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And talking about memes. After the latest sanctions against Russia were introduced, a local The Onion equivalent published a newspiece that Russia announces that rubles will be replaced with gold from World of Tanks. That was a joke, back then, but now you speak of WoW gold.
(I've always wondered why kek took so long to spread outside WoW.)
Besides that:
Venexit is go. The country has been formally kicked out of Mercosur.
Remember the government's refusal to let through a cargo of medicines donation from Lilian's tours? The Integrated National Service of Customs and Taxes Administration (SENIAT, what a mouthful) has declared that their cargo (Caritas, a Chilean NGO) is overdue and they're reclaiming it, the reds will distribute it themselves and will take credit for it.
Besides that, there was this other medicines donation personally involving Lilian, an opportunity collectives made use of and invaded the hospital, claiming that the medicines were expired. More important than that, one of the hospital's doctors and one syndicalist were later arrested by the Sebin and are now at the Helicoid.
José Perdomo and Andry Jaspe, two of those functionaries who were mind controlled by Leopoldo's subliminal messages into killing Bassil Da Costa, have been found guilty of said crime. So pays the Devil to those who serve him well. Anyhow, a bit of justice has been done.
Oil prices raised a fair bit after the OPEC deal, but most notably the government agreed to reduce their output by 95k barrels/day. Two things: 1) something tells me they were going to reduce that output, deal or no. 2) that means we now have a reasonable official figure for PDVSA's output rather than the obvious bullshit they usually claim, and is currently 2 065 k barrels/day and holy fuck that's low (it used to be well above 3 million before Mortadelo took it over).
The government did comply with one term, though, they're now allowing medicine donations to go through.
Not unlike the 'Dakazo' back in 2013, Inmaduro decided the National Superintendency of the Defense of Socioeconomic Rights (Sundde) would go to whatever business they deem were selling things at too high prices and would take it over, selling their stuff for way cheaper. The video they released is a treat, where the Sundde director William Contreras bosses functionaries around not to give a shit about documentation or proceedures or anything legal and just wants to give away other people's shit.
Besides that, they also raided Kreisel's warehouses, the largest toy distributor in the country, and confiscated almost four million toys, claiming they were being hoarded, and now San Nicolás will have the CLAP distribute them. And that's how the PSUV stole Christmas.
The Assembly had begun proceedures to elect the two new CNE rectors as the previous ones' terms are about to expire. The socialists wouldn't have it, of course, and had the Tribunal and had the two little shits Tibisay Lucena and Socorro Hernández remain as rectors, alleging that the Assembly is still in contempt (keep in mind that the Amazonas deputies already left their positions. Still no sign of elections there).
Finally, the new bills are here. The good news is that Mortadelo is nowhere to be seen, the bad news is... well, original bills do not steal. Maybe they were waiting for the earlier ones to become worthless to reuse the designs?
A couple days after the announcement, the powers that be decided the 100 Bs.F. ones had to go, claiming that it's a measure against 'currency mafias' (Colombian currency exchange stations), that they were being used to counterfeit money (you'd think they'd use smaller bills for that) and that the US is paying people to get bills outside the country into Spain (what else is new), Switzerland, Germany, Ukrain, Czech Republic and Poland to reduce liquidity and collapse the country. That last conspiracy theory is really out there even for socialist standards. Anyhow, the best measure they decided to take against people taking away bills was to take them away themselves, and so Maburro gave a 72 hour timeframe to exchange those bills at banks before they became worthless. Now the 100 Bs.F. ones are about as numerous as all the others combined, the new ones still aren't here, and 72 hours is not a long time (and one of which is a bank holiday), so predictably banks couldn't exchange them all, and so lots of people lost money in there. Yesterday there were a bunch of lootings around the country by angered people, destroying some businesses and one (state, non-central) Bank of Venezuela office.
Speaking of Bolívars, today is another anniversary of the original one's death. Rest in peace, and sorry about the Gran Colombia thing. Anyhows, Extra Credits did one of their history stuff about him. There's some stuff that seems off to me (who is Mr. Sans and why is his role so similar to Simón Rodríguez's?) but I thought you'd like it:
(Oh yeah, Bolívar's face won't be on his own bill until they release the Bs.F. 20,000 ones.)
Apparently it's "Kiveve" in EnglishApparently it has no English name but is a squash of the species Cucurbita moschata, called "andai", "ahuyama", "calabaza", or "zapallo", depending on the region. Kiveve is a dish made from it. Wikipedia's description of Kiveve makes me think that this fruit is something like a cross between a pumpkin and a butternut squash, as far as US-familiar food names go.[/most insignificant detail ever]
Anyhow, friday's riots calmed down a day later in most parts, but there's one state that has descended into chaos. If you assumed Maduro's stunt with the bolívar would have greater repercussions in Bolívar State, you'd be right, gangs of thugs made use of the opportunity to take people's shit, lootings became generalized in many municipalities there, lots people who wouldn't otherwise be described as criminals began organizing into 'looting groups' premeditating on what to loot next, and one by one businesses have been ransacked over there. Some people have been lynched, some residences have been looted as well, and potential targets have been arming up and hunkered. The National Guard has been asked to restore order, but the issue is not about unarmed students so they won't do anything.
Also, it seems that stores owned by people of Chinese descent have been specifically targeted for being of Chinese descent (i.e. stereotypically greedy).
I guess over two decades of being told that everything is merchants' fault, encouraging class struggle and glorifying the Caracazo has finally had its effects.
Just recently the new coins started showing up in Caracas, but the Bs.F. 500 bills still are nowhere to be seen.
I dunno how common this is elsewhere, but around here the latest crime fad is to steal trash bags. Not trash, mind you, but the actual bags. The problem is that they leave around the trash, making a mess in the streets, which were dirty enough as they were.
El Impulso, another major newspaper, has also stopped circulation due to lack of newsprint material.
At least around here the electricity situation seems right now better than it was last year. I was wondering if just as it happened in 2010 it'd mark a before/after in terms of blackouts.
The Reds released a 'Homeland Card' to be issued to beneficiaries of CLAP and missions, and loads of oppositors are concerned that it'll be used to discriminate against non-Chavists.
Maduro: "President
Duterte from the Phillipines said that he'd like* to take an helicopter
and drop off from the helicopter the corrupts and bandits who waste
resources, the people's resources. I can't say that because I'd violate
the constitution, but one'd like to, right? If we were in the XIXth
century wars one'd like to put more than one through the shooting squad,
brother."
* Translator's note: In this context to 'like to'
should not be interpreted as a declaration of intent, but as the violent
fantasizing it is.
I actually posted something like that a long while ago here,
and I remember thinking about it in one of those "I wonder if there's
something wrong with me" ways. I know I'd probably take issue with that
if it were about any other matter, but... anyways, the fact that
the other side also does it openly doesn't make me feel like toning it down
in the least.
Anyhows, I guess it's time for one of those New Year posts. I 'unno, something about this year makes it not feel much like being talked about.
Let's see. This year started with high expectations for the opposition due to the MUD's victory at parliamentary elections, but time would prove that it'd take much more than that to improve our situation. I wouldn't blame too much the Assembly for what they failed to do, they had the Tribunal against them and after all if nothing else this means they did succeed at showing that making things better involves getting rid of the reds' stranglehold over the rest of the state. I had low expectations before their victory and I guess they met them.
Besides, the most remarkable thing about this year I'd say was that that the country looting took a literal turn, and it's that we're in a situation where things keep worsening with no end in sight, so loads of people are getting ideas on how get by, and as such we're starting to see what the breakdown of our society might look like. It's not a pretty sight.
Not a nice way to start a new year. Let's see, the opposition begins with the MUD's legitimacy heavily questioned, especially after their stunt unreluctantly accepting a dialogue that they themselves put effort into making it known that it wasn't a good idea or the fact that A New Era seems comfy with the government. I don't understand their zigzagging, it's like they feel they have infinite credibility. Anyhows, they've spoken about how they need to renew themselves, accept their failures and learn from them. It's far from the first time they say so, so it's another aspect in which they aren't easy to trust. To get out of this mess we either need the MUD or an equivalent to fulfil their role, so regardless of one's opinions on them, this doesn't bode well for next year.
