Fausta's Blog

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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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Brazil: Lula trial reveals ties with Chavez

As you may recall, Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is on trial.

All sorts of things are coming out. For instance, Lula personally recruited

Mônica Moura and her husband João Santana, a couple whose marketing strategies helped keep Brazil’s leftist Workers’ Party in power for 13 years

for help in Venezuelan Hugo Chávez’s 2012 campaign. Current dictator Nicolás Maduro (emphasis added)

Mr. Maduro, then Venezuela’s foreign minister, personally handed Ms. Moura $11 million in cash in his Caracas office, she said in the testimony given in court to Brazilian prosecutors in exchange for a reduced sentence on corruption charges. Brazil’s two largest construction companies, Odebrecht SA and Andrade Gutierrez, which are under investigation in Brazil for allegedly paying bribes to Mr. da Silva, wired her an additional $9 million to an offshore account, Ms. Moura said.

As the article correctly points out,

Under Mr. Chávez, Odebrecht became the biggest contractor in Venezuela, receiving roughly $11 billion over 14 years for projects ranging from irrigation channels to airports.
. . .
Odebrecht admitted to paying $98 million in bribes in Venezuela.

Now

The heads of Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez, as well as Mr. Santana and Ms. Moura, are all in jail or confined to their homes after being convicted on corruption charges related to Car Wash.

And they’re willing to talk.

Will this have any effect on Venezuela’s deteriorating condition? I doubt it; but it will have repercussions in Brazil.

Stay tuned.

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Venezuela’s Maduro: “I’m not Mussolini”

As the saying goes. at least Mussolini made the trains run on time:
Nicolás Maduro Calls for New Venezuelan Constitution. President signs order to convene special assembly to redraft constitution and tells critics: ‘I am no Mussolini’

Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro on Monday signed an order to convene a special assembly to redraft the country’s constitution, the latest in a string of efforts to retain power in the face of mounting protests and civil unrest.

Mr. Maduro called for a vote—though it remained unclear among whom—to elect a so-called constituent assembly, which would in theory become the nation’s highest authority.

I’m not sure why the article says “it remained unclear” who would vote: Maduro clearly intends it would be his yes-men and minions:
Venezuela’s Maduro calls for new constitution written by ‘people’s’ body

Maduro told the May Day crowd that he would submit the application for the new body to write the referendum to the National Electoral Council on Monday.

It urges the election of 500 people to sit on the assembly. Around half would be drawn from sectors of society — from a “working class base,” Maduro said — directly choosing their representatives, while the other half would be named by local councils across the country.

“It is going to be a Constituent Assembly elected by direct vote by the people,” he said.

This is the first call for a constituent assembly since Hugo Chávez rewrote the Venezuelan constitution in 1999.

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Venezuela: Madurantoinette

The hapless Marie Antionette supposedly said, “Let them eat cake!”

Maduro is saying “Peace will prevail.”

Nicolás Maduro’s Videos Present an Alternative Venezuelan Reality. President’s soothing social-media offerings stand in contrast to unrest and shortages plaguing his country

“Peace will prevail,” the former bus driver says in one video as he drives other ruling-party officials through a middle-class neighborhood in his car. The footage inadvertently shows them cruising past graffiti that calls the president a “murderer of students,” an apparent reference to some of the people killed in numerous clashes between demonstrators and security forces.

“With Montalbán neighbors, sharing ideas and betting with the middle class for peace and coexistence.”

The article doesn’t mention that Maduro’s show must be carried by all licensed radio and TV stations under penalty of law.

I wasn’t sure whether to call Maduro “Caracas Chuck,” a la Baghdad Bob, or Madurantoinette. I went with the latter since we don’t know who’ll be in charge after he’s done.

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Venezuela to OAS: “You can’t fire me, I quit!”

Venezuela says it will withdraw from the Organization of American States (OAS), accusing the US-based grouping of meddling in its internal affairs.

The government made the announcement after the OAS voted to hold a meeting of foreign ministers to discuss the spiralling crisis in Venezuela.

Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez

said Wednesday that Mr. Maduro ordered the withdrawal from the Organization of American States after 19 of the group’s 34 members agreed on a resolution to discuss Venezuela’s precarious situation.

The demonstrations continue.

“Security forces repress demonstrators on the Francisco Fajardo highway and Las Mercedes in Caracas”

The son of Venezuela’s rights ombudsman, Tarek William Saab, has called on his father to “stop the injustice which has sunk Venezuela”.

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Venezuela: How many killed in the protests?

Caracas Chronicles reports on The assault on non-violence

The country is in such a mess that there are doubts about the official death toll for Monday. Most outlets talk about two confirmed casualties, while Avenida San Martín, on the West side of Caracas, was literally under fire. The current death toll for the protests rose to 31. Arrests, which numbered 1,365 through Sunday, have now swelled with dozens more. It’s been an episode marked by deinstitutionalization and repression, both allowed by None-budsman Tarek William Saab, discriminating murders by political affiliation and suggesting submission as the protesters’ best shot at facing dictatorship.

