - El vídeo que tiene al Gobierno de Maduro desatando una ola de persecución y arrestos en Venezuela (1/3) pic.twitter.com/AHhN5Eae7V

— Alberto Rodríguez (@AlbertoRT51) 20 de septiembre de 2016

.

A short summary of what happens in the video.

The girl tends to her sick mother. She looks at the empty fridge and texts her father to tell him that she is off to stand in line because she cannot find the medicine for her Mom and that there is no food at home. It just happens that her father is in the army and getting ready to repress a student march. The daughter reminds her father that the people he is about to repress suffer of the same problems that they do.

Too close for comfort?

When the statist state runs out of ideas (and other's people money)

AS expected the rise of general Vladimir Padrino as co-president of Maduro has changed nothing. After all Venezuela has been a dictatorship for a while, of a new XXI century kind certainly, but a dictatorship nevertheless. It was all just a formality.

Padrino cannot succeed in his attempt at putting food on the table of Venezuelans. His multiple inspections, in combat drag, of food producers have revealed no scandal so far, no hoarding, no lack of manufacturing will. The reason why there is no food production in Venezuela is simple, it is because there is nothing to make food out of.

For better or for worse, and with chavista bred officers it is likely for worse, Padrino seems to have been put there to prepare, or chair, a transition out of Maduro's mess. We already have the first signs on how doomed this might be as clashes between radicals and pragmatists, military and civilians have come to the forefront this past week.


One, for example, has been setting up a system for forced labor. I kid you not. A decree states that the regime can draft workers from private agribusiness to work for up to 60 days (and 60 more if needed) in the state agricultural undertakings. That is right, I repeat, workers from agribusiness, even myself, could be forced to go to work where the regime decides. I am not insulting the intelligence of readers discussing the historical precedents that say that forced labor never ended up in something positive, and always brought different levels of tragedy. No, the details are more interesting in a decree that cannot be applied.

First, there is no provision as to what would happen to a worker refusing to go to a state run facility (employers MUST part with the employees drafted while preserving their social benefits and their penalty does not need to be expressed since we know by experience what the regime does to us). Second, those business that still produce something could well come to a stop if they lose their trained personnel. Where would be the food relief in the country?.

One chavista union official quickly went to say that no one would be forced to serve against their will. But that is quite hollow when you read the decree where only different forms of expressing obligations can be found (I highlighted them in the scan from the decree on the right, if you can read Spanish).

I find it interesting that besides being an extraordinary sloppy job of a decree it is also so direct and self assuming of its importance. If you ask me it is from the hand of a military turned bureaucrat, used to give orders and be obeyed. But in real life that does not work.

Another example of the confusion reigning inside the regime comes from a "debate" between the head of the state oil monopoly PDVSA and Elias Jaua, a representative of the more radicalo-communist wing of the regime. It all started with del Pino saying that the nationalization of the services of the oil industry in Maracaibo Lake by Chavez in 2009 was a mistake. It is a taboo in Venezuela: oil industry should belong to the state. At least some good sense had prevailed in letting competitive services manage a large chunk of the oil industry, usually the more delicate work that required nimbleness, something that was not a given even in PDVSA best days.

In short what del Pino was suggesting is that the private sector should not be banned outright from Venezuela's oil industry. Something very pragmatic since oil output has been dropping after 2009 and that with current oil prices and Venezuela bankruptcy we do not even have the money to keep the current level of production for much longer. That is anathema to the radical left that is unable to come to grips that the Chavez and Cuban models have failed, that the country is broke and that we have run out of food and medicine. In their minds there is a course traced by Chavez (Plan de la Patria) and it should be followed, period. Elias Jaua even goes one more stating that the said plan was discussed and voted upon and turned into law (it was an emanation of Chavez and thus was never properly discussed to begin with, and a monstrosity to read by the way).

And thus we see the plain division between the "civilian" groups of chavismo, between those who think that something should be done and those that think nothing should be done, that we are all doing fine and that the only thing needed are yet more regulations, more controls, and now forced labor.