Besides that, 2017 is the year Maduro passes the end-of-term-minus-two-years line where according to the constitution getting rid of him wouldn't spare us from another PSUVer finishing his term, so assuming nothing unexpected happens we're stuck with him throughout 2017, 2018 and part of 2019 at the very least. This years elections already got suspended for no apparent reason besides the PSUV's approval ratings, that doesn't bode well for any further elections so we may no longer even have that as an option to get out of this government. Will we still have a country by then?
Hope is scarce these days.
week in 1983, serving as substitute for Carlos Andrés Pérez while the Congress
was proceeding to swear in Ramón J. Velásquez. Although more of a trivia
footnote, from what I know he was a good, well-respected politician.
The only living
expresidents now (not counting Maburro) are Godgiven Hair and Perro Carmona Estanga, for a
combined rule of about 48 hours.
Consistent with what has been said about A New Era's backroom deals with the government, Manuel Rosales has been freed. Good for him I guess. I guess I can start calling him Burrosales again.
As you may remember, a year ago
the MUD had to choose who would be the Assembly's president, and a few
political antics later Ramos Allup got elected and there was also the
agreement that Julio Borges would take the position a year later. Some
of us worried that the agreement would not be fulfilled, what with him
being considered an 'old fox' and all that. It's now a year later, the
PSUV has claimed that the new directive is null due to the contempt
thing and other comments basically inviting Allup to keep at it. He had
none of it, whoever, the Assembly sworn in its new directive and Allup
ceded the position to Borges with much humility and no drama, the way
everything should work in this country.
And so it's Julio Borges' turn to try and make anime real.
Maduro made more nomenklatura swaps recently. Most notably the new vice-president is now Tareck El Aissami, a thuggish radical involved with collectives, with links to criminal groups and very likely a drug trafficker. It's expected that this will lead to greater repression.
Indeed, shortly after, substitute deputy Gilber Caro was kidnapped by the Sebin, completely disregarding his parliamentary immunity and accusing him of carrying terrorist stuff. The reds have made use of the fact that he is a former convict, and have been claiming that being a substitute deputy means he has no parliamentary immunity.
Odebrecht, a large Brazilian company very close with our government, involved in many major uncompleted infrastructure projects here and accused of being into various dubious schemes around the continent, got caught in an international corruption scandal and have admitted to a bunch of briberies and stuff including with the reds. So of course, the comptroller's office reaction to this is to cite Capriles because one report mentioned donations to his 2012 campaigns in passing.
The 100 Bs. bill removal got delayed yet again. I guess at this point they just want us to forget the whole thing happened. The 500 Bs. bill still aren't here. I need a new wallet, the one I have can't hold enough 100 Bs. bills to buy a cheap lunch.
Remember how ages ago Maburro (jokingly) mentioned how he'd free Leopoldo if US President Barack Obama freed some Puerto Rican independentist called Oscar López Rivera? Well, López Rivera was pardoned anyways so the MUD has been making use of the opportunity to accuse him of lying and treachery for not making good of the deal he proposed.
It seems every year begins with some stupid idea for another currency control scheme. This year's it's to set up a bunch of currency control station in border municipalities, in principle to do what they claim the Colombian ones are doing to destroy the economy. Anyhows, they are managed by one company (Italcambio) and at a fixed rate of 750Bs./$, so not being a fluctuating rate in practice it's not different than Cadivi/Sitme/Sicad I/Sicad II/Simadi/Dipro/Dicom, especially since it's not much more expensive than the other official one (Simadi at ~600 Bs./$).
The reds are going to put Fabricio Ojeda on the National Pantheon, He was one of those within the resistance against Pérez Jiménez' regime, and later organized the National Liberation Armed Forces, one of the 60s Castro-fanboy guerrilla groups to bring down Presidents Rómulo Betancourt and Raúl Leoni. A lot of people nowadays say he was a great person if you ignore the whole guerrilla thing. Regardless, to put him on the same tier as characters such as Bolívar and others is kind of insulting. Also that they're choosing the pantheon rather than Chávez' tomb fortress (which would make more sense) suggests that to them said fortress is a greater honor than the pantheon and by extention that Chávez deserves greater honor than Bolívar and co.
Edit: Oh yeah, they also did another one of those civic-military exercises in Caracas. At the same time the Palace of Academies there was being looted, too.
Also, I can't say I'm not bitter about the international far left cheering for and defending those anti-Trump marches or riots, when I know for a fact they consider all such acts to be a form of extreme fascism terrorism and only support them in this case because Trump hasn't spouted the right eight or so revolutionary soundbites.
Besides that, General Baduel has been arrested and is accused of instigation to rebellion, along with a bunch of members of the Armed Forces.
Also, no info on regional elections. If they're to be held on the first semester this years it's around this time that we would have news on the schedule, so...
And Nelson Merentes has been made to resign from the National Bank, being replaced by Ricardo Sanguino, former president of the Assembly's commission of finances and responsible for much of our current economic situation.
Besides that...
It's another January 23rd, so I thought I'd do something I was thinking about for a while and post some history, starting with the parts that led to this moment. The pictures come from here:
Cipriano Castro (1899-1908) (above). He became president the way you run you presidential campaigns at the time: by rallying a bunch of soldiers into Caracas and storm the presidential palace. Those ships refer to the blockade against us by some European powers (most notably the Netherlands) 'cuz we didn't pay our debts to them (note: although the author represents them as Uncle Sam, the US' role was actually to break down the blockade). Also the National Teather in Caracas was open during his government I guess. Overall a weirdo nobody liked, which is why nobody lifted a finger when, while he was on a trip for a surgery, his best bud below decided he would make a better president.
Juan Vicente Gómez (1908-1935) (below): At 28 years his is the longest lasting dictatorship in the country's history, and one of the most repressive, as exemplified here by that jailed cartoonist in La Rotunda, his fave prison. The two most remarkable events were the professionalization of the armed forces (not pictured) and the discovery of oil, easily the most significant change in the country, which he only made use of by handing out concessions to political allies, who would in turn sell them to foreign oil companies. This had the effect of bringing stability to the country (something that had been lacking since our independence). On the bottom right is the Generation of (19)28, a bunch of students who in the middle of some celebration did what students do and started an unsuccessful but significant movement against Gómez.
Eleazar López Contreras (1935-1940) (above, center): Before dying, Gómez arranged things so that he would be succeeded by General López Contreras, one of his most trustworthy confidants. Immediately after becoming prez López Contreras backstabbed Gómez' faction, forcing a bunch of them into exile. At the same time he opened things up politically, dismantling the old regime's repression machine and allowing oppositors to exist and do political things more or less without trouble. Also he put end to Gómez' lenient oil policy by establishing a 50% rent tax on oil production that later governments would end up increasing.
Isaías Medina Angarita (1940-1945) (above, left): López Contreras' best bud succeeded him. He continued the opening up policy. Various important political parties were created around this time, and he often tried to get consensus from his opponents to get things going, for example he sorted things out with the oppo parties to be succeeded by someone both sides could get behind, namely Diógenes Escalante (above, right), but things went wrong when Escalate became literally crazy (pictured is him that time he thought his clothes flew away), this combined with distancing from López Contreras for not being anti-commie enough meant he got into a position to get couped.
Rómulo Betancourt (1945-1948): Part of the Generation of 28. Along with a bunch of dissatisfied members of the Armed Forces (most notably General Marcos Pérez Jiménez in grey there), they overthrew Medina and establish a 'Government Revolutionary Junta' (AD was originally a commie party and it shows in their rethoric). The internet is not too good with details of the era but the gist of it is that the junta was sectarian and abusive towards their opponents and thus they didn't have much reason to support the state of affairs, and overall it sucked. They did, however, do good on their goal to establish universal, free, direct, secret elections (as opposed to 2nd degree elections for men (i.e. not women) with money).
