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)

From Electrodomesticonacht to electrodomesticowoche?

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


Maybe Daka was an "acceptable" target for a diverse assortment of idiots, but today it is clear that the small guy in your small neighborhood appliance store is also paying the price.  I have nothing to add to what I have been posting steadily since last Saturday. I am appalled, and even more, an expression I heard today "depresion politica" which I am sure readers need no help to translate.  What depresses me further is to read foreign accounts, even from my fellow bloggers that do not reside in Venezuela anymore and that, I am sorry to say, are not getting it.  But, then again, I am here and tonight words fail me anyway.

Thus I can only leave you with a fabulous Weil cartoon, again, more devastating than ever with an intended primitive child like drawing; and a video of one of the looting, in Cabimas, maracucho accent included.

"justice" "values" "democracy"

Not so random thoughts on Electrodomesticonacht

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

It does not matter who the looted store owner were

El Nacional economy journalist Blanca Vera Azaf is strikingly wrong when she so lightly points out in a string of tweets that the

Unos boliburgueses enchufados tenían negocito con altos funcionarios del gobierno que les vendían electrodomésticos importados (1)
— Blanca Vera Azaf (@bevavera) November 10, 2013

The psychological damage is there to stay, be it a store owner chavista or not. I can vouch myself from by errands yesterday that escualido store owners in Las Americas mall knew that Daka was regime associated which did not stop them from being outraged. Even a woman working at a small cart stand selling waffles was near hysterical at what she considered a plain robbery.  This was an attack to private property and people who work truly for a living understood that perfectly.

See, shop owners know that whether you inherit, create or steal the money to open your shop, it takes hard work to keep it afloat. Maybe the owners of Daka were from middle eastern origin, maybe they got started with sweet exchange deals with the regime, but their stores were well kept, they had supplies, they created jobs, etc....  Shop owners of Venezuela understand at gut level that the way to punish the owners of Daka is not by stealing their goods, but by sending tax auditors and levy the necessary fines and taxes.  Besides, the price argument is not a good one: nobody forces you to buy in a store. It is up to the customer to do the leg work and compare stores and prices. Only particularly dumb chavistas can content themselves with one product, one quality, one store, one price.

Blanca Vera Azaf should know better than stress such distinctions which play straight into the hands of the regime......

The bolibourgeois (and Cabello) are on the defensive

But since the stores most hit at first were the bolibourgeois ones (the less linked ones were hit yesterday late, as an afterthought of the regime it seems) we must also accept that a large part of the play was done by one chavista sector hitting on another one.  What is remarkable in the strategy chosen is that it has NOTHING to do with socialism but all with mafia wars.  Had the seizure been "socialist" we would have seen an expropriation, a militarization from the start, etc...  more legalism in short, more "el pueblo" organization. What we saw was a crass destruction of the economic might of one group that displeased the other with a whole bunch of opportunists picking the remains.

Maduro and whomever pushed him (Giordani) are true ignorant

We can argue that ignoring the consequences of yesterday may be willful (I want to end capitalism) or the product of ignorance (but I only wanted to punish the bad guys). What we cannot argue is that there will be huge negative consequences that apparently they cannot see, and even less understand if they could see.

When Maduro announces that it wants the Internet providers of Venezuela to censor pages that publish the black market rate of the US dollar we can only be astounded at the stupidity of the man. In no particular order:
- Maduro ignores how Internet works, that all eventually gets to be known sooner or later, even inside China.
- Maduro thinks that the "overpricing" of Daka et al., is due at the owners being directly influenced by reading such pages.  The same idiotic argument that pushes some people to want to censor comics because it induces kids to commit crimes.
- Maduro and Giordani truly think that they are doing great and that if the currency has gone from 1 to 0,01 in 15 years it is not because of their lousy policies but because they have been sabotaged all along. Never does it cross their minds that if it were so easy to sabotage an economy Al Qaeda would have bankrupted the USA long ago.
- Maduro and Giordani apparently do not know that all regimes that pretended to control all NEVER could avoid the existence of some form of black market, not even the efficient Germans in occupied Europe during WW2.