Why more deaths?

Runrun.es reported that at least 18 people were killed in El Valle on Thursday the 20th, in murky circumstances. A story that nine people died electrocuted out of the 11 initial circulated widely, but is highly unlikely according to experts. The truth is that it’s been four days and still no authority has bothered to offer an official account of the events on Calle Cajigal; they’ve simply repeated chavismo’s standard propaganda that any protesting dissident is a terrorist.

Maduro isn’t listening.

Things Are So Bad In Venezuela That People Are Walking To Brazil For Medicine

Why doesn’t the government change course?

Why We Have a Second Amendment: Venezuela Plans to Give Firearms to Loyalists So They Can Purge Growing Resistance; more accurately, the regime has been giving firearms to chavistas for that purpose.

UPDATE
Linked to by Designs on the Truth. Thank you!

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Venezuela: 3 dead at yesterday’s demonstrations

Adding to recent casualties,
At Least 3 Die in Venezuela Protests Against Nicolás Maduro

Still, despite the deaths in recent protests, now numbering seven, Wednesday’s rallies attracted thousands of people, the latest in a string of demonstrations against the increasingly autocratic rule of Mr. Maduro. Labeled by organizers “the mother of all protests,” it showed that a sustained movement in the streets against Mr. Maduro may now be forming.

However, Many Poor Venezuelans Are Too Hungry to Join Antigovernment Protests (emphasis added)

Many of the impoverished residents of the vast slums that ring Caracas and other major cities are angry about a collapsing economy and food shortages. But Venezuela’s political unrest remains mostly confined to middle-class enclaves, underscoring the struggle the opposition here faces in trying to unseat an increasingly authoritarian government.

“All I have is hunger—I don’t care if the people protest or not,” said laborer Alfonzo Molero in a slum in Venezuela’s second-largest city, Maracaibo. “With what strength will I protest if my stomach is empty since yesterday?”

Until the slums rise up, Mr. Maduro will likely hang on, analysts say.

The European Union urges the government to “de-escalate” tensions while the Secretary of State Tillerson stated that

Tillerson says the U.S. is watching the situation closely and is working with others, particularly through the Organization of American States, to communicate its concerns to Venezuela.

Here is the situation as I see it:

Maduro will continue to blunder in office for the time being.

Venezuela’s military are allegedly involved in the drug trade while possibly being outnumbered by the government-armed colectivos. As I posted yesterday,

the popular militia has added another 50,000 members (link in Spanish) – to an estimated total of 500,000. The regular armed forces total 160,000 with army reserves of 25,000, according to Clarín.

Yet, it is impossible to know the actual number of colectivos. The military may not see it in its best interest to fight them. [added:] Additionally, the military control the food supply, and will do so with any humanitarian aid.

The opposition is disarmed, and quite fragmented, aside from being mostly socialist.

Foreign actors such as Iran, Russia and the FARC are in cahoots with the government, especially Cuba, which controls the intelligence agencies. Maduro lived in Cuba in his younger days. Venezuela’s own vice-president, El Aissami, is in the U.S. Treasury Department’s kingpins list,  which  has frozen nearly US $3 billion of his assets, and he is reportedly linked to the sale of Venezuelan passports to Hezbollah.

The State has spent twelve-plus years consolidating power around itself. The amount it spends on its oil-sponsored international propaganda machine is immense. Everything is the fault of the U.S. “empire”.

The U.S. and the EU could implement sanctions against the regime, but should not intervene directly. Until Venezuela’s regime recognizes that it has become an international pariah, nothing is going to change.

Socialism fails. Let Venezuela live up to it.

In other Venezuelan news, General Motors Quits Venezuela After Officials Seize Plant

Announcing “immediate cessation of its operations in the country,” GM accused local officials of causing “irreparable damage” to the company and its 2,678 workers and 79 dealers in the country. GM said it would pay separation benefits “as far as the authorities permit.”

GM’s production in its Venezuelan plant had plummeted following the implementation of currency controls under Hugo Chávez.

At the blogs:
Must-read: Terror in Caracas

Venezuela on the March: Reaction

Venezuela seizes General Motors plant as property of the state

Cuba’s dictatorship warns other countries not to meddle in its affairs in Venezuela

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Cuba: Venezuela’s Maduro drops by for advice

Nicolás Maduro sought advice from Raúl Castro

Venezuela erupted into the fifth day of violent protests in a week Monday, as President Nicolas Maduro traveled to Cuba seeking support from fellow leftist leaders at a regional gathering.

The ALBA  meeting went as expected, and Maduro returned to a jeering crowd that pelted him,

Caracas Chronicles has photos of Sunday’s protests.

And then there’s this,

(h/t Babalu.

Post redone to include omitted material)

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