Rómulo Gallegos (1948) (above, right): The above makes Gallegos what in a modern context would be the first democratically elected in Venezuela. A renowned writer, he also had another renowned writer and politician Andrés Eloy Blanco as Minister of Foreign affairs. Nowadays the reds like to pretend they weren't whites. Anyhows, Gallegos merely continued the junta's policies, which is why nobody did anything when their Minister of Defense General Carlos Delgado Chalbaud and General Marcos Pérez Jiménez decided a coup would be sweet.
There's a pretty good documentary for the 1948-1958 era, if you're interested (though I don't think there are English subtitles, unfortunately). My favourite part is the ending
Carlos Delgado Chalbaud (1948-1950): Co-governed with Pérez Jiménez and some other unimportant dude. Once again the internet is not keen on details. According to the only real life account I've heard of him, the regime wasn't as repressive as you'd expect from what preceeded or what follows. They did however outlaw AD and the Commie Party of Venezuela after they organized an oil strike. He was eventually murdered, by AD according to Pérez Jiménez, by Pérez Jiménez according to AD, probably by some unrelated dude according to Wikipedia. This makes him the only victim of magnicide in the country's history (unless you count Mortadelo).
Germán Suárez Flamerich (1950-1952): Not a very important dude as you can tell from the fact that he's not in the picture. Despite being part of the Generation of 28 he served as the civilian face for the first years of Pérez Jiménez regime. When time came for elections, despite being held under unfair conditions, victory went for oppositor Jóvito Villalba above (another one from the Generation of 28, note that the yellow refers to Democratic Republican Union, not Justice First), so Pérez Jiménez did what dictators do best and disregarded elections, That bloodied guy up there is Leonardo Ruiz Pineda, an important resistance leader murdered by the regime shortly after.
Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1952-1958): Despite his babyface, so begins the nastier part of his regime, with censorship, gorillism, torture, etc., with the National Security (the Sebin of the era) earning a scary reputation. Also lots of corruption. One torture method was to force someone to stand over a wheel's rim. If that doesn't sound too bad, those who went through it probably thought the same before they got their feet completely fucked up a few hours in. He did do a bunch of major infrastructure works, though, earning the nickname of 'Concrete Dictator'. Insecurity was also remarkably low. To this day there are people who cite those two things as reasons he wasn't so bad (one reason some people voted for the Galactic Commander the first time was because 'we need another Pérez Jiménez', i.e. some militaryman to 'put order'. They must feel silly now).
Anyhows, eventually a failed coup led to instability, which the civility and a significant chunk of the Armed Forces pressed Pérez Jiménez into resigning since 'necks don't grow back', fleeing in 'The Sacred Cow' (that aircraft up there), also he forgot a luggage full of money at the airport.
The pictures get more detailed as time goes on. Next is the so-called called 'Fourth Republic'.
On the plus side, think of all the arepas we could buy with it.
There's this (small) bridge that's important in connecting Vargas state to the rest of the country, and has just collapsed. Predictably the PSUV's answer is to blame it on saboutage, cue articles of engineers warning the government of this from a year or two ago.
Reportedly conterfeiters have already started making fake Bs. 500 bills despite the fact that the real ones aren't in circulation yet
Not a lengthy update, but anyhows, about that history stuff, I was going to do 1958-1998 in one post (now with less sawblades) but it got really long, so I think I'll do it in two parts and it's a good time to post the first, starting with the rise of the Fourth Republic.
But first an interlude.
Wolfgang
Larrazábal (1958): After the fall of Pérez Jiménez the Armed Forces
established a military junta led by Counter-Admiral Wolfgang
Larrazábal, so people kept protesting. Perhaps because of divisions
within the Armed Forces or because Larrazábal was a sweetie, they
quickly relented and agreed to admit in civilian representatives to the
junta that would oversee the establishment of a democratic regime.
Larrazábal was also a singer and released an album that I've been looking for on the
internet since forever to no avail.
Easily the most important event here is the signing of the Punto Fijo pact. Democratic Action learned their lesson that, if they're going to be serious about this democracy thing, they had to acknowledge others' rights to have a place in it. To this end Rómulo Betancourt, Jóvito Villalba and Rafael Caldera (Punto Fijo being his home) agreed to joint governance, where their respective parties would support democracy and stand up against threats to it, in return they'd share positions in the Executive cabinet. Note that despite being among the most prominent oppositors to Pérez Jiménez' regime along with AD, the Communist Party of Venezuela was not allowed in, due to the idea that socialists would only work against democracy and not for it. Would you look at that. Anyhows, the socialists would then qualify this as treason and would end up justifying much of their bullshit on this.
The Punto Fijo pact would to this day be associated with the Fourth Republic to the point it's often called 'puntofijism' (usually negatively) and is often the target of blame by upcoming government's failings even when they have nothing to do with the pact's terms.
Edgar Sanabria (1958-1959): Larrazábal resigned so as to run for prez per the law (reminder to self that Maduro unconstitutionally didn't do this), leaving the position to Sanabria who was president for a couple months, I guess.
(Above left is the signing of the Punto Fijo pact)
Rómulo Betancourt part deux (1959-1964): If you're wondering why I gush about him despite the disastrous junta government, this term is why. The country saw lots of instability at this time, from socialists involved in subversion activities and from an economic crisis caused by Pérez Jiménez' spendthriftying. A couple economic measures later the government was in a position to start funding various important infrastructure projects (pictured is 'The Bridge Over the Lake'), as well as massive alphabetization, electrification, health, housing, etc. projects. Worth noting is that while previous governments focused on Caracas and maybe a couple other large cities, these were done throughout the whole country, starting the trend of paying attention to places that needed it more.
The Cuban Revolution occurred right before Betancourt's government, and so Fidel Castro paid a visit to him (they were personal friends) requesting support for his new regime in the form of oil; Fidel wanted Betancourt to expropriate the entirety of the oil industry, while he insisted on a gradual, less authoritarian approach to its nationalization, and so Fidel didn't get the aid he wanted, marking the beginning of the rift between both countries' governments. Another point of contention was the "Betancourt doctrine", that any government not born out of elections can forget that we exist, which of course includes Cuba's.
The Cuban Revolution was still massively popular though, and so the socialists thought they would do the same, formed guerrillas, allied themselves with far-right remnants of Pérez Jiménez' regime (politics makes strange bedfellows) who were still lurking within the armed forces and set out to bring down democracy by force, the most well-known events of this being the Carupanazo (in Carúpano, Sucre), the Barcelonazo (Barcelona, Anzoátegui) and Porteñazo (Puerto Cabello, Carabobo, those of you who are into historical photos may recognize this Pulitzer-prize winner taken there), as well as the assault on the Encanto train, a public transport train that had no business being attacked. All this caused the retaliation from Betancourt's government, which outlawed the Commie Party and struck hard with police/military actions, perhaps a bit too hard, with a dubious treatment of human rights (but again as everybody knows, the end justifies the means). Either way perhaps of popularity, lack of support to the reds or the fact that we're not a rural country (unlike say, Colombia or Perú) the guerrillas failed and the government stood.
Also he once said in a speech that 'if I've stolen money from the treasury, may God burn my hands', a couple days later a car bomb exploded, which left him unscathed except for a pair of burnt hands.
Raúl Leoni (1964-1969): This makes Betancourt/Leoni the first democratically elected government to give/receive the presidential sash to/from another democratically elected government. The last noteworthy member of the Generation of 28, he continued Betancourt's policies, especially those related to workers (he had been Minister of Work during the Revolutionary Junta government), such as retirement and unemployment benefits. Pictured is the culmination of the Guri Dam, the dam with largest power capacity at the time (currently 3rd), the same one the reds have failed to maintain.
His government fought against the guerrillas especially hard, making it the most anti-commie government except maybe Pérez Jiménez', which no longer had leftovers within the armed forces. Pictured is the killing of Fabricio Ojeda, as well as the escape of guerrilla leaders Teodoro Petkoff and Pompeyo Márquez from jail (both currently oppositors). I'd have def. included the Machurucuto Invasion in the picture, where a bunch of Cuban-trained agents landed into our shores with the intention to form another guerrilla group, before getting rekt in a firefight.
That one of our most anti-socialist governments was also the most pro-worker government is, of course, the opposite of ironic.
