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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?

I have documented every post on Latin America strenuously, but this post is an exception. I do not have contacts in the country or in any of the other places involved, so please read with caution.

In his Thursday, May 2, 2019 show, Jaime Bayly described that the Minister of Defense for the National Armed Forces of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, General Vladimir Padrino, had agreed to aid Juan Guaidó remove Nicolas Maduro from office.

Who is General Padrino?
In a post three years ago, I mentioned that Padrino, upon taking the job of commanding the country’s entire supply chain possibly “was given the job by Cuban intelligence to keep an eye on Maduro.” Additionally, Nicolás Maduro had declared “All the ministries, all the ministers, all the state institutions are at the service and in absolute subordination” to the head of the armed forces, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino – including,

a new military-industrial mining, oil and gas company that will rival the state-owned oil company PdVSA.

In other words, Padrino lives up to his name, which means Godfather. His agreement would be crucial for any change to take place.

I must point out that Wikipedia correctly states,

On 22 September 2017, Canada sanctioned Padrino due to rupture of Venezuela’s constitutional order following the 2017 Venezuelan Constituent Assembly election.[6][7] The United States government has also sanctioned Padrino on 25 September 2018 for his role in solidifying President Maduro’s power in Venezuela.[8] Vladimir Padrino López is also banned from entering Colombia.[9]

The Bayly YouTube, in Spanish

Bayly said that Padrino had agreed to having Maduro leave for Cuba and install Guaidó as interim president in exchange for being allowed to keep the fortune he’s amassed over the years and avoiding prosecution by the U.S. The U.S. would also give the new interim administration $20billion to pay Russia for its oil interests in the country.

This was scheduled to take place on May 1st.

But Padrino changed his mind,

ABC Spain reports that General Padrino backed out at the last moment, even when the negotiation had lasted for several months. Bayly claims that Padrino demanded at the last moment to be permanent president.

The right price?

On Sunday May 5th, the Moscow Times published an opinion piece, Putin Is Ready to Give Up Venezuela for the Right Price.
Sergei Lavrov and Mike Pompeo will soon meet in Helsinki to discuss Venezuela’s future.

On May 3, U.S. President Donald Trump called Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to flag American concerns over Russia’s “disruptive role” in Venezuela and stress his country’sdetermination to ensure Venezuela’s return to democratic rule.

The price may involve Ukraine,

For Moscow, a deal of equals on Venezuela where Russia helps the U.S. diffuse the crisis by engineering a constitutional transition, should involve an equally significant concession by the U.S. (on a par with JFK-Khrushchev deal to remove nuclear missiles from Cuba and Turkey) to pressure Kiev into fully implementing the Minsk-2 agreements that would truncate Ukraine’s sovereignty and allow Moscow to retain some degree of control over Kiev’s security policies.
…
Moscow is ready to sell its stake in Maduro, but it is still unclear whether Washington is ready to offer the right price.

Interesting times

If Russia is out of the picture, there’s still the question of China and Iran remaining in the country.

If Maduro leaves, how about Tarek El Aissami, Vice President indicted by the U.S. for drug charges?

Additionally, I doubt very much that Cuba would give up its control of Venezuela’s security services.

This coming week promises to be very interesting indeed.

UPDATE:
Linked by Ed Driscoll at Instapundit. Thank you!
Linked by Da Tech Guy. Thank you!

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Venezuela: No pork? Blame Portugal!

I found this on my Twitter feed,

What the hey?
Maduro accuses Portugal of sabotaging Christmas following failed pork deliveries</a

Traditionally, Venezuelan’s cook a pork roast instead of turkey for Christmas, so when President Nicolas Maduro’s promise of subsidised pork failed to materialise, frustration boiled over into what some have dubbed the “pork revolution.”

“Pork revolution”? (emphasis added; video below the fold)

Local media and Twitter users posted images of hundreds of people standing on streets and burning trash in protest at the shortages, in what some social media users dubbed the “pork revolution”.

Maduro, who has been alleging a foreign-led “economic war” against his government, went on state TV to blame Portugal for failing to deliver pork imports in time for Christmas.