What matters the most in Venezuela is the economy

Yesterday Daka seizure covered more expectations than the regime could hope for. The timing of the measure which certainly had a relation with covering electoral bad numbers, Capriles received by the Pope and the march convoked by the opposition yesterday has blown in their face. Indeed, all other news were shut up, EVEN that a Miss Venezuela did get yet another International beauty pageant. Everybody from tweeter to store owners in Las Americas talked about the looting and only the expected chavistas tried to put a good spin on it. I am willing to go on record that overall the result is bad for the regime, that it will not gain them much votes if any, because people that loot probably cannot be bothered to vote to begin with and know very well that whether Maduro remains in office or Capriles wins, they are more likely to preserve their loot under Capriles than a Maduro than cannot control the terrible crime wave that could tomorrow steal their loot. As for "el pueblo" what it really wants to know is whether there is somewhere milk to loot.

Added tonight

The electoral campaign numbers are bad

What Maduro et al. tried this week end is a clear reflection of their polling numbers.  Barely a month before an election that you claim you will win you do not need to pull such a stunt (and only one of the many stunts pulled such as declaring December 8 the day of Chavez remembrance).  Such a reckless call to "clean up the shelves" by Maduro only proves that he is indeed afraid of losing the majority vote IN SPITE of all the electoral cheating coming our way.  Which can only mean one thing: in chavista polls the opposition must be leading by more than 5% which is in my past estimation what the electoral cheating bonus is worth.

From my political contacts this week, and I did not visit them for poll numbers as I know how fickle and imprecise these are this time around, the Metro Caracas numbers look very good, even in the Libertador district, the jewel in the crown for chavismo that even a divided opposition may take, if barely.  But I was told of some surprising numbers in the hinterlands that may confirm that next December 9 a large majority of the Venezuelan population will be ruled by opposition mayors. Chavismo can still take comfort that the way districts are organized in the country they are still significantly ahead in the total number of mayors but these ones will have a novelty: the overwhelming majority in the local councils they enjoyed before will not exist anymore.  In short chavismo is going to lose its main patronage tool after the central administration, a large majority of town-halls.  In fact, a solid showing in those councils could make it very difficult to activate the plan B, to develop "comunas" to weaken mayors elected for the opposition.

The worse may actually come to pass for chavismo: the local elections may turn out to be a plebiscite on Maduro and this creep is helping them to become so!  He may regret Daka in a few weeks.

Even the campaign finances are bad

Another thing that we can get confirmation of with the Daka looting is that the regime does not have the means to buy votes the way it used to do under Chavez. Usually at month of any election under chavismo the regime had already occupied all the main public locations to plaster its propaganda. This time around they are rather late when they should have been earlier than usual.  Also the ubiquitous "fairs" where chavismo will distribute goods are much rarer and, I was told, less provided than in the past.  That Maduro decided to loot Daka for electoral purpose can only mean that indeed, they do not have all the money they would love to have.

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.

The society Chavez has left us: barbarians inside the gate

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

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

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

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

The disaster blocked the whole city all the way until downtown (photo included in the link)
So there you have it, 14 years of Chavez socialism and we are left with a large group of people who think that they can grab whatever they want, at any price, shocked, SHOCKED when actually some authority tries to explain to them that no, they cannot do so. Note: the society of motorbikes is a creation of chavismo who has subsidized them heavily in the early years because they were their storm troopers to quickly go around town to crush any anti Chavez protest. Remember Lina Ron? Now they are out of control, a threat to regime itself. One shudders at the idea that suddenly 300 bikes could appear in a neighborhood and start looting while the cops look helpless. Because they are armed, you know, the bikers, better than the cops probably.

The problems we face to rebuild Venezuela are much, much worse than a matter to find money for reconstruction, putting finance in orders, supporting business to produce and hire people. We have become a society of looters, robbers, abusers, drug traffickers, and what not, to a degree of cruelty and violence that leads us to prison riots where the hearts of the victims are pulled out of their chests.  Viva Chavez, carajo!

Snowed in Caracas

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

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

The fact of the matter is that I have been this week in Caracas and busy enough not to be able to sort thoughts before hitting the keyboard. Thus, I might as well start with Evo excellent adventure.