This was also the time Democratic Action saw a split over some candidacies, forming the People's Electoral Movement (MEP), although it wouldn't attain the same relevancy the actual AD would have. Also Republican Democratic Union withdrew from the Punto Fijo pact, the leftiest of its three parties, citing ideological differences and especially disagreements over the government's anti-Cuba stance.
Also there was that soap opera I hadn't heard of, I guess. From here on there'll be pop-cultural stuff from the artist's lifetime that doesn't seem too relevant to those of us who weren't around at the time.
Rafael Caldera (1969-1974): The above split earned Caldera the presidency. There were concerns that Leoni would disregard results due to the narrow victory (after all, an oppositor becoming president without weapons being involved hadn't happened yet), but that's not something democrats do. First things first, he undid the Punto Fijo pact, choosing a cabinet of his own. Due to low oil prices he couldn't do large-scale social programs like those before or after his government, perhaps this is why his government is not as remarkable, although he did have some social programs of his own. He also rolled back on foreign policy, dismantling the Betancourt Doctrine (since at the time this meant we wouldn't have many friends) and normalizing relations with Cuba.
Most notably though he was the one behind the pacification of the guerrillas (similar to what is being done in Colombia right now), where the later would agree to put away their arms and do things the way normal politics is done. The Commie Party was legalized (the rooster) and Teodoro Petkoff formed Movement Towards Socialism (the clenched fist, not to be confused with Popular Will), which would become the largest socialist party, with a knack for always being on the losing side. Not everything was rosy, though, there were lefty extremists with influence on public universities who were rejecting the call for pacification, with weapons hoarding and everything (students will be students), to which Caldera responded with the draconian closure of the Central University of Venezuela (that clock tower thing), which would become a huge stain for the rest of his career.
(That guy there is writer and nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez winning the Rómulo Gallegos prize.)
Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974-1979): And so begins the streak of terrible presidents. Due to the Yom Kippur war a bunch of countries in the Middle East stopped exporting oil, causing the oil boom (called 'oil crisis' in the rest of the world for some reason) and leaving CAP (AKA 'the gocho') with lots of money to spare. Something of a big-ego guy, under the banner of 'Great Venezuela' he launched many major industrial state projects, such as Orinoco Siderurgics and Guayana's Venezuela Corporation, along with the use of vast swathes of land for farming, and overall incentivizing industries everywhere, with the aim of production diversification and 'imports substitution' which were economic policies in vogue at the time, all to be maintained through subsidies. The income from devil's excrement exports was not enough, and so the government recurred to indebtment (that gorilla there) as well as requesting Congress to pass a law allowing funding through money printing, and thus starting our flirting with inflation.
All this meant that the most profitable enterprise was now rent seeking, or as the phrase goes, 'don't give me, put me where there is', and so corruption spread throughout the country's institutions.
This was also the period where the oil industry was finally nationalized, with all those companies being gradually fused into what is now known as PDVSA. Note that although it was a state company, it was still independent from the government and this was taken very seriously, and although that's one reason it performed so well (especially when compared to other state companies) this differed from socialists' ideas, who claimed that PDVSA was 'a state within a state' and that's how you get that now often socialists pretend this nationalization didn't happen.
That crosshair target guy is Renny Ottolina, presenter of a well known TV show who was going to run as president as independent (he created MIN-Unidad, which you'll remember as the party that got hijacked last elections) but died in a plane accident, drawing conspiracy theories about how AD and Copei conspired to get him killed. Not too hard to believe since this is the time political parties started being seen as something of organized crime, though according to Wikipedia it really seemed to be an actual accident.
Also there was that incident where the govt. gave away a ship to Bolivia back. Huh, I hadn't heard about it until now. I guess those sort of things were still controversial.
Despite those failings, life was still good in 'Saudi Venezuela', see for instance those Venezuelan tourists wearing shirts with the famous phrase "it's cheap, gimme two", but of course, all that was unsustainable. Next, the fall of the Fourth Republic.
TO BE CONTINUED
Conatel (the telecommunications/censorship agency) ordered cable operators to take down RCN, a Colombian channel broadcasting the series 'El Comandante' about Mortadelo's life (and hopefully, death) and began some sort of campaign for people to 'denounce' its broadcasting. I heard it's not very good, but it can't be too bad if it pisses the reds off.
Cabello also started a 'Nobody speaks ill about Chávez here' campaign, to plaster public offices with posters with that slogan and to snitch employees insulting the galactic corpse.
Capriles has stated that he's dissatisfied with Chuo as General Secretary of the MUD and wants him out, preferring Ramón Guillermo Aveledo (the previous one).
Normally I'd have waited two days for the anniversary of 4-F to post, but this other anniversary is special this year. Not even the reds care about the day Chávez' first term started, but this is the day were we start having people who were born under this government and are now old enough to vote (18 years).
I wonder how it feels to have no memory of a government besides the current one, maybe it's disheartening, or maybe it's one of those 'ignorance is bliss' things, either way I'm almost part of this group. See below.
And now for more history:
Luis Herrera Campins (1979-1984): Despite the above, Democratic Action lost elections. Campins ran under the slogan that I'll roughly translate as "where's the moolah?", as a statement against corruption and pointing out that the income from the oil boom should have resulted in more than what we got. When his term began the oil boom had already ended and the treasury was already in trouble, thus why he said "I receive a mortaged country", but don't let his awareness make you think he was going to do something about it, most of his term was not very focused on economic matters and just kind of went with the flow CAP's term set, for as long as possible.
Eventually he had to take action, and to prevent capital flight on February 1983 his economic team decided to install a currency control scheme known as Differential Exchange Regime (RECADI), maintaining the previous 4.3 Bs./$ rate for essential products, a 6.99 Bs./$ rate for less essential ones, and a floating one for everything else. Note that using or trading in foreign currency wasn't illegal, let alone saying its name. This meant people became much poorer overnight, and is what's now known as Black Friday (it was on friday so there wouldn't be banks open due to the weekend), thus beginning the cycle of inflation -> capital flight -> devaluation -> inflation that continues to this day.
By the way, this is what brought Chávez to start conspiring against the republic, according to himself... well, alright, he was inconsistent on this matter, but it's the version I like the most since it means he believed violently overthrowing a government was okay if they did something he did all the time.
I suppose he did complete a bunch of important projects (Caracas' metro there is often mentioned as one of the few things that worked really well in the country), and apparently media vetoed him, according to the picture. Overall, he's often thought of as an honest man despite his surroundings (such as the corrupt Minister of Transportation Vinicio Carrera fleeing the country there), and someone who really tried to do his job right, but wasn't good enough for the task nor good enough at choosing his advisors, but really, Black Friday is mostly what he's remembered by.
Jaime Lusinchi (1984-1989): Oh my, Lusinchi. He exemplifies many of the vices of the era. He maintained links to various corrupt groups and probably actual organized crime groups. He was also highly sectarian and would whenever possible appoint Democratic Action figures to important positions. Pictured is his wife Blanca Ibañez, his wife who was appointed the Presidency's secretary, was seen as an undue influence in Lusinchi's work as president and was involved in various controversies due to her excesses (note how she's wearing a military uniform despite not being part of the Armed Forces). Also he drank a lot.
His government also didn't get along well with the media, but this time Lusinchi had the habit of threatening media outlets with legal actions, including refusing to renew concessions (like how Chávez did to RCTV). The most famous incident is Lusinchi telling Marcel Granier (president of RCTV) that "you don't fuck me up". This didn't get beyond threats, whoever.
On the economic front, he simply maintained Herrera Campins' policies for as long as possible, burning down international reserves while capital flight did its thing, all the while the 80s debt crisis was roaring throughout the continent. He also instated price controls, although these were much more lax than current ones.
Corruption in RECADI was at its highest, see that, umm... Chinese stereotype up there? He's some guy who got caught in a RECADI scheme and used as a symbol of fight against corruption, but of course the idea RECADI's corruption was the work of one dude was unbelievable, and so "RECADI's Chinese" became a metaphor for scapegoats. Anyhows, RECADI became the biggest case of corruption in the country until the reds came and blew it out of thew water.
