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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Venezuela: Door-to-door raids, AWOL colonels, Panama out

Tweet of the day:
Human rights violations in Venezuela


(h/t Babalu)

A new stage in the Cubanization of Venezuela: the Comités de Defensa de la Revolución (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution) have now arrived.
I received an email from Venezuela describing a new situation: Neighbors in the same buildings reporting anyone who protests to the National Guard, who then tear down the front door and arrest all the people in the apartment of the alleged protesters.

Fidel Castro’s “collective system of revolutionary vigilance,” in a new country.

According to NGO Foro Penal Venezolano, Protests in Venezuela leave 1,084 detainees so far

Unlike most reporters, this CNN reporter did go into the fray,

Andrea Shea King posts on the apps:

Zello? According to DefenseOne, this is the app that’s fueling the uprising in Venezuela. The Walkie-talkie app is the favorite app of protest organizers in Venezuela and in Ukraine.
…
Bookmark these alternatives to text messaging: What’sApp and Telegram. Or begin using them now.

The Crowdpilot app lets others listen in to each other’s conversations, especially helpful in situations like thrones [sic] in Ukraine and Venezuela.

In the city of Valencia, three National Guard colonels are AWOL after refusing to fire on their fellow citizens.

After Panama requested a meeting at the Organization of American States (OAS) to discuss Venezuela’s crisis, Maduro cut ties with Panama, calling country a ‘lackey’ for the United States.

Maduro used the most insulting terms, calling the president of Panama a “groveling lackey”, while telling the OAS to stay out of Venezuela, now and forever.

Bolivian president Evo Morales was in attendance:

Daniel Duquenal calls it The day Maduro became certifiable and tore his panama,

So, rather than having to appear at an OAS meeting and look like a brutal repressive fool, it is better to turn over the table and refuse to play. See, Maduro and its Cuban masters are understanding that the regime image is so deteriorated that they cannot count on a favorable OAS verdict no matter how much they have spent to buy its votes.

In other words, pushed against the wall, Cuba ordered Maduro to start breaking up with the OAS, a long held dear dream of Castro and Chavez, with already sabotage to the OAS by supporting someone like its incompetent secretary Insulza or creating CELAC and UNASUR to annul OAS cover.

I need to add a footnote probably lost in translation. After the electoral fraud of April 2013 Panama’s president was one of the rare few to travel to Caracas and visit Maduro as the real elected president. The reason was that Venezuela owes, I understand, more than a billion USD to Panama and that is a lot of money for a small country. Martinelli simply had to think of his people. But I suspect that he did not get paid anything for his troubles since Venezuela is bankrupt. So, he decided to screw Maduro by having Panama’s ambassador called an OAS meeting on Venezuela. After all, breaking with Panama is going to cost Maduro more than what it may cost Panama. Probably it will aggravate our economic crisis and make corrupt chavista upset that their assets risk being sort of frozen in Panama.

Panama’s not the only country Venezuela owes money to: Venezuela’s debt to Brazilian construction firms over USD 2 billion

In a report issued by Brazilian newspaper Valor Econômico, Brazilian construction corporations’ portfolio in Venezuela accounts for USD 20 billion, affected by serious “delays” in payment in recent days

Visiting dignitaries: Evo Morales was in Caracas for the Chavez memorial. Cuba’s Raul Castro, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, and Suriname’s Desi Bouterse (a shady character if ever there was one) were also at the memorial. Raul Castro’s visit to Venezuela, to prop up the government of Chavez’s handpicked successor amid violent anti-government riots, has caused more resentment than rejoicing

Some Venezuelans are convinced that the very worst violence unleashed on protesters has actually been committed by Cuban plants, not Venezuelan security force personnel.

Caracas Gringo has a photo essay of Raul Castro’s Cubazuelan Parade

Juan Cristobal Nagel takes a look at A legacy of destruction

A large number of Venezuelan immigrants aim to request political asylum, many of whom have been living undocumented in Florida for several years.

UPDATE:
Title corrected.

Linked to by Babalu. Thank you!

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