Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Venezuela: Maduro fiddles on TV while Rome burns

Nero couldn’t fiddle while Rome burned, since, for starters, fiddles had not yet been invented, but Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is still on TV attempting diversions from the country’s chaos. . . and failing,
Maduro’s awkward TV shows raise hackles amid Venezuela crisis

A girl complains that hungry classmates are fainting at school, and Maduro chides her for not doing more for them. A boy says he missed a big soccer game because he was hospitalized, and Maduro recommends he find it on YouTube.

The unpopular leftist president’s hours-long televised visits to clinics or schools are meant to soften his image, but foes say they instead highlight his disconnect from a national economic crisis in which millions of people are missing meals.

The facts (emphasis added):

Steeped in the fourth year of a recession, around 93 percent of Venezuelans cannot afford to buy sufficient food and 73 percent of them have lost weight in the last year, according to a recent study by three universities.

People protest that their local bakeries are closed.

Criminality is horrific: Venezuela shocked as children arrested for soldiers’ killings

The authorities in Venezuela say they have arrested six children in connection with the killing of two soldiers.

The soldiers, two sergeants from the national guard, were stabbed to death near a bar in the capital, Caracas, last weekend.

The crime has shocked the country, as the ages of the children now in custody range from six to 15 years.

They are said to belong to a gang called Los Cachorros (The Puppies).

At the OAS, secretary-general Luis Almagro

is lobbying the 34-nation, Washington-based body to oust Venezuela from its ranks unless President Nicolás Maduro permits elections and eases a clampdown on opponents and the press.

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

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Hugo Chavez: Banned in Venezuela

Nicolás Maduro apparently has solved all of Venezuela’s problems, so now he’s watching soap operas, and he’s not amused (video in Spanish):

Hugo Chávez TV series faces backlash from family and President Maduro. El Comandante, which Maduro called imperialist ‘trash’, retells the Venezuelan leader’s rise to power, claiming his policies contributed to current economic crisis

Produced by Sony Pictures Television, El Comandante premieres this week throughout Latin America and in the spring will be broadcast in the US by the Telemundo network.

Conceived by a staunch Chávez critic, the 60-episode series aims to retell the leftist leader’s improbable rise to power from his roots in poor, rural Venezuelawhile showing how the former tank commander’s authoritarianism laid the groundwork for the country’s current economic mess.

Former Venezuelan trade minister Moisés Naim said he came up with the idea after spending years trying to explain Chávez’s hold over Venezuelans to friends in Washington, where he now lives.

Sixty episodes. Yikes. Andrés Parra, who played Pablo Escobar, is cornering the villain market.

Hardly surprising, the new series is banned:

. . . in Venezuela, the National Telecommunications Commission banned the series and launched a campaign Tuesday urging Venezuelans to “report any cable channel that insults Hugo Chavez’s legacy by broadcasting the series ‘El Comandante.'”

Adán, Hugo’s real-life brother and Maduro’s Minister for Culture, announced not only new propaganda shows documentaries on Hugo but also

that two new Venezuelan productions would faithfully retell Chavez’s story: a film called “Chavez, El Comandante” and a series called “Chavez de Verdad” (The True Chavez).

It makes you wonder how they’ll be paying for all this.

In other Venezuela news from Prof. Hanke,

No matter what, El Comandante Will Not Be Televised.

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Venezuela’s new VP’s Hezbollah connection UPDATED

Emili Blasco, author of Boomerang Chavez: The Fraud That Led to Venezuela’s Collapse, reports that Nicolás Maduro’s new vice-president is none other than Tarek El Aissami, who, as you may recall has been tied to the Cartel of the Suns and to Islamic networks. El Aissmi was a key figure as Hugo Chávez allowed Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaeda to use Venezuela as a bridge to other Latin American countries.

Blasco asserts that El Aissami’s ascension blows the pretense of dialogue with the opposition (link in Spanish), and that

“El cambio sitúa a El Aissami como número dos del Gobierno, restando poder a Diosdado Cabello, quien, aunque fuera del Ejecutivo, se venía considerando como el segundo hombre fuerte del chavismo.”
[my translation: The change places El Aissami as number two in the government, subtracting power from Diosdado Cabello, who, even not in the Executive branch, was regarded as chavismo’s second strongman.]

There’s also the issue of succession, as the country becomes more unstable,

“Con este nombramiento, el exministro de Justicia e Interior y hasta ahora gobernador de Aragua se coloca en excelente posición para la sucesión de Maduro en el caso de que en el chavismo se produjera un relevo. Si debido a la crisis económica y humanitaria de Venezuela, Maduro se viera forzado a dejar el poder, su vicepresidente le sustituiría hasta las elecciones presidenciales de finales de 2018.”
[my translation: With this nomination, the former Minister of Justice and Interior and current governor of Aragua is in an excellent position as Maduro’s successor would chavismo need an heir. If Maduro was forced to leave office due to Venezuela’s economic and humanitarian crisis, his vice-president would serve until the 2018 presidential elections.]