That ship pictured there is a Colombian warship that sailed into contested waters, meeting one of ours. At the mutual refusal to back off, more and more ships and attack planes were called in on both sides, escalating into a pre-war situation. Eventually we were ready to attack, which would've started a war, but with Lusinchi's negotiations/ultimatum eventually the Colombian government relented. This is often considered one of the few things Lusinchi did right.
Anyhows, by the end of his term international reserves were almost unexistant and the situation was dire and required immediate action, and only a true statesman would be able to handle it.
Return of Carlos Andrés Pérez (1989-1993): For some incomprehensible reason Lusinchi was still quite popular by the end of his government, and so that combined with the good times of CAP's
first government made him the first president to be reelected (under
the 1961 constitution there was a required 10 year cooldown period
between end of a term and reelection), and with a large number of votes
to boot.
Campaigning under the banner of anti-neoliberalism, the
first thing he did was go to the International Monetary Fund to get some
moolah. Under the umbrella of various economic and political reforms
that he labeled 'The Great Turn', he announced a bunch of austerity
measures, including reducing fiscal deficit, the elimination of RECADI
and the raise of gas prices. His 'package'. Naturally, people felt
completely cheated and defrauded about it.
Of course, the most
important thing here is the Caracazo. I think so far I've only posted
tl;drs about it, so here it goes: shortly after the above measures were
announced and still only a couple weeks after his innauguration
(grandiloquent enough to be called a "coronation", as pictured) the
transport businesses decided to raise fares due to the gas price thing.
Although the gas prices increase was supposed to be gradual, the
transport fares were increased immediately. This sparked a small riot in
Guarenas near Caracas, however the Metropolitan Police which was
supposed to handle these things were on strike at the time and so it
quickly grew out of control, devolving into widespread looting in
Caracas. Eventually CAP was given special
powers, a curfew was established and the Army was called to deal with
the situation under the 'Avila Plan', a contingency plan involving
actual weapons of war (riot control hadn't been taken very seriously
within the armed forces until then), and so soldiers that had no
business being in civil defense situations ended up slaughtering
recklessly hundreds of rioters. The lootings lasted for two days and the
curfew for a couple weeks.
There's the conspiracy theory that
all this was caused by subversive socialists, based on the (correct)
fact that there were groups of them riling up crowds to loot, and that
Fidel Castro had visited his personal friend CAP
something like a week earlier. I don't believe this, though, since this
doesn't seem like the sort of thing you can just plan out and enact.
This was also CAP's statement on the issue.
The reds
would then adopt the Caracazo as one of their banners and often
glorifying it as something of "the people rising up against neo-liberal
capitalism". Interestingly, one of their early promises was to bring
justice against the Caracazo's perpetrators, something they didn't do,
and considering the rise militarism many of them can be assumed to be
part of the government in administrative positions now.
The political reforms were less
disastrous, however (and less well-known). At the time political power
was heavily centralized in Miraflores, and CAP
intended to do a long overdue decentralization process. Most notably,
at the time state governors were appointed by the President, so he
gathered a bunch of smart people to figure out that things would work
out better if they were elected instead, and that governorships and
municipalities should share some of the capabilities that at the time
were exclusive to the central government, and so what little
decentralization exist nowadays is owed in large part to this program.
That
guy on the tank is some guy called Hugo Rafael Chávez Frias, a
colonel-lieutenant from the Army who, along with general Francisco Arias
Cárdenas, on 4 February 1992 tried to become president by ramming tanks
into Miraflores. Although things went smoothly for them nearly
everywhere, things went awry in Caracas and thus Chávez went into hiding
in the "Mountain Headquarters", the old fortress serving as a museum at
the time and that's currently his mausoleum. Anyhows, without Caracas
the coup wouldn't succeed, but confrontations were still occurring
elsewhere (things were particularly battle-y at Maracay) and so (despite
CAP's wishes) Chávez was offered being broadcast giving a surrender message, and so he announced that "for now the objectives we set out could not be achieved",
which for a reason that seems incomprehensible nowadays, resonated with
people at the time, something about assuming your responsibilities. And
so Chávez' political career begins, with an event that should've shown
that Chávez had no place in politics.
It's worth noting that the coupsters considered a good idea to attack 'La Casona', the presidential residence, and thus CAP's family was nearly killed during its shelling.
Although the coup failed, there were still coup-sympathizers within the Armed Forces. CAP
would've been justified in purging it from them but reportedly he was
overly sure of himself and thus didn't, which would show itself to be a
bad idea when there was another coup later that year. Most notably this
one included the Air Force shooting around, and the takeover of VTV
through which the coupsters relayed some message. This one got put down as well. Yet again CAP refrained from purging the Armed Forces, though at this time there probably weren't any coupsters left.
As
you can tell from '1993' above, his term doesn't end well. With all the
above not only the government was deeply unpopular, he had earned many
enemies within the political establishment due to his political and
economic reforms (especially those that had benefitted from RECADI,
formerly state companies and industries that received subsidies) and
including many from his own party. That TV set pictured there is 'Por
Estas Calles', a famous drama depicting life at the time and very
critical of the status quo (especially criminality and corruption) and
political establishment and some (the artist maybe?) go as far as to
cite it as the main source of dissatisfaction with the Fourth Republic
(although that sounds like looking for scapegoats to me).
Eventually
he faced a political trial, not unlike the one Dilma Rousseff faced
recently in Brazil, over giving out some money to oppositor Violeta
Chamorro in Nicaragua to support her cause without going through the
proper channels for it, and got destituted for it. Reportedly he didn't
think anything bad would actually happen to him until his conviction was
announced, and so ingloriously ends his terms, "I'd have preferred a
different death" he said about it. He also did some time in jail over it
(later changed to house arrest due to his age).
Octavio Lepage (1993):
For the trivia section, his name is pronounced as in Spanish (i.e.
leh-pah-heh) he was interin president for about a week, a fact he often
forgot about.
A well known politician, during his interim government he mostly just
signed what was there to sign. Most notably he (accidentally?) signed a
pardon for a notorious drug trafficker pictured there. Also there was
some baseball stuff going on there I guess. That piggy bank there is the
Latin Bank, one of the first banks to fall in what would turn out to be
a huge crisis.
Rafael Caldera: Electric Boogaloo (1994-1999): President Caldera!
Your second term was not what I'd call a good government, but you're
still by a long shot the best president that I can personally remember.
My mom voted for you, too, she was really into politics those days. I
hope one day we can at least have 'normal' presidents like you again.
Theoretically by not being an AD or COPEI government the Fourth Republic should end here, but whatever.
By the beginning of the 90s his political career was mostly dead, but
with 4-F he saw the opportunity to pontificate on the grievances of the
time and the failures of the political establishment. He lost COPEI's
primaries, despite being its founder, but rather than let it go Caldera instead left it (a
huge hit they wouldn't recover from) and allied himself with the anti-AD-COPEI
far-lefty opposition under a new coalition 'Convergence', nicknamed
-Chiripero' which I'll roughly translate as 'cockroach hive' and so
campaigned promising various things, most notably undoing CAP's
policies and granting a pardon to Chávez (more specifically, a
dismissal of case, which means he could run as president. Whoops). And
so he won the presidency.
Anyhows, he became president, and so he
fulfilled his promises. Chávez was freed and he reinstated some price
and currency controls, had the state reacquire a bunch of privatized
companies, etc. This had its effect, these measures combined with an
economic crisis going throughout the rest of the continent and rock
bottom oil prices (again, gee how unlucky), reached the record low of 7
$/barrel, all this caused many companies to go bankrupt and produced a
bank run, so many banks went bankrupt as well.
(I don't remember
sarcastically mentioning here that Maduro should just increase oil
prices or something like that, but if I did, it's because socialists
often accuse Caldera for lowering oil prices and praise Chávez for
raising them.)