It is interesting to note that even if one were to agree with the need for some strong initiative to restart production these come too late for Venezuela. When Chavez came to office in 1999 there was already a strong tendency for the state to rule over everything. On that aspect Chavez simply did one better, pushing the system to its last consequences, benefiting of disproportionate and undeserved oil rent to smooth things over and thus pretending that the private sector was not needed. Now there are voices inside chavismo that want to re discuss the model, and there are even admissions that only the private sector can take us out of the mess, After all, the forced labor decree is simply a way for the regime to force technicians from the private sector to work for derelict state companies. This is an admission, if any, that the public sector is incompetent, at least on that front to be charitable.

Ways out of the mess, doubtful all, military for sure, recall it ain't

Last I wrote on ways to get out of this mess was June 11 (and April). Things have changed somewhat since these entries. Time to include recent developments.

What has not changed

It is still a matter of a group of narko-mobsters holding Miraflores Palace who cannot surrender power because they will go to jail. All problems originate from this.

Period  1.

This has been a military regime for quite a while. Naming Vladimir Padrino as the head honcho co-president does not change things much, except on some stylistic matters, such as more naked repression, always a possibility.

Period 2.

What has changed

Even people that were reluctant to use the D word (D not for Democracy) are coming around and calling a spade, a spade. That for me it was officially a dictatorship since January 2013 is no consolation. Ever the Cassandra, sometimes even the laughing stock, but oh, so right.

The economic crisis is nearing tragedy proportions and the regime is simply unable comprehend, instead resorting to scrapping the very last bolivar that can be found. The cruelty shown by the regime is reaching genocidal proportions. This is for all to see, even at home in spite of heavy censorship of the air waves and even threats at social media.

And to drive in the point of the crisis there are reports of belt tightening in Cuba which proves that the colony is having problems supporting its master. From there to think that Cuba may want to get rid of Venezuela it is not that long of a stretch.

As a consequence there is some intensifying international movement. The OAS is starting the proceedings to apply its democratic charter on Venezuela. Mercosur does not want to give the rotating presidency to Venezuela. But the US seems to have misplaced views at forcing a "dialogue" upon Venezuelan opposition least a final collapse of Venezuela sends waves of Cuban, and Haitians, and Caribbeans, and Venezuelans to the Florida shores.

Facing all of this, the military had to take a more visible direct role. Why? They are already responsible for the mess, nobody believes for a second that their corrupt structure is going to change anything.  Two possible reasons.

First, and foremost in my opinion, there is not enough to loot and the higher ranks have decided to limit the robbery intake and restrain it some, to some. That extremely corrupt Marcos Torres is not sacked and remain in office would point that way. Let me remind you that he was the one managing the billions at HSBC Spain and is yet to account on how that money was used. He has been censored by the National Assembly and yet Maduro keeps him even though his signature on contracts has no more validity as far as the National Assembly is concerned. His direction of the economy in the last couple of years, well, speaks for itself.

Second, the army does not want to do Maduro's dirty job. That is, they do not want Maduro to call on them for rough repression and be the ones to go to trial some day for it. That co-presidency sounds to me like a "if I go down you go down with me" thing

What are the current exits

This being considered we can review quickly which could be the possible exits to Venezuela's political crisis today. Which may be invalid by tomorrow but that is another story.

The best one for the chavista party PSUV to avoid a final collapse is to have Maduro resign. This can be done in such a way that Maduro remains in office for, say, three more months before a new election to complete the 6 years term of office, even if the opposition (if not divided) is certain to win. That way chavismo can put all the blame on Maduro and pull out a relatively untainted figure that would ensure the PSUV to bounce back to the 20ies it currently hold in polls to a more palatable 30ies, or even 40ies.

Odds? since it makes sense the odds are not good. Also, it requires several things. That Cuba approves. That Maduro accepts to abide. That the opposition gets into the deal and offers a more "moderate" candidate than Capriles or Lopez or Machado. That X Y and Z.

The coup is a resuscitated option, the more so when one sees the probably faked coup of Erdogan in Turkey that is allowing him to get a MASSIVE purge of public officials in there. After all, there is a precedent in Venezuela. Chavez himself admitted to have provoked the 2002 crisis and used his survival to purge all what he could in the Venezuelan state.

There are two modalities for the coup depending on what the "provocation" may be. One is a simple dissolution of the National Assembly, akin to the Peruvian "Fujimorazo". The other, a variation, is a more extreme state of emergency removing all powers of the state,  Both options are "moderated" through a promise of  elections within a year.

Odds? since it is reckless, since they are more into the current style of Maduro, Cabello and all the others that are going to jail sooner or later, the odds are not bad. Since Venezuela is already a bankrupt pariah state, who cares?!

