Caracas Chronicles

For Wednesday, March 9, 2016. Translated by Javier Liendo.

“The only being who can give birth to another being, the woman; because we can’t, you give birth to us (…) I believe in human birth.”

Nicolás Maduro

It’s not easy to believe in cyborg births, granted. Nicolás tried to tug at our heartstrings by improvising insights about women. He didn’t carry it off. Among other things, he spoke more about el finado, the Army and Henry Ramos Allup, than about any woman who could serve as an example for his restricted audience. Security was absurd, even though he was in Miraflores.

The only relevant aspect of today’s cadena was the signing of the Emergency Decree N° 3, which extends Income Tax payment to salaries over 3,000 Tax Units. Beside that, Nicolás just rambled. 

Clear Priorities

Venezuela has no water, no food, no medicine. Each protest linked to these issues is blocked by the Government. But Nicolás demanded this Tuesday – shouting – that people take to the streets on Saturday, March 12 against the extension of the decree signed by Barack Obama, that marks Venezuela as an “unusual threat”.

He also signed Emergency Decree N° 2 to create the Mission cards, just after delivering the first five -out of his 300,000 goal for this year. This card delivers a direct subsidy of Bs. 14,500. He didn’t explain the origin of the funds, its sustainability in time or which establishments would accept it.

Enough of this filth!

Nicolás yelled. He wasn’t speaking about the massacre at Tumeremo but rather about the fact that the Army’s role in it has come into question. He developed two thesis within less than a minute of each other: paramilitary operations and a war between gangs. He said he ordered an investigation the second after he heard about it, that he touched all the keys (proving that powers are not autonomous): he called the General Attorney, the Ombudsman and he even ordered Padrino López to go out and defend military honor.

As if the Army didn’t already control the place, he said that everything would change with the creation of a “special military zone of protection;” that the Mining Belt project will make these areas peaceful. So Gold Reserve will have to impose order there, because they own the Mining Belt.

Military honor?

28 miners are missing, and Padrino López spoke about “the perfect synergy between the people and the Army.” His sense of opportunity is a match for his charisma.

He said that the massacre at Tumeremo was a “reprehensible” act. Just like Nicolás, he passionately insulted the opposition, to end up reproducing the same speech of any member of the PSUV’s National Leadership, instead of one more appropriate for a Defense minister. Nobody can discredit an institution already so tainted by partisanship.

Aside from that, the press sent many representatives to Tumeremo and some of them consistently presented their findings via Twitter. These included: checking the place where the massacre allegedly occurred and the method used to apprehend the miners. They even uploaded pictures that show bloodied clothes and bullet cases. Many of these details match survivor accounts.

The National Assembly

Approved today the creation of a special committee to investigate the disappearance of 28 miners at Tumeremo. Chavismo acted as expected: the Government is doing it right, paramilitary groups are to blame, accusations must be made responsibly, let’s not bring politics into this; pero eso sí, Héctor Rodríguez accused the Mayor of Sifontes municipality, Carlos Chancellor, and deputy Américo de Grazia, of being members of gold mafias holding control of the mines in Bolívar, and he also said that he would quit his seat in Parliament if evidence emerged that he rented a whole floor in a clinic for his child’s birth.

The opposition majority denied the Agreement to condemn the extension of the Obama decree against Venezuela -which earned them the title of “apátridas”-. The Bill for the Framework Law on Referendums was presented for its first reading next Thursday. ahead of invoking a recall referendum: since the MUD announced the simultaneous application of a referendum, a constitutional amendment and a call for resignation, to accelerate the end of Nicolás’s regime.

OAS

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro said he’s standing by for the National Assembly’s proposal on Venezuela’s political crisis: “I’m yet to receive a formal request from the Venezuelan National Assembly. Once we receive it, we’ll analyze it according to the country’s judicial and political variables,” he explained.

Despite Almagro’s prudence, Delcy Rodríguez called him “vile and a coward”; forbidding him from speaking about Venezuela because his “post at the OAS is merely an administrative one”; all of this because Almagro hasn’t said a word about the extension of Obama’s decree.

In closing

Venezuelan scientist Raymond Orta Martínez, revealed in an exclusive interview for Televisa, that an expert analysis he practiced on two signatures by el finado, appearing on the Official Gazette N° 40,090, dated January 15, 2013, determined they were identical. Orta explained that nobody can sign exactly the same way twice.

These possible forgeries authorized Elías Jaua’s appointments as Minister of Foreign Relations and as Sixth Vice-President of the Council of Ministers. Nicolás himself brought those decrees “signed” from Cuba, on January 11 of that same year. Even their Photoshop is bad.