Squatters everywhere

Don't shoot. We're with the process.

Eastern Barquismeto is tense. Days ago, some folks squatted on lands set aside for a new housing development.

The legitimate owners tried to defend what belongs to them. They got insults and rocks in response.

They got a court order to remove the invaders. The squatters responded with more stones. The National Guard showed up and just stood by, doing nothing.

Meanwhile, tensions are also rising in the Quíbor Valley. On February 10th, the INTI (the government Land Institute, which “regulates” land tenancy in the country), was ordered to “rescue” 3,811 hectares there. Onion and other vegetable producers are worried and warn of plunging production if the land grab is consumated.

Squatting is also making its way into Barquisimeto itself. For months, an organized group known as FRIO (Frente Revolucionario de Inquilinos y Ocupantes, or Revolutionary Front of Renters and Occupiers) has been taking over houses and buildings in downtown Barquisimeto, fighting Lara State Police.Their leaders were arrested and released almost immediately. They’re behind many of the invasions in Lara since 2009.

Take a look around the area, and anyone can see abandoned places with signs indicating they’re being “guarded” or “protected” by committees or communal councils. Governor Henri Falcon is in a difficult position. Police are over-streched, and the nine hardcore Chavista mayors (are there any other kind?) are looking the other way.

The situation in Lara is not isolated from what’s happening in the rest of Venezuela. Invasions are becoming an everyday occurrence. What started in the rural areas is now being seen inside the cities. The number and magnitude of these acts has grown, and squatters are well organized. The Supreme Court has validated these actions.

Meanwhile at “La Pastoreña”, the squatters are still there and the owners are holding their own vigil. There’s no solution in sight. This is just one tiny conflict in one tiny corner of one big country, a story repeated hundreds of times nationwide.

Posted in infrastructure, Society | 2 Comments

A Roadmap Out of Cadivi

A shorter version of this post appears in Foreign Policy’s Democracy Labs blog

Say “macroeconomic adjustment” and Venezuelans immediately cast their minds back to 1989. That year, an IMF-inspired shock therapy program pushed through by President Carlos Andrés Pérez set-off serious rioting throughout the country, costing hundreds of lives and undermining governability for a generation to come. The memory of those traumatic events still colors policy discussions today.

As October 7th draws near, the opposition is thinking through its macroeconomic approach to transition.

At first blush, the parallels are jarring. Just as in 1988, the country faces a fixed, severely overvalued exchange rate; a structural budget deficit fed by a sprawling, loss-making state-owned enterprise sector; rigid price controls; and ruinous gasoline subsidies. It’s enough to give any Venezuelan macro-economist the heebie-jeebies.

So is the country is on the verge of another massively disruptive adjustment experience?

Not at all, for two reasons: the economic fundamentals of 2012 are nothing like those of 1988, and the opposition’s presidential candidate now is nothing like the one we had back then.

Barring an unexpected collapse in oil prices, Venezuela will face next year’s adjustment from a position of strength this time. It’s one thing for a petrostate to undertake structural adjustment with oil trading at $16 a barrel, and quite another to do it with a barrel selling for $110. Masses of petrodollars will be flowing into state coffers every day, and while the incoming government in 1989 found the cupboard almost completely bare, Venezuela’s net foreign asset position is now estimated at $72 billion.

Economist Miguel Angel Santos stresses another key difference between then and now: private sector firms had been accumulating dollar denominated debt fast in the years leading up to 1989, which amplified the impact of adjustment on the real economy. In recent years, by contrast, Venezuelan private firms have been deleveraging abroad.

If starting conditions are different, so is the approach of adjustment advocates. Henrique Capriles Radonski has explicitly rejected shock therapy, committing instead to a gradual approach that could make 2012’s experience – dare one say it? – nearly painless.

Here’s how: Continue reading

Posted in The Economy | Tagged , | 61 Comments

Boondoggle Chronicles (Updated, with pics)

Chinatown, Ortiz.

Over on the Latitude Blog, I go on and on about possibly Chávez’s craziest project yet: a high speed rail line between Tinaco, in Cojedes State, and Anaco, in Anzoátegui.

The really mind-blowing thing about this one?

They really are building it!

Update: Here are some pics from the site:

Giving proof through the night...

Welcome tourists ... not!

Raising the red, very red lantern

No housing crisis here

Those signs say "Venezuelans are SUCKAS"

This is what progress looks like

Posted in Chavez's mental health | 86 Comments

Everybody has his own Brazilian

João Santana: Hope You Can Cash In On

Three days after the Opposition primary, Chávez launched a famously weird attack  on the winner Henrique Capriles Radonski over and over in “cadena nacional”. But that was never going to be a winning strategy for October. You don’t reach the median voter with fire and brimstone, you reach him with telenovela fare – which is why you can be sure that, now that he has those majunches out of his system, Chávez will go back on a love offensive soon enough, probably even before the official campaign begins on July 1st.

Enter legendary Brazilian campaign operative João Santana.

Santana was the man behind Lula’s 2006 reelection and  Dilma Rouseff’s 2010 victory. He was also involved in Mauricio Funes’s 2009 win in El Salvador and even Olanta Humala admitted that he talked with him prior to his victory in Peru last year. He’s currently helping Danilo Medina, the candidate of the incumbent party for the upcoming presidential election in Dominican Republic next May.

Now, brazilian newspaper O Globo reports that the Chávez campaign hired Santana to “Lulify” him, helping him find a more conciliatory, moderate message that might appeal to the political center. Given recent developments, it might also be the preparation of a “Plan B” campaign if Chávez cannot run for reelection and someone else takes the baton.

With all the might of the State and an unlimited checkbook at his disposal, Chávez hopes that Santana can transform him from this.. …to this, in a matter of months. Easier said than done.

Posted in Politics, Polls, The Media | 76 Comments

Lesionology 101

Juan has a rapid react piece over on the Democracy Labs Blog.

Posted in Chavez cancer | 33 Comments

Chávez to undergo surgery, again

After disappearing for a few days (and leaving in his trail a swathe of rumours about his health), President Hugo Chávez reappeared today in what appeared to be a live broadcast from his home state of Barinas.

In a dramatic speech, with his daughter at his side (apparently holding back tears), with Vice-President Elías Jaua behind him wiping the sweat off his forehead, he admitted having gone to Cuba over the weekend for some medical tests, and announced that he is to have surgery again. He says doctors have discovered a “lesion” in the same area of his previous operation (the pelvic area) that requires surgery.

Venezuelan journalist Nelson Bocaranda had been tweeting about this all weekend long. Today many people chastised him and others for believing him. Turns out, he was right.

Posted in Chavez cancer, Cuba | 89 Comments

Greetings from Guaroristan

Hi there, this is Gustavo Hernandez Acevedo and I’m writing from Barquisimeto. I’m a card-carrying CNP journalist and starting today, a contributor to Caracas Chronicles.

You have probably read my comments as geha714, so you already know I spend too much time on the blog. Juan and Quico thought that as long as I was contributing there, I might as well do it here. I want to thank them for the opportunity. I’ll do my best to add a fun, Guaro take to proceedings here, and my hope is that I won’t let you down.

Ah mundo! Time to go. The work begins.

Posted in In Other News | Tagged | 63 Comments