There is the possibility of general collapse. It is clear that the army, no matter what Padrino tries to do, is less and less in control. The latest shopping exodus to Colombia is an evidence. Just as when the Iron Curtain borders control collapsed announcing the end of Communist Eastern Europe.

La foto más impactante de los venezolanos cruzando la frontera con Colombia https://t.co/qANXRl7mah pic.twitter.com/PQUTD56pQc

— El Nacional (@ElNacionalWeb) 17 de julio de 2016

What would happen if general looting started, if people started marching from chavista former strongholds like Catia to Miraflores Palace?  All is possible, from civil war, to military bloody coup to a swift regime collapse like Argentina's De La Rua escape from Casa Rosada in 2001. Many variations are possible but all drive from a provisional regime to an opposition take over that would have to face the highly unpopular economic measures necessary to end and correct the chavista narko-corruption mess. Let´s not speculate on that for the time being.


Odds? Probably the highest at this point as it seems that the "civilian" and narko wings of chavismo would chose this way out, either to exculpate its mistakes or to purge once and for all its opposition. But it is doubtful that the military would accept that last one as they will be finding themselves at The Hague benches. We are in the XXI century after all. Hence probably the recent take over by Padrino, which is far from ruling out that option as the guy has started by counting chickens in combat vest.

@vladimirpadrino visita Empresa de Alimentos El Tunal, en Lara, como parte de la Gran Mision Abastecimiento Soberano pic.twitter.com/Hec5CVYXQ2

— Vladimir Padrino L. (@vladimirpadrino) 16 de julio de 2016

So that is that.

--------------------------

PD: something probably thought that I did not discuss the Recall Election scenario. There will be no Recall Election. Nor any election for that matter (can you imagine chavismo losing 90% of State House in December!!!!).

A recall  election is the worse case scenario for chavismo. If Maduro is recalled, say, with a 20 points spread, that would reverberate badly downstream and the following presidential election could go to a spread half as larger!  That is, the end of PSUV.  Thus why I think that if the regime were to be forced into a Recall Election before 2017 it would have Maduro resign first, a less damaging option for the PSUV.

How long can Maduro hold?

The annulation of the Amnesty Law was so predictable that I did not bother with a post. Twitter was enough. However, what is worth a post is a meditation on how long a kleptocracy cum drug trafficking regime can hold it together.

The first thing we must consider is that by now the regime makes no pretense whatsoever. Under Chavez, at least some minimal delay was held, when possible.  Some lengthy presidential cadena "predicted" what a wished for action of other "powers of the state" should happen, and a few days later, voilá! X got to jail, Y was expelled, Z was annulled.  Now progress has been made: Maduro asks for an opinion and within a couple of days the high court, TSJ, serves notice. Unanimously of course.

There is no pretense whatsoever, not even the occasional dissent vote in the bench. You know, they could take turns to say a nay out of 32 justices. Rulings are written even sloppier than they used to be. In fact we even wonder if the court takes the time to read the annulled law. I, for one, think that as soon as a given article is voted at the Assembly, some chavista sends it to the court to prepare the annulment before the final law is even voted. How else could the TSJ beat any speed ruling record observed in any democracy, or even dictatorship for all that I know?

It is not only the TSJ that is blunt about paying no attention to the Assembly or the opposition wishes. The illegal electoral board, CNE, is writing new rules as it goes to stop any electoral initiative from the opposition. That is, the Chavez regime who went from plebiscite to plebiscite is now in the no-election mode. See, Chavez made victory credible (albeit known cheating). Today everyone knows, even chavistas, that neither Maduro nor Cabello could get elected consejo comunal dog catcher.

There are two ways to understand what is going on. Of course, what I repeat all the time, the driving force here is that the regime cannot allow to hand in power to someone else because that would mean that scores of chavistas would soon find their way to jail. Thugs and criminals and narco-traffickers are not known to surrender peacefully to popular will, no matter how lopsided that one is.

Thus the question: is this a show of strength or a show of weakness?

The weakness is easy to demonstrate. The regime has its own polls, even if it refuses to acknowledge the real life poll of December 6 2015. Popular support is fading so fast that open air meetings are rarer, least someone would take a picture of the real attendance (not long until a drone is flown over a chavista real-rally?). Thus the regime is in survival mode, a mode where chutzpah is significantly enhanced along irresponsibility and all sorts of crazy. Yes, the regime is scared, but as in cornered dog scared, biting right and left.

