July 1, 2017

WP OPINION: The region cannot just stand by as Venezuela veers toward civil war

By Editorial Board June 30 at 7:17 PM

"VENEZUELA’S POLITICAL and humanitarian crisis, which has long been desperate and deadly, this week tipped toward the surreal. On Tuesday, a helicopter swooped over the Supreme Court and interior ministry, dropping grenades and firing shots; President Nicolás Maduro called it a U.S.-backed coup attempt. But no one was injured in the incident, and when the pilot of the helicopter turned out to be an actor who has played a police commando in the movies — and who has yet to be detained by authorities — opposition leaders understandably wondered whether the incident was orchestrated by Mr. Maduro.

If so, it wouldn’t be surprising. The corrupt clique around the president, which inherited the leftist populist movement founded by Hugo Chávez, is resorting to increasingly far-fetched tactics to combat a mass protest movement that has the support of the vast majority of Venezuelans. It has dispensed tons of tear gas at the daily marches and demonstrations, and fired thousands of bullets, both rubber and real; at least 78 people have been killed since the unrest began in April. Five died on Wednesday."

-snip-

Read more here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-region-cannot-just-stand-by-as-venezuela-veers-toward-civil-war/2017/06/30/d8d2989c-5cf7-11e7-9b7d-14576dc0f39d_story.html?utm_term=.87ea58a44bfe

July 1, 2017

Mexico takes lead in Venezuelan dictatorship debacle

Mexico takes lead to rein in Venezuela – and sends message to voters at home

Whitney Eulich, Correspondent

JUNE 30, 2017 MEXICO CITY

"Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced this week that if his government’s “Bolivarian Revolution” were ever threatened, his supporters would turn to weapons.

“What we failed to achieve with votes, we would do with weapons,” he said at a rally drumming up support for his plan to rewrite the Constitution.

The statement was a further blow to Venezuela’s struggling democracy. But it also spotlighted the inability of regional neighbors to agree on a resolution condemning the Andean nation’s humanitarian emergency and human rights abuses.

For several years, neighboring countries and international actors, even the pope, have tried to help stem Venezuela’s mounting crises. Most recently, Mexico has taken the reins, standing at the forefront of the Organization of American States (OAS) to call for a resolution.

“Mexico will not stop using all diplomatic channels, including the OAS, in order to have a constructive impact on achieving a peaceful solution to the restoration of democracy” in Venezuela, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said at the University of Miami last month. “We have a country that, in fact, is no longer a functional democracy.”

-snip-

Read more here: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2017/0630/Mexico-takes-lead-to-rein-in-Venezuela-and-sends-message-to-voters-at-home

June 29, 2017

Maduro infuriated, as the rest of the world yawns

over his staged helicopter fiasco.

"Meanwhile, Caracas has blasted other governments for remaining largely silent with regards to the armed assault. Foreign Minister Samuel Moncada accused several countries of “feigning ignorance” out of support for the right-wing opposition in the country and confirmed that neither Canada, the US or a single country in Europe had issued an official statement.

“In Europe we have still not received the first reaction. Spain has not even bothered to pick up the phone to condemn this attack… We are still waiting for a reaction from countries of the Organization of American States, Mexico, [and] Argentina,” said the FM.

“How can we believe these countries that defend human rights [one day] and the next they pretend to have dementia?… There is a campaign of hostility against Venezuela and the best example of that is what has happened today, they do not care about Venezuelans,” he added."

-snip-

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13209 (Maduro's English language mouthpiece)

Meanwhile, as the world is distracted by this stunt...

The Supreme Tribunal strips authority from the Prosecutor General, confiscates her accounts and bans her from leaving the country
5 more students murdered while protesting (shot in head... like Che used to do!)
Thousands of voting centers and schools are declared "Military Security Zones"
Declaration that protesting the unConstitutional referendum is punishable by 10 years in jail, and
Maracay is in flames
Maduro claims what he cannot gain by the vote, he will gain with guns.

But, not to worry. I understand that the big news is they found a new fossil in Patagonia!

June 28, 2017

A dangerous time to be a journalist in Venezuela.

Día del Periodista 2017: Journalism amid Fear
By Gustavo Hernández A. - June 27, 2017

"Day after day, media workers are facing a shocking proliferation of aggressions as we try to cover the most consequential protests in living memory. Meanwhile radio and TV stations are routinely shut down for refusing the path of self-censorship. So pardon us if Día del Periodista feels a little more momentous than usual this year. These are just not normal times.

Journalism is becoming an extreme sport here. Foreign journos face all kinds of obstacles including getting banned from the country as well as getting their broadcast signals taken off the air. It’s bad enough that simply being on the receiving end of public insults and ridicule barely seems worth mentioning anymore: it’s the new normal...

...Far from following in the Libertador’s footsteps, today’s government has sought to quash down on freedom of the press through intimidation, persecution, and, more and more, straight-up physical assaults.

Take Elyangelica González, Caracas correspondent for the U.S. Spanish-language TV network Univisión and Colombian radio network Caracol Radio.

On March 31st, she was savagely attacked by several members of the National Guard near the building of the Supreme Court (TSJ) where she was supposed to cover an official press conference. Part of the incident was caught on tape, which soon went viral."

-snip-

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/06/27/dia-del-periodista-2017-journalism-amid-fear/

June 28, 2017

Brazil bans tear gas exports to Venezuela

The Politics Of Tears
By César Crespo - June 28, 2017

Years from now, when we think back on 2017, the first thing to come to mind will be a cloud of tear gas. But did you know that most of the thousands of tear gas canisters fired on protesters had to be bought abroad?