In response to all this by 1996 Caldera
went back
on his words and went for an International Monetary Fund loan, undid his
measures and liberated much of the economy. Especially noteworthy is
that that year's inflation reached a record of 106% (barely beating CAP's record). The mastermind of these austerity measures was his Minister of Finances and president of Movement Towards Socialism Teodoro Petkoff
pictured there saying his infamous phrase "we're doing badly but we're
going fine", about how stuff was on the way of getting better. True, but
you can't blame people for being incensed over this.
Of note is
also the 'Oil Aperture', an effort to get private companies (especially
foreign ones) to get involved in devil's excrement production along with
PDVSA to attract inversions. Naturally, this hurt the socialists' lefty
sensibilities.
I guess US president Bill Clinton visited us, mentioning how "everything is cool in Caracas".
Anyhows, all this meant he was deeply unpopular and people were indignation about all this. Thankfully nothing like the Caracazo happened. And so ends this term, without much to boast about.
I
hope you've noticed how money printing, state companies, price and
currency controls and whatever else are not actually new to this
government but are in fact repeats of past mistakes (expropriations are new, tho). With this in mind,
the fact that they insist on those only makes it more infuriating.
And
so concludes the history of the Fourth Republic. For all its many
failings, history has been doing its thing to vindicate it, and how
wouldn't it, it goes to show that democracy is the worst of regimes
except for the militaristic thuggocracy that preceeded or succeeded it.
BAD END
Anyhows, I haven't updated in a while, even though a lot of stuff has been going on. Oddily enough I didn't intend to post this on Chávez's dieday, but that's how it turned out.
First of all, remember that thing about the MUD's voting card, that not showing up with individual slots for parties when voting meant that they officially weren't participating, and that meant they wouldn't be automatically renewed? Well, the time has come for renewal, and thus each party has to get 0.5% of the electorate to vote. Fair enough. The problem comes from two points, same as with the recall referendum: the Tribunal also randomly added the requirement that the parties must also get 0.5% in at least 12 states, the Electoral Council is only providing 390 voting machines for the entirety of the country (for reference, they provided 3987 voting centers for the PSUV's primaries), not nearly enough for getting those who want to vote to do so (e.g. me), plus they're only allowing seven hours per day for two days. Since it's only a 0.5% requirement it's expected that the majority of the largest parties are able to get them, but the majority of smallest parties and the more region-centered ones are going to get cut off. The MUD parties has been divided on what to do about this, some wanting to participate anyways and some wanting to boycott.
Interestingly, the non-PSUV officialist parties are getting the shaft too. The commie party has AFAIK the only ones critical of it, saying how they're going into "clandestinity" or some shit. Apparently they don't know what side they're in.
CÑÑ ran a story on corruption schemes involving selling diplomatic passports around (thus allowing easy entrance to most of the world), something that comes up now and then when drug traffickers or whatever are found out carrying these, and linked Tareck el Aissami to those schemes. The regime did not like this being revealed one bit.
Perhaps due to the above, the regime made true of their long-lasting threats against CNN and CONATEL had cable/satellite TV operators cut off its signal, putting us on the very small list of countries that don't broadcast it. Of course as you can predict from socialist doublethink all this was done in the name of freedom of speech. And so dies one of the few outlets of non-bullshit news for many people.
Lilian went on a visit to the US President Donald Trump about our situation. A chat and a photo later the US govt. extended sanctions to include Tareck el Aissami, Interestingly the reds' reaction to this include claiming that President Trump is being 'pressured' or 'deceived' by US oligarchies to attack them. Gotta love that dancing around their conflict between their anti-US and their pro-Putin positions.
Santiago Guevara, A professor from the Univeristy of Carabobo, was
arrested by the General Direction of Counterintelligence and set to
stand trial at a military tribunal, apparently for "high treason" and
"incitement to rebellion", seemingly either due to some articles he wrote for a local newspaper or because he's a personal friend of General Baduel.
Speaking of General Baduel, it seems they don't want to release him at all. He's still in jail and is also set to stand trial for high treason.
On jail news, Wilmito, yet another pran (i.e. jail-lord, the one on the left) was found vacationing on a beach (half-country away from his jail) when a shootout ensued that left him injured, leading to another of those times where the Minister of Penitentiary Affaires Iris Varela (the one on the right) is questioned on their lack of giving a shit about jails.
On yet more jail news, a bank's fake branch office was found operating inside a (different) jail.
On yet more justice-related news, the new President of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice is Maikel Moreno, the literal murderer magistrate. I'll have to look up if the Tribunal can just assign itself its own president without checking up with the National Assembly.
The topic of sour cassava has been going on recently. Cassava is very often eaten here, the most common kind being a sweet, white kind that is safe to eat. The less known kind is yellow and sour, which produces cyanide and is not fit for consumption if not industrially processed. Due to scarcity and the economic crisis some unknowing people have seen it fit to buy it raw and prepare it themselves, leading to various deaths, most notably the death of an entire family in Caracas. There's been a campaign going on about the differences between those kinds of cassava.
There is this skier Adrián Solano who participated in some tournament in Finland, representing Venezuela. First he made a bit of news after getting deported from France back in January, where he meant to train. Some diplomatic arrangements later and he made it to Finland for the tournament, where... well, see for yourself. Besides embarrassment and mockery, the question at home is what was he doing there having never skied on snow before. the default answer of course it being part of a corruption scheme, what with shadiness regarding the organization that sponsored him or his links to PSUV figures, although apparently the money spent was his own. Anyhows, memes.
Anyhows, on that history stuff I've been doing.. oh yeah, before I forget, there was a documentary about CAP released a
while ago, called CAP: 2 intentos. I haven't seen it myself but I heard
it's good. Besides that...:
Hugo Chávez Begins (1994-1999): (Note: I have no idea why this picture comes second on the artists' website. Also note from now on year number don't refer to presidential terms, but arbitrary periods of time.)
Having been freed in 1994 after only two years of jail time, he spent his time about how everyone should contribute to overthrow the president that just had him released. Eventually some important lefty figures, most notably the Chaotic Neutral types I've mentioned, presidents of socialist parties and some other intellectuals saw the potential candidate in him and approached him to instead run for president. They had him form the 'Fifth Republic Movement', his first party and precursor to the PSUV, its main goal being resetting the 'Fourth Republic' (he's the one who coined these terms) and thus renewing the political system through a National Constituent Assembly, more on that later.
Anyhows, it's very easy to forget all this, but during his first campaign was very different from his others, he actually acted more or less like a normal person, lacking all those quirks he's known for, not being a belligerent thug against other groups except AD and Copei, he pretended not to be a socialist, was popular along the lower class and the middle class, he received support from important wealthy people and was a media celebrity (the irony) including those he'd personally wage war against, also he was thin. In many ways his charismatic and the fact that he had no 'true' political history did signal that things were going to change for the better, unfortunately only half of that was true.
The main promises of Chávez's campaign were to end corruption and pay off external debt (~1/6 of what it is now), the two biggest issues we had back then when we had the luxury of worrying about these things.
Anyhows, his main competition was:
And so Chávez became president, and so begins the socialist dismantlement of our beloved nation from the inside.
One of the side effects of living through a national crisis is that you become suddenly interested in history. I was hopeless at history back in school and wouldn't have imagined myself writing this stuff out of my own volition, but here I am.
Either it's the crisis that's doing this to me or the fact that I'm getting old.
The 500 Bs.F. notes are still nowhere to be seen.
If the news about the jail bank office was weird, then came the government's claim that it wasn't a bank office, but a bank-themed pizza stand. Photos, complete with obviously improvised pizza-themed ornaments and remains of other stuff taken away. Whatever the truth is, it's already weird enough to be unbelievable. So far the most plausible version is that it's an informal loaning service from jailees.
In more jail news, Wilmer 'Wilmito' Brizuela, the pran that got injured at the beach last post, was murdered (from gunshots) after being brought back to jail.
In yet more jail news, a mass grave was found at the General Penitentiary of Venezuela (Guárico) with 15 corpses (extraofficially, about a hundred), many of which were beheaded.
Due to the accusations of human rights violations against the Operations Liberation of the People, Maduro relaunched it, the big changes being that it's now called Operation Humanist Liberation of the People. How humanist exactly? Well, I swear this is not photoshop.