But the show of strength is also easy to understand. This is a regime that is in it for the long run. It is a regime that has made peace with brute force. Already legal and psychological brute force is employed from holding political prisoners to annulling even a weather report voted at the Assembly. Physical force is not as well set yet but the training has been done as we can see from how 2014 protests were repressed, but also now how food riots are repressed these days.

In short, it is a regime that knows it has the weapons and that is the holder of its own truth, a truth of having the financial power to ensure the survival of a small elite which has robbed enough for it. Golden exile is not an option for many of them anymore, but they have stashed enough to pay all the mercenaries they will need to pay to stay in Venezuela and enjoy the riches of life even though the people that placed them into office are starving and dying of unspeakable diseases that normal countries have eradicated. In short, they have become such criminals that they are beyond good and evil, they are amoral, pitiless.

Which brings us to the longevity of such regimes. Considering the continuous degradation of the standard of living, the equilibrium point is when Catia and Petare will get so hungry that they are the ones that will be starting the opposition marches instead of Prados del Este. The date? I do not know, they are not hungry enough yet, not enough of their children have died yet. But the time will come, probably sooner than expected. After all, let's not forget  that no matter how military like Padrino, the defense minister, are associated to the corruption of the regime, when they give the order to shoot to the troop this one may not follow: the troop will know why the people are protesting because, well, it is their parents and brothers, and cousins...

I will remind the patient reader that there are historical precedents where the troop refused to follow generals orders, and that was that. I see no reason for Venezuela to be any different, the more so that the troop did not enjoy the booty that their generals grabbed.

Tumeremo

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

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

Legal mining in Bolivar state has been progressively edged out under Chavez. What should have been organized gold search production ended up as illegal mining controlled by mafias and protected by the corrupt military of the area (who among other business controlled supply, gas contraband, etc.). And possibly Colombian guerrilla in Amazonas state.

The result has been what could one expect, and worse.

First, the are has become an ecological disaster as once pristine rivers straight out of the jungle where only a handful of natives lived are now containing mercury. The deforestation over a soil which has a difficult regeneration because it is a thin narrow layer of biomass (old ancient rock hard terrain) has been denounced repeatedly without any response form the authorities while the regime promoted its ecological brand, supported by many idiots in Europe and the US. Amen of the damage to the terrain itself through reckless wash out without any attempt as consolidation of the remains. Even the great national park that contains the highest water fall of the world is under threat.

Second, the human cost has been terrible. Never mention the garimpeiros coming from Brazil. Let's just focus on what has become a mere form of XXI century indented labor of all of these people forced to purchase supplies from military/gangs approved suppliers. It has been years since the locals and the Native Americans have been protesting, sometimes very actively. But no matter what may have been agreed the army went back to all its associations with thugs for their common racketeering business.

So, it thus came to pass. As the level of oil went down, so went down miscellaneous subsidies and so went down revenues from the illegal mining area.  Gang wars got worse and last week relatives reported the disparation of 28 miners, yet to be found. But tales of massacre by some survivors are now vox populi. The regime through its governor delayed quite a lot in accepting that there was a problem even going as far as saying that it was yet another media manipulation, even though the relatives were blocking in anger the main road to the South of the country.

The political problem here is that beyond the almost certain fact the the gang of El Topo did the deed, the ultimate guilt rests squarely at the feet of the Venezuelan Army for allowing all that traffic and to the feet of Bolivar governor, former military pal of Chavez, Rangel Gomez.

So, since this is now a political problem the regime has done what it knows best, condemn in another kangaroo trial the editor owner of the lone opposition paper of the area, Correo del Caroni, which has been following closely all the violence and corruption in the state. It is noteworthy that the trial had been dormant for months and suddenly in a couple of days it was revived and a sentence emitted against the paper in the middle of the night. Note that the people suing the paper for defamation, even though they actually served jail for corruption, are not linked to the mining violence. As it is always the case in Venezuela against the press a case is held languishing until the regime needs a favorable verdict at a given time.

That is why I wrote at the beginning of this blog entry that the mining situation in Bolivar is a microcosm of all that is wrong in Venezuela, from thug gang wars to extortion, from freedom of expression to an official lies system, from corruption to approved genocide.  Human rights violations in Bolivar may be the worse in Venezuela, and that is already saying something.