“What happened to the pork? They sabotaged us. I can name a country: Portugal,” Maduro said.

“We bought all the Pork we had in Venezuela. We bought everything,” he continued.

“But we had to import and so I gave the order, signed the agreements but they pursued the bank accounts of the boats,”

“We were chased by two giant ships that came and sabotaged us, but only for now”.

And here I thought I was starting to run out of absurd Maduro stories.

Rumor has it that Maduro wants out. With the apparent backing of China, Russia and the Cuban military, why would he want to? Especially now that he’s trying to float the petro criptocurrency with not only gold and diamonds, but also by promising,

“Every single Petro will be backed by a barrel of oil,” Maduro said, promising to provide cryptocurrency mining throughout Venezuela. “We will set up a special team of cryptocurrency specialists so they will be engaged in mining in all states and municipalities of our country.”

Says the guy who couldn’t deliver the bacon. How do they say “when pigs fly” in Venezuela?

Video in Spanish below the fold,
[Read more…]

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Venezuela: Nicolas and the forty thieves UPDATED

The US has imposed sanctions on 10 Venezuelan officials it accuses of undermining democracy, corruption and censoring the press, for a total of forty, including Nicolás Maduro.

The ten have had their US assets frozen and are also banned from travelling to the country, while American businesses are forbidden to work with them.

The treasury department also issued bans against several members of Venezuela’s all-powerful Constituent Assembly, including a vice-president.

In other news,

Ambassadors of European Union member states agreed on Wednesday to impose an arms embargo on Venezuela.

They also said there would be a ban on any equipment which could be used to repress opponents within Venezuela.

The sanctions come after a UN report released in August accused Venezuela of human rights violations and using excessive force against the opposition.

Caracas Chronicles calls it A Bad Day for the Dictatorship.

Not bad enough. They’re still in charge.

UPDATE

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Venezuela: Default brings upside for Maduro?

Venezuela faces epic default as China and Russia pull the plug

“Maduro can’t restructure the debt because nobody in the world trusts his government,” said Julio Borges, the head of the National Assembly.

However (emphasis added),

“Russia and China have incentives to provide financing just for oil investment, so that they are able to get the oil repayments,” Monaldi said in an email. “If Venezuela was able to successfully restructure the debt with bond holders that would make it more attractive for Russia and China to help, but giving them more money just to pay bond holders is unlikely to happen.”

The WSJ on the benefits of being a deadbeat:
Venezuela Debt Crisis May Offer Political Upside for Maduro. Stopping payments on debt threatens economy but could increase funds earmarked for needed imports (emphasis added)

Mr. Maduro announced plans on Friday to convene bondholders in Caracas on Nov. 13 to negotiate a debt restructuring on the country’s foreign debt, estimated at between $100 billion and $150 billion. However, investors said that U.S. sanctions that restrict financial institutions from investing in new debt instruments issued by Venezuela’s authoritarian government make a deal unlikely, triggering a messy and prolonged default.

By stopping payments on the debt, Mr. Maduro could double the funds he has earmarked for imports next year by holding back on some $1.7 billion in bond interest payments due in the remainder of 2017 and about $9 billion in 2018, according to Eurasia Group, offering relief—albeit brief—for a fast collapsing economy plagued by galloping inflation and chronic food shortages.

Why next year? Because of presidential elections. Even with rampant vote rigging, there’s still a facade to be kept.

Related:
A debt restructuring that’s really a default that’s really a giant money laundering operation

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Venezuela: More election fraud

Yesterday Venezuela held elections for its 23 state governors, and as usual, amidst more fraud. Of course, Maduro’s party, the PSUV, won.

Clueless NPR was surprised.

Mary O’Grady writes on Venezuela’s Latest Election Fraud. Maduro allowed the phony balloting only to preserve the illusion of democracy.

Sunday’s exercise in the Cuba-backed dictatorship was a sham.

Maduro had other motives as well. He wants to lull Venezuelans into the false sense that a transition away from communism is possible at the ballot box. That illusion has so far held back rebellion.