In fact, most of the tear gas for repressing Venezuela’s protest movement is Made in Brazil. Nor is the Brazilian government an innocent bystander in all this: under Brazilian law, tear gas made in the country needs export authorization from the government.

Brazil’s tear gas pipeline exemplifies the attitude of the international community all year: a kind of realpolitik you could describe as pragmatic cynicism. “If Venezuelans choose to tear gas one another like brutes,” the feeling goes, “why shouldn’t our companies walk away with a piece of the pie?”

Last week, finally, we began to see some pushback against that, as Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense banned the Rio de Janeiro-based company Condor Tecnologias Não-Letais from selling 23 tons of tear gas (approximately 80,000 tear gas canisters) to the Venezuelan government – one half of the water and a “little” gas Maduro says he’s using to control the 2017 protests – as the body count climbs toward 80.

-snip-

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/06/28/the-politics-of-tears/

http://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/06/21/internacional/1498078055_852403.html?id_externo_rsoc=TW_BR_CM

June 28, 2017

Yet another "false flag" moment in Venezuela.

This time, the government accuses the National Assembly of staging (yet another) coup, courtesy of a self styled Rambo, who stole a helicopter and dropped "grenades" on the TSJ (Venezuela's version of the Supreme Court). But not before a poorly produced YouTube "rebellion" video was made. The only thing missing? Background music from the Benny Hill Show! (Yakety Sax)

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/06/28/the-chopper-coupster-false-flag-or-random-lunatic/

Want to read Maduro's version of this same event?

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13207

June 28, 2017

Venezuela's Madman Maduro: If we can't achieve with votes, we will achieve with violence

Translation: “I say this for the whole world to hear, and I hope that the world would listen after 90 days of violence, destruction and death, if Venezuela falls into chaos and violence, if the bolivarian revolution is destroyed, we’ll fight back, we’ll never surrender and what we couldn’t achieve through votes, we’d do with guns, like Bolívar, Sucre and Negro Primero did before us. Make no mistake, we want peace, we’re peaceful men and women, but we’re fighters.” Nicolás Maduro, 28/06/2017

Read more here: https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/06/28/wayward-pilot/

June 27, 2017

Venezuela/Maduro's list of "approved" candidates to rewrite Constitution

CNE Releases List of Approved Candidates for Elections to Constituent Assembly
Source: Venezuela Analysis (Maduro's English language mouthpiece)
Caracas, June 26, 2017

"Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) released Thursday a list of approved candidates for elections to the National Constituent Assembly to be held on July 30.

Once elected, the 545 delegates to the ANC will set to work on drafting a new constitution for the South American nation, which will subsequently be approved via a national referendum.

The ANC will be made up of 364 territorial delegates elected by municipality as well as 181 “sectorial” representatives who are chosen by their constituencies. The sectorial delegates include commune activists, workers, indigenous people, students, businesspeople, farmers and fishing workers, senior citizens, and people living with disabilities."

-snip-

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13205

It's good to be the king....

June 27, 2017

Venezuela: Political prisoners tortured, forced to eat excrement

In Venezuela, prisoners say abuse is so bad they are forced to eat pasta mixed with excrement
By Rachelle Krygier and Joshua Partlow
June 24
CARACAS, Venezuela

"...Some demonstrators say they are picked up by security forces who manhandle them and hold them in overcrowded detention centers. The worst treatment appears to be meted out by the intelligence service and the armed forces, whose prisoners have endured regular beatings and sometimes other forms of physical and sexual abuse, according to interviews with former detainees, defense attorneys and human rights advocates. While Venezuelan security forces have been accused of using excessive force in the past, the upsurge in such allegations has alarmed human rights activists.


“We’ve noted a great increase in the number of torture and cruel, inhumane-treatment cases,” El Fakih said, noting there are no definitive numbers on the phenomenon. “I can say that the increase has been exponential.”

The office of President Nicolás Maduro — as well as the National Guard, the National Police and the Ministry of the Interior — did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the allegations. But the government has publicly defended its actions against the demonstrators and reiterated its commitment to human rights.

and

“At least 15 said they were forced to eat raw pasta with human excrement — the officers allegedly put tear gas powder in their noses so they would be forced to open their mouths to eat,” the Human Rights Watch report read."

-snip-

Read more here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/in-venezuela-prisoners-say-abuse-is-so-bad-they-are-forced-to-eat-pasta-mixed-with-excrement/2017/06/23/39a0c85e-4acb-11e7-987c-42ab5745db2e_story.html?utm_term=.646ebbf9f62b

June 23, 2017

Venezuela student killed, on camera, by Maduro's brownshirts

https://twitter.com/vivoplaynet/status/877995127377084416

How do you spin this, Maduro apologists?

“It’s an heroic effort worth praising,” was the phrase Nicolás used yesterday to describe the repressive streak of his forces during protests, claiming before international media that the officers disperse demonstrations with water and “a little tear-gas,” without firearms, shotguns or pellets.

Shortly after that, in the Francisco Fajardo highway in front of La Carlota air base, a soldier shot 22-year Nursing student David José Vallenilla at close range. Three pellets in the thorax. The boy died after having been taken to Clínica El Ávila.

Every video out there proves that the soldier shot David with rage several times. It wasn’t a dissuasive exercise, he didn’t aim at the legs but at the chest, every time, even when David had was already on the ground.

It’s not necessary to kill to restore public order, but Interior minister Néstor Reverol started his set of tweets reporting the alleged “recurrent siege against La Carlota air base” – he uses the word ‘siege’ as glibly as he uses ‘terrorist’ – and urged the MUD to “disband violent groups,” once again emphasizing that responsibility is individual before the law, as if security forces didn’t answer to him and superiors weren’t accountable as well."

-snip-

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/06/23/shot-down-at-la-carlota/