I cite a verse of French poet Aragon

[Tumeremo]
Là-bas où le destin de notre siècle saigne
(over there where our century's fate bleeds)

Bewilderment

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

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

So many things have happened that it would be too long to come back on them. We had, for example, a show of force from the real owners of the jail systems, the pranes also known as "negative leaders". These mafia-thug-narco-whatever characters come and go from jail where they reside because, well, it is safer for them to reside in there. More protection from their body guards. One, "el conejo", the rabbit, went to a party and was shot on his way back to jail. Margarita was in turmoil as the pissed off inmates displayed even war weaponry with the public order unable to do much about it. Another one in Maracay got his lieutenant shot and demanded that the northern part of Maracay observe mourning the day of the funeral. All shops and schools had to close down, the police and army unable to protect them from the wrath of his supporters.

But that is not the only place where the regime is making water. On the political front it is not doing so good either. The opposition MUD is slowly but surely putting Maduro in a legal trap that will force this one to either kick the table and make a coup, or leave office. This is actually not hard: the National Assembly has simply started to doing its job which includes a review of laws, and its controlling function of holding hearings to ask ministers how the money is spent. That alone is sending the regime in a frenzy. Ministers are courting "desacato" which means that they are refusing to attend normal hearings (in particular the son in law of Chavez who probably thinks he is royalty) and thus risk sanctions that could go as far as brief jail stints.

Vituperation against the Assembly is reaching new heights, which is not good because the backroom negotiations that we know are taking place could be irremediably damaged. But then again this is what the pro Cuban radicals and the narco corrupt sectors want. The highest shriek was this week when Maduro publicly insulted in the vilest form Lorenzo Mendoza of the Polar group who had been too polite when he sent the message that the crisis was too bad to keep going at these silly games the regime was playing. The insults included direct threats. Threats also came from Diosdado Cabello.

What can we make of this?

First, the obvious, the regime is out of arguments and thus it uses procacious and violent words to silence adversaries. Classical. But if Chavez with oil at 100 could get away with it; Maduro with empty shelves and dead babies cannot.

Clearly there is a tug of war inside the regime that explains that exasperation, that refusal for any type of negotiation, or even recognition from the "establishment" of the regime towards the MUD. From their growing loss of privileges to the progressive realization that a lot of them will have to face the consequences of years of looting and assorted misdeeds comes that growing despair and political mistakes. I know, I have already stated such many times but I think this time it is different, the ground is shifting fast inside chavismo as the crisis is leaving no respite.

This is what I think is going on.

Maduro is the voice of Cuba. They are probably already not receiving the cash they used to receive but the Venezuelan situation now makes it nearly impossible to keep sending them anything. Either we starve or they do. I doubt that the military will accept to shoot at food riots to allow Maduro to keep sending Cuba's allowance. But the army has been infiltrated by a Cuban security. How do you deal with that?

Cabello and the narcos have rallied Maduro because at this point they have no other choice. For all practical purpose the National Assembly loss per se did not undo Cabello, the magnitude of the loss did it. You do not survive such a rejection and thus he is everyone's favorite scapegoat.

But the regime has again wasted precious time, two solid months without any sensible economic measures and things got worse. In fact we are learning that they are importing expensive and useless banknotes that will push further inflation while the remaining gold reserves are been negotiated to postpone by a couple of months default. The drop of Venezuelan bonds indicate clearly that all expect default before the end of the year. In other words, it is clear for all that the regime will not change its policies. It does not want to. It cannot do it. It would not know how to do it. And it does not has the people to do it anyway. We are stuck. Regime change or massive repression are the only options.

The MUD opposition, give or take a few, is doing the only thing it can do, stay as close as possible to the law. That is enough to push the regime over the brink. It has offered to negotiate a deal but it takes two to negotiate and this apparently will not happen now. Two months after the election surely we would have seen some semi solid evidence. No? Thus the opposition keeps pushing, opening the cracks inside chavismo, hoping, against all hope?, that some sensible group emerges.

One thing is certain, any civil war that may start will not start from the opposition but within chavismo. The opposition has no weapons, the factions of the regime have. Look at what happened with the pranes armies these past couple of weeks. They can start a war if they want. And the army knows that very well.