He also seeks to legitimize his illegal “constituent assembly,” elected on July 30—from an unchallenged list of candidates—to replace the Legislature and rewrite the constitution. He said voting Sunday was an endorsement of the new assembly and any opposition governor who will not swear allegiance to it will be removed.

The fraud was under way long before the first vote was cast. The dictatorship announced the election only a month in advance. Candidates rushed to submit their names under a five-day deadline. Later the regime decided to hold a day of primaries. But when antigovernment candidates who lost the primaries asked to withdraw and throw their support to the primary winners, the regime refused to take their names off the ballot.

And then polling stations were relocated.

Caracas Chronicles looks Down the Sketchy Election Fraud Road, Again.

Daniel Duquenal calls it A grotesque electoral fraud. As one of his commenters said, “Dictatorships don’t leave with votes.”

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Brazil, Colombia, Guyana border towns overwhelmed by Venezuelans in need of medical care

Sabrina Martín at Panampost writes,
Venezuela’s Medicine Shortages Overwhelming Border Cities in Guyana, Colombia, Brazil. The ongoing problem is getting worse,

Venezuela’s political crisis has bled into widespread food and medical shortages for some time now, causing families to travel to neighboring countries such as Colombia in search of basic healthcare and vaccines for children.

If you were wondering about the thousands of Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela under the Barrio Adentro oil-for-doctors program, last January the Miami Herald reported, Dumping medicine, faking patients: Cuban doctors describe a system that breeds fraud

“I worked for three and a half years as a dentist in Venezuela, and it was horrible dealing with the statistics,” said Rodríguez, who defected from the program late last year and is in Colombia awaiting a U.S. visa. “I might see five patients a day, but I had to say I’d seen 18, and then throw all that medicine away, because we simply had to.”

Trashing medicine in a country where it’s desperately needed was painful, doctors said. But if they were caught giving it away — or even worse, selling it — they would be kicked out of the mission and sent back to Cuba. And regular audits of their supplies meant they needed them to match their patient count.

There’s a lot of money involved (emphasis added),

“You have to understand that Venezuela pays Cuba based on statistics, not based on what’s really happening in the clinics,” he explained.
. . .
Dentists are particularly under the gun because Venezuela pays for their services in cash, as opposed to crude, workers said.

Communism does not work.

In other news,

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Real news: Russia is arming Venezuela

Noisy Room and Memri have the story:

In April of this year, Maduro’s Defense Minister paid an interesting visit to Moscow. Vladimir Padrino Lopez the Defense Minister, would meet his Russian counterpart, Sergey Kuzhugetovich Shoygu, at the Conference on International Security,

In his speech at the conference, Padrino López expressed Venezuela’s concern over the cooperation agreement signed between Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia and NATO, in order to fight “organized crime.” “NATO has a sad history of warlike actions in the past… NATO is an organization with high operational character and a history of aggression,” he stressed.[6]

Not much is known for Shoigu, the man who is supposed to lead Russia after Putin steps down as president.

If the name sounds familiar, Shoigu is the guy who said in 2014 that Russia intends to install military bases in Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, the Seychelles, Singapore and several other countries.

In Venezuela, Maduro depends on Russia, Iran and Syria for financial and strategic backing.

The opposition to Mr. Maduro also is up against an array of international antidemocratic forces. The cabal is run by Cuba on the ground but backed financially and strategically by Iran, Russia and Syria. These countries have been preparing for many years for a conflict that would establish Latin America’s “new world order.” They would also welcome the inevitable refugee crisis.
. . .
Russia supplies arms to Venezuela. In November the Kremlin sent new aviation and air-defense technology to Caracas. Reuters reported in May that Venezuela now has “5,000 Russian-made MANPADS surface-to-air weapons,” representing “the largest known stockpile in Latin America.”

Read also Memri‘s May 2017 analysis of Russia-Venezuela relations.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S. the major media outlets carry on with a RussiaRussiaRussia narrative for which there is  no evidence.

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