Venezuela: Opposition will not obey state of emergency

As mentioned earlier, Nicolás Maduro declared a three-month state of emergency broadening the scope of an economic emergency decree in effect since January that was set to expire last Saturday.

Yesterday the National Assembly voted to reject Maduro’s decree.

The opposition is defiant and is now calling on the military:
Venezuela’s opposition calls for defiance against state of emergency

Venezuela’s opposition has come out in open defiance of the government of President Nicolás Maduro, telling its supporters to ignore the state of emergency decreed over the weekend. “If Maduro wants to apply the decree, then he should start bringing out the tanks. We’re not going to accept it, and I am calling on the country to take no notice of the decree. I am saying this to the armed forces, for whom the moment of truth is coming… We don’t want a military solution, but this is unacceptable,” said leading opposition figure Hector Capriles [sic], the governor of the state of Miranda, on Tuesday.

Venezuelan opposition tells military that it’s time to choose (emphasis added),

The BBC reported Wednesday that opposition leader Henrique Capriles accused Maduro of “putting himself above the constitution” by imposing emergency powers on the oil-rich nation. “I tell the armed forces: The hour of truth is coming, to decide whether you are with the constitution or with Maduro,” Capriles said.

The Financial Times believes The international community, including China, can play a useful role, but that doesn’t mean Maduro will listen. Richard Fernandez writes about the crisis:

Even the phrase “falling apart” fails to convey the scale of destruction that has befallen the country. To capture a sense of it one must turn to the vivid prose ofNicholas Casey of the New York Times complemented by the accompanying gruesome photographs. He describes hospitals that are places where patients lie in rotting mattresses or in pools of their own blood. Where doctors amputate the limbs of patients because they have no antibiotics to treat simple infections. Where doctors and nurses take turns operating respirators by hand — the machinery sometimes broken and without power anyway — until they simply collapse from exhaustion and helplessly watch their patients die.

Yet this same scene is one which Nicolas Maduro — like Corbyn and Sirota 3 years earlier — still has the effrontery to view with satisfaction: “I doubt that anywhere in the world, except in Cuba, there exists a better health system than this one”. In this phrase all is clear.

THE ANDREW KLAVAN ROUNDUP:
Andrew Klavan talked about Venezuela in yesterday’s podcast. Here are a few articles he mentioned:
Dying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuela’s Failing Hospitals

What’s Socialism, Dad?Venezuela provides a lesson to anyone tempted to feel the Bern.

Glenn Reynolds: Don’t be a sucker for socialism

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