Meanwhile the army is deciding whether it will allow Cuba to starve Venezuelans.

This all will be played rather fast, if you ask me. We are talking weeks here.

Stay bewildered. It will help.

Hard blues to shake off

Explanation in text

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

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


Yes, indeed, bigger loads of coke have been caught. But they came from stolen private planes, kidnapped fishing boats, unregistered lorries crossing borders, etc... The mean of transport was by itself product of a crime. Never mind that the cargo was even bigger of a crime. But the ease in which the traffickers sneaked in 1.3 tons in a regular air flight is one order of magnitude bigger. This prowess implies too many things that are dangerous. First, since airport security depends on the armed forces, then it follows that these are deeply involved in drug traffic at very high level, much higher than the silly sergeants arrested at first. We are talking generals here. Can we entrust the future of our country, a possible coming "transition" to an army that is so corrupt that even those not in the money loop prefer to shut up rather than protest, or at least leak the names involved?  We have grave concerns for the Venezuelan army, be they those that traffic or steal state money, or those that enable them by their silence.

But this is not all. It was a ruthless act to put such an amount of drug in an airplane, even if we assume airline complicity, voluntary or not. It can be a major security risk for passenger as an airplane may be easily overloaded. It could have been bombs, or explosives that could have exploded during the flight. The reckless contempt for the security of innocent passenger speaks volumes about the amorality and cruelty of those involved with that shipment. Now we can only feel safe away from Venezuela only once we are outside of the receiving airport....

We would be mistaken in thinking that 14 years of Chavez degraded deeply only the military sector. A week after the drug haul we were reminded, for some, or told, for most, that there is a civilian component to that cruelty against the victims. Certainly, we already knew what happens in the horror of Venezuelan jails, or how easy it was for gangs to settle accounts in the barrios, or how unnecessarily victims of robbery were killed for a mere few bucks worth of loot. We also knew that on roads inside the country the stopping of trucks for looting is not an isolated incident. Last Friday it all converged on a truck, in Caracas, in a business district, not a residential one, and within minutes a horde of motorbikers were looting the truck, for this climbing over the agonizing and soon dead driver, without offering any assistance.

There is a video that gives only a partial impression of what the looting mood at Los Ruices was last Friday (in the second half) with authorities barely exerting control. But what that video illustrates quite well is the plague that motorbikers have become in Venezuela, the huge numbers they are and their ruthless contempt at blocking traffic and reckless driving. Chavez is the man that has allowed the rise of that cast of violent folks. True, they may be, for all that I know, a minority inside the motorbiker "community". Chavez made motorbikes easily available for his supporters, and with the ridiculous price of gas they had no problem in learning to use their bikes all the time. Chavez wanted that because he wanted a form of storm troopers ready to mobilize on short notice across Caracas, to launch counter protests wherever needed, the threaten whomever was necessary with a "spontaneous" protest of chavismo own. Soon, they were even allowed without helmets in the highways, a place they were banned from until Chavez.

The result was to be expected. After a decade of driving recklessly, of scratching and banging the cars stuck in traffic as they sneak through it, these storm troopers are realizing that they can mobilize themselves by the hundreds, attack whatever they want to attack, and push back the authorities. They are on the loose on Caracas, a violent mob like gang.

It is clear that the regime permissiveness has created these unruly monsters of which I only describe two today.  And what is the reply to this by the regime. None, because they have none credible to offer, being the Dr. Frankenstein of the story. Or rather, they regurgitate the Cuban invented leitmotiv reply: it is someone else fault, preferably the US and its right wing fascist allies at home, never mind that a Liberal holds the chair in Washington. But the increasing uselessness of the standard reply is forcing the regime into direct threats against the press, threatening sanctions if this one speaks of stuff such as the food scarcity. If the enabling law that Maduro is requesting passes, will it ban coverage of gruesome looting like the one in Los Ruices?  The response of the regime is, as usual, of the same moral caliber as the ones that smuggled the drug in Air France plane, or those who looted over a dead body.

Thus to finish our opening cartoon, another multi layered geniality of Weil at Tal Cual. Chavez is dead, driving an egotistical oversize image of Venezuela that could not pass under the bridge (note: Weil painted Chavez as an army boot). And his wreckage, which is also ours, attracts all sorts of rats stealing our oil, our riches. He created our current society and he escaped having to face the consequences of his misrule.