Caracas Chronicles

For Wednesday, August 17, 2016. Translated by Javier Liendo.

Nicolás kept the white suite and black tie he wore during the inauguration of Danilo Medina’s second presidential term in the Dominican Republic. Whether or not he was aware that the suit was part of etiquette protocols imposed during Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship, he sported it, took more pictures than necessary, and then returned to Miraflores for his cadena.

Tatú’s height was larger than Nicolás’s intellect, that’s why he started off by greeting the Chinese representatives of the Mixed Committee, later attributing olympic triumphs to himself -promising resources to the athletes that will go to Tokyo 2020-; moving on to define el finado as “the great architect of Venezuela’s integration mechanisms with the world”; then mixing it up with the successful reopening of the border with Colombia, and after celebrating peace and justice with that country, he declared himself at war to save Mercosur. In Nicolás’s fantastic isolation, statements like Uruguay’s about Mercosur are proof of their moral strength to support him.

Delcy’s agreements

Nicolás established contact with the Foreign Affairs minister because she’s on “a tour in Arabia Saudita, concerning oil, energy and economy,” to create agreements between OPEC’s producing and non-producing countries, as she uses Twitter to insult other nations. According to Nicolás, Delcy Rodríguez’s meetings will help stabilize oil’s fair price at around $70 per barrel. “It would be a balanced price that would help stabilize the world’s finances so humanity’s energy supply is guaranteed,” he said, while Delcy added that they’re optimistically building consensus: “We now know that we must work with coordination.” Sadly, this idea’s worthless in interior relations, because Venezuela was again [dis]regarded as the most miserable nation in the world according to the Bloomberg’s Misery Index.

No time for ambivalence

José Miguel Vivanco (Human Rights Watch) gave Susana Malcorra, Argentine Foreign Affairs minister, the slap of her life, stating that her candidacy as U.N. Secretary General has made her keep an ambiguous stance regarding Venezuela’s crisis. Vivanco’s statement specified that during the OAS’s Permanent Council session in May, to discuss Venezuela’s situation, Malcorra tried to justify her stance by supporting the fictional dialogue. Meanwhile, and once he knew about HRW’s report, president Macri ratified his commitment with the defense of Human Rights and democracy, and Malcorra -in another meeting- said that she knew that Venezuela’s situation is severe and that the recall referendum must take place in 2016, although these notions don’t necessarily imply a critical stance against Nicolás.

Vivanco denounced political prisoners, tortures, the TSJ’s partiality, the helplessness of dissidents before the chavista government; public worker layoffs for political reasons and the humanitarian crisis. In his words: “The problem in Venezuela is not lack of dialogue, but the government’s repression, aimed at crushing the opposition with which they say they want to negotiate. The asymmetry between the government -which concentrates almost all power- and the opposition is total. The Democratic Charter was created precisely to face situations like this.” He concludes inviting Argentina to align with Almagro and apply pressure on Venezuela to achieve concrete results; because this country has no time for ambivalence.

He didn’t read Vivanco

According to the Ombudsman: “The term ‘humanitarian crisis’ can’t be manipulated to harm the government.” That’s how he responds to U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon’s statements regarding his concern for Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis. Tarek William Saab spoke, not against the violation of Human Rights but against his office’s potential status degradation before the U.N. Tarek isn’t as disturbed by political partiality as he is with the publication of the report of the Sub-Committee on Accreditation of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI,) and that’s why he said that: “GANHRI isn’t the U.N.” Following the government’s propaganda discourse, he argued that he’s worked with over 500 NGOs in the country -as if defense for Human Rights could be measured by the amount of alliances instead of coherence, consistency and results- and that his office’s effectiveness has improved by 57%. Hinterlances must’ve been responsible for this statistic.

Why are you being degraded, Tarek?

AN deputy Delsa Solórzano said that the Ombudsman’s Office hasn’t any efforts regarding the repeated Human Rights violations committed against prisoners for political reasons, despite all the complaints that have been made, making Saab’s indifference the only constant in his tenure as Ombudsman. She emphasized that the Ombudsman’s Office never processed even the cases of Human Rights violations certified by the U.N. and said that the amount of political prisoners (about 130 people right now) changes frequently because new arbitrary arrests take place weekly.

Bernal’s Caracazo

From Carúpano, Sucre state, the PSUV’s territorial vice-president -don’t ask me what that office means- Freddy Bernal, stated. “the opposition wants to repeat a Caracazo on September 1st, and I say to them: here’s the chavista people, ready for battle.” The guy who’s supposedly working to strengthen the party’s structure destroyed by Nicolás, added: “Let the Venezuelan opposition set the date, the time and the battlefield (…) we’ll defeat them as many times as necessary,” repeating the practice of referring to PSUV supporters as troops, to protests as battles, and to minimum partisan discipline as willingness to defend the government.

…

Nicolás promised in his cadena a “revolutionary offensive” from September 1st to December 31st, to conclude a victorious year -with an inflation rate of 700%-, saying that the PSUV has a multidimensional strength constituted by the liberators and el finado. Sadly, minister Néstor Reverol spoke by his side. Moral stature isn’t his forte, but the OLPs to come are supposed to yield him some result. Nicolás also promised to activate a series of incentives to inspire people to save money, although he doesn’t care what Fedecamaras says and moreover, he announced a surprise for September 1st. Who announces a surprise? The thing about Nicolás’s intellect isn’t a joke, my friend.