The government is targeting bakeries (perhaps better translated as small grocery stores), two of which were expropriated in Caracas, accused of using their flour on their most profitable goods rather than the cheap 'efficient' ones. The locals didn't like this, and staged a protest that got harshly repressed.
Collectives have been attacking the University of Los Andes recently, including the university's hospital. Attacks include robberies, shootings, burning shit and that thing where they strip students naked. Nominally it's about defending the (red) dining hall syndicate over outsourcing their services, but it's obvious the target is the university at large.
On the party renewal thing, Justice First, Popular Will, Democratic Action and A New Era have successfully reached their quotas, as expected. So did Progressivist Advance. Progressivist Movement of Venezuela didn't, however, and COPEI refused to participate. On the officialist side the Communist Party of Venezuela and some other party called REDES refused to participate as well.
Speaking of COPEI, its president Roberto Enriquez has been accused of coupstering by the reds, and he's now stuck at the Chilean embassy for protection.
On news that seem to have been going around the world lately, the Organization of American States has been moving things around for the application of the Democratic Charter on the Venezuelan government, this time there's much more support for it than there was in 2014 (reminder that only three governments voted for it back then), and the Assembly has been cheering them over it.
In turn the Tribunal released a ruling with two important points: 1) Change of a bunch of stuff regarding the Hydrocarbons Law, especially increasing the limit on how much participation private companies are allowed to have on joint ventures in our oil fields, and that the government does not need parliamentary approval over it. 2) Officializing the dissolution of the Assembly, declaring null all its activities, delegating its functions to the Tribunal itself and stripping deputies of parliamentary immunity when it comes to 'acts of treason', i.e. the Charter thing.
The latter point struck a nerve with the opposition, and have been making lots of noise over it, and have called for protests. On an international level other governments seem more eager to apply the Charter now and, in a completely unprecedented move, General Prosecutor Luisa Ortega Díaz claimed that the ruling constitutes a breakdown of constitutional order. A couple days of reds justifying the ruling later and with the mounting backlash readily visible, the Tribunal backed down and claimed that that point was a mistake, reversing it (the stuff on oil extraction is still there).
Anyhows, the protests were still held. Some noteworthy things happened: important MUD figures participated in person, leading the marches at the front. They were harshly repressed by the Nazional Pigs and the Nazional Gorillarian Guard, and the one one Tuesday by collectives as well, as well as the usual block-entrances-to-Caracas-and-shut-down-the-metro thing. Notably they hunted people down and arrested people regardless of what they were doing or even whether they were protesting (for example this musician). The fact that deputies were there did not stop the repressive forces from attacking, usually lacing the crowds with pepper spray, severely affecting some of them, including Ramos Allup (i.e. old), but most notably Juan Requesens had his face torn open, requiring various stitches (discretion is advised: picture). But the most dramatic moment belongs to Freddy Guevara over this (he's the one with the white shirt).
A different protest in Miranda last night was also harshly repressed by the police using firearms, resulting in many injured, one of which, Jairo Ortíz, unfortunately passed away.
Well, it's been tense hasn't it? Well, I want to say that one reason I hadn't updated lately was that I was busy, but to be honest, I don't seem to be able to bring myself to care as much as I think I should (the fact that HH once ganged up on me about how much I shouldn't care doesn't help), certainly not to the extent I used to a year or two ago. I wonder if I'm becoming too jaded.
Chávez' early government years left for later posts.
Also, I kind of have a bit of a problem with that bank. So, it's a fake bank pretending to be a fast food joint that offers real banking service within a jail?
Also, at least your death squads have a sense of style.
And yeah, apparently it was some clandestine lending business that used a real bank's imagery but wasn't actually doing real bank operations and probably wasn't pretend to do so.
Also, before I forget, the protest on Thrusday was fairly large. It seems the MUD is recovering the trust they've been losing lately.
I'm hesitant to put too much trust in a clearly libertarian site, though such a phenomenon is still quite amusing.
As for the usual update...
It's funny that even after the sanctions, the PSUV is still dancing around blaming him, still claiming that he's being forced into such things by 'oligarchic influences' and so on.
(Then again, I do also have to suck it up and admit that he's been helpful towards us.)
It was bound to happen. Capriles was banned for running for office for 15 (!) years, over the Odebrecht thing.
Nicolae Madurescu had a parade in San Félix, Bolívar over April 11th, abruptly cut short after the crowd started throwing stuff and hurling insults at him. Feels good, man. A bunch of people were arrested over this.
As for the protests... well, things haven't gotten any tamer since last week. The opposition has kept up the pressure (especially Popular Will, in particular Freddy Guevara has taken a leading role in them) and the government is not relenting with repression:
At one protest the pigs started shooting good gas canisters from helicopters at large crowds of people. Whoever is hit by a canister at that height is at a deadly risk and is considered a human right violation.
Similarly, a hospital had tear gas shot at it, on the basis that deputy Delsa Solorzano was there, forcing the staff to evacuate a bunch of patients.
Several edifications have been attacked with firebombs: one of the Tribunal's offices, Capriles' office, and one of the seats from Democratic Action and one from the PSUV.
Now that offline TV channels have all been subjugated, it's the turn of online ones. They've forced ISPs to block VIVO Play and VPI TV from their services, on the basis that they were broadcasting protests.
Just in case there was any doubt about the Armed Farces cooperating with collectives, there's this video of collectives deploying from a Nazional Gorillarian Guard headquarter.
Hender Martínez, a youth leader from A New Era lost his eye from a pellet after being shot by nazional guards
Of course, all this has had its quota of blood:
Ricarda González, an 87 year old lady died from respiratory complications due to inhaling tear gas while at home.
Daniel Queliz was murdered by Carabobo's regional police, being shot by live gunfire while protesting.
Bryan Principal, a 13 year old kid, was killed around the time of a protest he wasn't in. It's unknown whether he was killed by National Guardsmen or by collectives (presumed to be the same ones who exited the base above).
General Motors denounces that the government expropriated one of its plants.
As for the protests...
For April 19th (Independence Day) there were marches planned throughout the country, heavily hyped with internet ads and everything. As usual the PSUV called for another march (although not a counter-march), blocked entry to Caracas and shut down the metro system. Maduro also claimed that he'd hand out 500,000 rifles to Militias and that he'd employ the 'green phase of the Zamora Plan'.
Anyhows, the day came and would you look at thatt, the whole country showed up. The one in Maracaibo it was too large for me to tell where it started/ended, even when looking through three different 4-way streets. Likely larger than the one when Leopoldo turned himself in.
Naturally, the government couldn't have it and repressed it very harshly, shooting tear gas at large crowds of protesters, in many cases as they were retreating, and unleashing collectives upon people. A load of marchers in Caracas were forced to cross the Guaire river (a sewage dump) to escape the attacks, which can result in severe infections for those with wounds. I swallowed a bit of good gas myself, also we heard what sounded like gunshots from atop a building. Also Tank Woman.
They often say that repression is not a response to protests turning violent, but that repression causes peaceful protests to turn violent. It's not hard to believe, but there's value in seeing it first hand, I got to witness how a rain of tear gas turned our perfectly peaceful crowd turned into a clash squad.
El Tiempo and Antena 3, two news channels from Colombia and Spain respectively, had their signals cut out due to their broadcasting of the protests.
Unfortunately, all this had deadly consequences:
Carlos José Moreno, a passerby near a protest was shot in the head by collectives, he was sent to emergency care but ultimately passed away.
Similarly, Paola Ramírez was murdered by collectives as she was walking back from a protest. There's the video that recorded her death here (obviously, discretion is adviced).
Niumar José Barrios, a National Guardsman, was shot and killed during another protest later in the day, apparently shot by an armed protester.
Also do you mean General Motors denounced the government's expropriating one of its plants (i.e. harshly condemned), or that they denied that the government expropriated one of its plants (i.e. said it didn't happen)?
As for General Motors, they claim that the government illegally took its stuff. Although apparently it was more like a confiscation of some of their assets than a full-blown expropriation.