The WSJ explains:

The governor takes the vice presidency amid a push by the opposition to oust Mr. Maduro through a recall referendum, which polls show the highly unpopular president would likely lose if it were to take place.

Mr. El Aissami would assume the presidency if a referendum takes place and Mr. Maduro were to lose, although the proposed vote is tied up in courts amid government allegations that the opposition used fraudulent signatures in its petition.

El Aissami is not the only cabinet member who the U.S. is investigating on drug charges. Hugo’s brother, Adán Chávez, was named Minister of Culture, and Néstor Reverol, the current interior minister, last year was indicted on drug-smuggling charges by the U.S., highlighting, in Blasco’s opinion, Venezuela’s emergence as a narcostate.

UPDATE
Essential listening on El Aissami (h/t The Tower):

Update 2
Must-read: Venezuela’s New VP is a Suspected Drug Smuggler with Ties to Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2014 that while El Aissami was its governor, Aragua was home to the explosives company Parchin Chemical Industries and the drone-makers Qods Aviation, two companies owned by Iran’s military and sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council for their involvement in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

After Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Venezuela last August, Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, speculated that one of the reasons for the trip was to shore up Iran’s ballistic missile program. Ottolenghi cited a recently-discovered contract between the two countries to jointly produce solid rocket fuel.

RELATED:
From Nov. 2014: The Iran-Cuba-Venezuela NexusThe West underestimates the growing threat from radical Islam in the Americas.
From August 2016: [Iran’s foreign minister] Zarif Leveraging Latin America Trip to Boost Iran’s Ballistic Missile Program

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.



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Venezuela: Unhappy new year

While Venezuela Releases Ex-Presidential Candidate Rosales, Student Activists (Rosales will remain under house arrest), David Paulin writes about Nicolás Maduro’s fantasy Christmas,

Maduro, the True Believer, puts political ideology above grim reality. He is thus clueless about the fact that his rosy television spot shows holiday scenes that no longer exist in Venezuela — not after decades of bread-and-circuses populism culminating in what the late Hugo Chávez, the firebrand socialist and Maduro’s mentor, called “21st century socialism.” Now as in communist Cuba, Venezuela has achieved true social equality: everybody is poor. Cuba and Venezuela are close allies.

Caracas Chronicles has the roundups:
End-of-the-year Social Conflict Map Update

Eddy’s 2016 Roundup

A stroll down the festering crack-den that was Venezuela in 2016, as seen through Caracas Chronicles. Courtesy of Eddy, who wishes you a Happy 2017.

Presenting the Golden Tropical Mierda Awards

And here’s Venezuela News and View’s vision of 2017.

The military, however, makes money by trafficking food as the people continue to go hungry. Cue Venezuela’s Ration Cards:

So there we have it, the infamous ‘ration card’ – the end result in every communist country. China, Cuba, Nicaragua, the Soviet Union, Angola and Mozambique.



Venezuelans are fleeing to Brazil for medical care, overwhelming its hospitals and morgues.

Venezuelans Hawk Snacks on Dominican Streets as Revolution Dies (video below the fold)
[Read more…]

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Venezuela’s Bolivar bill withdrawal will benefit organized crime

InSight Crime analysis article by Tristan Clavel:
Venezuela’s Withdrawal of Bolivar Bill Promises to Benefit Organized Crime

What is likely is that the closure of the international frontier will strengthen criminal operations on both sides of the border, something that was observed during the last closure, which started in August 2015 and lasted until August this year.

As InSight Crime previously explained, smugglers were pushed more into unofficial routes controlled by Colombian criminal groups (“bandas criminales” – BACRIM) and rebel armies (the National Liberation Army — ELN, for example, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — FARC), who all tax contraband smugglers moving across the border.

Read the full analysis here.

Venezuela’s Bank-Note Ban Slams Colombians Too. President Nicolás Maduro’s sudden move to outlaw 100-bolivar bill leaves border traders holding the bag

Militarized Venezuelan City Becomes No Man’s Land amid Devastating Riots, Looting

Rioting and scapegoating, Venezuela Deploys Troops After Weekend Riots. Stores owned by Chinese immigrants suffer heavy damage in unrest

China, a key economic ally, on Monday called on Venezuela to protect Chinese immigrants and their property.