The only thing we know for sure is that the guy, coming back from Russia, was forced into an unscheduled stop in Vienna that lasted much too long considering the official excuses and motives. The man was in Moscow for a summit on world gas exporters because contrary to Venezuela that had Maduro attending and fussing, Bolivia DOES export gas. Then there was a rumor that Evo would smuggle spy Snowden to Bolivia and, I suppose, an international anti-something was activated, probably automatically through an idiot bureaucrat. As a result the air space of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal were closed to Evo's plane. That these countries happened to be in the flight path of Evo was after all an accident: the same thing may have happened if Evo had decided to go back to Bolivia via Turkey, through Africa. Nobody seems to be mentioning that. Nor that the Evo plane had a mechanical problem explaining better the over long stay in Vienna when in a couple of hours at most all restrictions would have been lifted and the plane refueled. After all, Evo did refuel later in the Canary islands which last I heard were still part of Spain.

Now, before I continue let me state that the European countries involved made an idiotic mistake as everyone would have been served better with Snowden going to rot in La Paz, eating chuños and cruising for pole dancing cholitas. That would have taught him a lesson right there. Which brings me to my opinion on Snowden: he is a jerk. A real whistle blower faces the consequences of his actions and do not run to the enemy. And furthermore, he does not contemplate seeking asylum in countries that have LESS privacy rights, LESS freedom of the press and LESS freedom of information than the country he running away from. His cause has a value, he has none.

This being said we were thus brought to the shameful spectacle of UNASUR rallying (not all apparently) around the slight made to Evo. Storming with harsh words was Maduro against Spain. Curiously this one said little against the other three, which coincidentally received him in his post election tour seeking outside the legitimacy refused inside Venezuela. And thus we got a double display of hypocrisy from UNASUR, selective in its condemnation of what is after all a fortuitous incident while sweeping under the rug real problems such as the electoral fraud in Venezuela. Definitely UNASUR is a crock of s**t.

This insult to the intelligence of a Venezuelan blogger would have been enough for a week, but alas, it would not be the lone one. At work I was told that all the plans of the poultry sector made with the regime came down crashing. The association had promised a steep increase in chicken and egg production provided the regime allowed for the imports of raw materials needed. As usual, political expediency and corruption took the day and the regime decided to restart imports of chicken from Brazil, more expensive, more subject to corrupt handling. We should always keep in mind that the only way el pueblo knows its food comes from the regime is by giving it directly to el pueblo, in red shirted Chavez decorated fairs, with imported chicken even if this one is of lesser quality than the locally produced one. The lessons from Chavez and the Cubans have been well learned even if this may put the chicken industry of Venezuela (44kg per capita) on the verge of bankruptcy while the regime will NEVER be able to import and distribute the 44 per capita required. In 1998 Venezuela was self sufficient and the way we go if we keep producing 50% of our needs in a couple of years we will be lucky, when not only we could produce everything needed, but export as we used to do.

There was also other stuff such as the wimpy to cowardly report of the Carter Center; or the big fuss about having an admiral female defense minister when in Chile the bridge has been crossed long ago all the way to the presidency and by a civilian woman. Amen of the lacerating question that why the f**k Venezuela has way more admirals vice-admirals and counter-admirals than actual serviceable ship in the pretend fleet.

To finish this outrageous post I will refer to the latest state crime. Apparently in Falcon state a detachment of the Nazional Guard confused two cars and by "mistake" shot 50 salvos in a small family car, killing the mother, one of her daughters, sending one critical to the hospital and leaving the last one with a life psycho trauma at the very least.  That the regime sent to preventive jail the officers in charge is of little comfort. Too many army personnel involved in such type of offenses have served perfunctory sentences. I am willing to bet that those involved in the crime will do no more than a couple of years in jail.

The source of all this mess is that the regime has been not only unable but unwilling to set a civilian security plan. When el pueblo complains too loudly and elections approach the solution is to send armed forces to the streets. Unfortunately they are woefully untrained for such tasks; though we hear that they are well trained to control harbor and commerce corruption. Having a professional police force trained to avoid such disasters require investment in personnel, a functional judicial system, jails, weapons and means, intelligence, etc, etc...  Here, the only intelligence that matters for the regime is the one used to spy on its opposition.

Now, tell me that all that I wrote above is not what you's expect to see in a dictatorship, a military dictatorship were the civilian president is a pasty/patsy.