Besides that, there were a bunch of riots and lootings in El Valle in Caracas last night, suddenly the place got chaotic and messy, lots of National Guardsmen and collectives involved, gunfire, they shot tear gas canister at residence buildings and even around a maternity hospital, which had to be evacuated.
Rioters have also taken to use "puputovs" (i.e. "poop molotovs") small bags of shit to throw at the pigs/naziguards.
In retaliation, the repressors have also taken to force detainees to eat literal shit.
Deputy Wilmer Azuaje was kidnapped by the SEBIN and has been missing for almost a month now.
Retired General Ángel Vivas, mostly known as the one who climbed atop his house with a rifle to drive away SEBIN agents, was now kidnapped by the SEBIN and after hiding his wereabouts for several weeks, he eventually showed up severely beaten and suffering many health issues. He hasn't been released yet.
One murder that made an impact around here in Maracaibo was that of Paul Moreno, a medicine student and part of the 'green cross', volunteer groups of medicine students who help others with first aid during protests. He was shot and killed by a Nazional Gorillarian Guard as he was attending repression victims at the Fuerzas Armadas (Armed Forces) avenue, later renamed Dr. Paul Moreno avenue.
Freddy Bernal, an important PSUV figure and little shit who has been in many important positions related to police/intelligent/collective shit, was found apparently leading collectives who ended up attacking a group of protesters.
I think after I'm done with a few things I'll be able to go back to marching, I haven't done it in a while, but... I have to question whether I'm made for this. Ultimately, I'm just a scrawny nerd, and if a Nazional Guard wants to catch me, they will without me being able to do much about it, and then... well, I probably won't die or made to rot in jail indefinitely, but as I was running away from several tear gas clouds that time I can't say I wasn't scared at the prospect of what they could do to me.
Pompeyo Márquez, a prominent early member of the Communist Party of Venezuela, notorious guerrilla leader during the 60s, founding member of Movement Towards Socialism and one of the few socialists who always opposed Chávez, passed away at the age of 95.
Among recent protest deaths (over a hundred so far) there's the notorious case of Neomar Lander. Oppositors claimed that, just like Juan Pablo Pernalete he was killed by oen of the tear gas canister he was being shot at (that he was being shot at is true), while the Reds claimed he died to a mortar (the firework) he was going to use against said repressive forces. To be fair, it seems hard to believe that the very large wound he had was produced by a canister. Anyhow, Lander's father came up in state media to lament how his child was up to no good and ended up killing himself, then came Lander's actual father calling bullshit on that.
Another notorious murder was that of David Vallenilla, can be seen here. (As usual, discretion is advised, of course.)
One police/naziguard brutality video rolling around right now is this one. It seems he wasn't even protesting. He was then sent to a military tribunal.
Leopoldo has finally been released from Ramo Verde, and is now under house arrest due to (probably bullshit) health reasons. It's not entirely clear why he was "released", so conspiracy theories abound.
On one random evening, an helicopter from the Body of Scientific, Penal and Criminalistic Investigations (CICPC forensics police) attacked the Tribunal's seat, shooting several times at it and throwing stun bombs at it, with no injuries. The pilot identified himself as Óscar Pérez through a video calling us to rise up against the tyranny. Before it got deleted, his Instagram was something to behold (you can still see some of its contents here). Anyhows, the dude just kind of dodged whatever security measures have against something like this and just kind of disappeared, only showing up during a march since.
There have seen some more lootings around, the most notorious one being in Aragua, which included stealing diseases from a research lab, launching epidemological warnings.
Tribunal rules that the Ombudsman Office can act as the Prosecutor's Office. Naturally the prosecutor is not having any of this. More important the Tribunal just kind of changed the vice-prosecutor, electing somebody else called Katherine Harrington. Since the Prosecutor's Office is disregarding this and wouldn't let her in, so she did the natural thing and tried to get in (unsuccesfully) by hiding inside a car's trunk.
Maduro has stated that they'll start reforming protesters through "Laboratories of Peace".
Maduro: "If Venezuela were plunged into chaos and violence and the Bolivarian Revolution were destroyed, we'd go to combat, we'd never give up. What we couldn't achieve through votes, we would achieve through arms."
Diosdado has announced "Operation 4x4", in which "in any case and against any act of saboutage from the right-wing, we'll gear up and run them over". Reminder that several protesters have been literally ran over already.
A bunch of collectives, under the eye of the Nazional Guard and the leadership of Oswaldo "Mango Head" Rivero, attacked the National Assembly using fireworks, blunt weapons and even firearms, injuring several deputies and journalists, and one collective who actually had his firework explode on him. See here for videos with dramy background music. All this on the Day of the Signing of the Independence Act, even.
The oppression forces have taken to attack entire residence buildings now. The most notorious case so far was one in Los Verdes somewhere in Caracas, where in addition to ransacking the place, one agent just put up and shot someone's dog, killing it. See how they act for example here, at a different raid.
The 100+ Bs. F. Bills are finally here (as of last post). They aren't terribly as common as they should be but at least this is starting to make using cash less ridiculous.
International reserves have fallen below the 10MMM$ line, the lowest they've been in the last 20 years (not accounting for inflation).
The MUD had the idea of holding popular consultation/plebiscite, asking us whether we agree with Maduro's call for a National Constituent Assembly. Obviously the Nazional Electoral Council wouldn't hold it for them, so instead they held it themselves, with the cooperation of large chunks of civil society to hold it.
I just finished voting. It was really well organized, and very fast, although of course not very trustworthy, lacking pretty much anything you need the Nazional Electoral Council for. Also very politicized for what pretends to be an actual electoral process. Still, I think the organization was impressive.
As for the Nazional Inconstituent Assembly itself, as expected the government has already started blackmailing people, especifically by threatening to deny the latest currency exchange scheme. They've also used videos of uwilling opposition celebrities in their ads. Also the roster of candidates have revealed who the PSUV is reaching to write the new constitution, having criminals and thugs as candidates.
And that's all I've got. I'm sure there's more that I should've posted about, but...
after much thought, I think I've come to understand why I'm no longer as focused on the news as I used to, and this may be depression speaking, but I think it's that I no longer believe that anything that can happen on the political landscape, even if things turn out more or less fine, will make me cheer up.
Unfortunately, it did not go without incidents. Collectives attacked one such point near Miraflores, killing one (nurse Xiomara Scott) and injuring three others, and the rest of the crowd had to take refuge in the church the event was taking place in, being sieged for several hours. There was another attack in Boconó, Trujillo, including another running over, but fortunately with no fatalities.
The results were audited by rectors (non-electoral rectors, like, rectors from actual universities). They're reliable, although as mentioned even if the counting is trustworthy, the actual votes gathering not so much. Anyhows, the anti-Constituent option got over 98% of the vote, which of course is not remarkable (reminder that the PSUV didn't participate), but there noteworthy part were 7.5 million votes cast, for reference that's about how much Maduro got in 2013. Considering a bunch of factors (such as the unofficial nature of the vote, the lower ammount of voting centers, etc.), whether this is good or not depends on who you ask. I think it's a respectable result. Though I find it more interesting that the opposition managed to run such an orderly event, with the only major incidents being those the reds caused.
On non-consultation news...
A collective was killed in Lechería, Anzoátegui, as he and other collectives escorted by national guardsmen were attacking rioters, one of which retaliated with one of those mortars.
The MUD deputies seem in the mood to create a parallel state of sorts. Much of their rethoric seems aimed towards that, and have announced plans of electing new magistrates (like last year), etc.
I was hoping it wouldn't happen, I really did, but deep inside I knew it was going to happen and it was only a matter of time. I finally saw Juan (who is very strongly leftist now, and not in a level-headed way) tweeting, how shall I put this... profoundly ignorant pro-PSUV/anti-opposition stuff. I wonder if it would be a good idea for me to talk to him about this.
Edit: Oh yeah, yet another extention of the emergency decree.
Edit edit: Oh yeah, I had forgotten the most important news: The Empire has threatened our govt. with economic sanctions, not discarding the possibility of refusing to buy our oil. Sounds nasty. Perhaps for the first time ever when the reds blame everything on an imperialist attack it won't be bullshit.