“China is very concerned about the development of the situation in Venezuela,” China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a news conference in Beijing.

The lootings went well beyond the Chinese businesses, with everything including markets, hardware stores and clothing shops destroyed by the mobs.

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Venezuela will be expelled from Mercosur

over its human rights record,
Venezuela Removed From Trade Group Over Human-Rights Record. The decision comes as the country’s economy is ravaged by food shortages and runaway inflation

The debate over Venezuela’s role in the trade bloc comes as new conservative, market-friendly governments in South America are at odds with Mr. Maduro’s socialist policies and crackdown on opposition dissenters. Mercosur members Brazil and Argentina led a recent effort to block Venezuela from taking its turn as the trade group’s rotating leader.

Mercosur’s full members are are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname are associate countries.

The handwriting has been on the wall for months. Caracas Chronicles:

Barring an unlikely 180-degree turn by either the four founding countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) or the Bolivarian Republic, MERCOSUR will strip the B.R. of V of any voting rights in the organization (it would still have a voice) over its refusal to adopt the group’s legal framework. And neither side is in a mood to back down.

The Foreign Ministers of Uruguay and Paraguay agreed that unless Venezuela changes its mind, the decision reached by the four other members back in September will go forward.

. . .

The impasse in MERCOSUR is not new: since it was admitted to the bloc back in 2012, Venezuela has been a divisive presence in the organization. The country has refused to accept any responsibilities or adapt its institutional framework in anyway while expecting to reap all the benefits.

At the same time, Caracas has tried to shift the group’s trade-centered  raison d’etre into a more political one. Venezuela got away with it in part thanks to the loyalty of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Dilma Rousseff, but after the election of Mauricio Macri in Argentina and the long impeachment process in Brazil, Mercosur became a deeply lonely place for the Bolivarian republic.

This step is the right thing to do. I don’t expect that Maduro will change his ways; to the contrary.

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Venezuela: Maduro’s nephews guilty of drug charges

The nephews of Nicolás Maduro’s wife Cilia, Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, 30 years old, and “Franqui” Francisco Flores de Freitas, 31 years old, were found guilty of guilty of trying to ship 800 kilograms of cocaine to the U.S. by a federal grand jury last Friday.

Venezuelan President’s Nephews Found Guilty on Drug Charges. Relatives of Nicolás Maduro were convicted of trying to ship 800 kilograms of cocaine to the U.S.

After less than two weeks of testimony, the jury of seven women and five men deliberated for approximately six hours to reach the guilty verdict.

Prosecutors say the nephews were planning to send planes loaded with cocaine from Venezuela to Honduras, with the U.S. as the ultimate destination, in hopes of receiving tens of millions of dollars in profit. They were arrested last year by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Haiti, a few days before the first shipment was due to take place.

Interestingly, the defense team was led by

white-shoe law firms Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP and Sidley Austin LLP

Commenter Gringo reminds us

Michelle and Barack Obama met each other while working at Sidley Austin. Bernadine Dohrn, Weatherperson and the wife of Bill Ayers, also worked at Sidley Austin.

Boies Schiller charges $1,000+/hour to criminals with very deep pockets. The nephews’ jury took only six hours to reach a verdict. They now face a maximum of life in prison.

Related:
Military and Police Corruption: Venezuela’s Growing Evil

Venezuela, a failing state

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Venezuela: Jail for demonstrators, says Maduro

Following up on yesterday’s post on the so-called talks between the government and the official opposition,
Maduro Threatens to Imprison Venezuela Opposition for Advocating Demonstrations

Talks between President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition meant to defuse the country’s political crisis are off to a shaky start after the embattled leftist leader threatened to jail rivals advocating for street demonstrations.

Because the Popular Will is not the official opposition, says Maduro (emphasis added),

Mr. Maduro, speaking on his weekly television program Tuesday night, directed his stern warning to the Popular Will party, calling it a terrorist organization, after it said it objected to the opposition alliance’s plan to ease protest pressure on the president in favor of Vatican-mediated talks that are endorsed by the U.S. State Department.

Which brings us back to Capt. Louis Renault,

Opposition members in Venezuela have suspended the “trial” of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, ahead of talks with the government, a trial which would have been a symbolic gesture anyway,

Analysts had said Nicolas Maduro’s “trial” would have been largely symbolic because the constitution gives the president immunity from such processes. The hearing, which Maduro has called a “coup attempt,” had been slated for Tuesday. Maduro has said those involved in trying to depose him should be jailed.

In other news,
VENEZUELA TO CITY DWELLERS: GROW YOUR OWN!

Last, but not least, Leaked DEA Tape Ties Venezuelan First Lady to Drug Money

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