Caracas Chronicles

This Thursday, with huge areas of the country flooded, with more citizens infected with diphtheria, Nicolás chose to speak about the OPEC’s agreement to reduce oil production as a personal achievement and about the Carnavales de El Callao

Nicolás’s imaginary country lacks footholds and a sense of opportunity. It’s one thing that his people prepare his speeches to turn him into a champion of good news in a collapsed country, and quite another is that he decides to deny that country. That stubborn exercise of denial makes it impossible to find -and agree upon- the necessary solutions. This Thursday, with huge areas of the country flooded, with more citizens infected with diphtheria, Nicolás chose to speak about the OPEC’s agreement to reduce oil production as a personal achievement and about the Carnavales de El Callao -recently named an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity- as an event only possible under his rule.

The tyranny bit

Nicolás warned the Democratic Unity Roundtable that he’d take other actions against them: “To the MUD Today I say: keep calm, don’t get any ideas and respect our people’s Christmas,” claiming that opposition governors have done nothing to prevent or solve the issues, that the conspirators at Miami’s 8th street won’t be able to stop the PSUV and that there’s an attack on social networks against his impeccable government. Now we know where the head of CONATEL gets his ideas.

The con[cilia]tion bit

He convened the country’s businessman to the National Economy Council this Tuesday, to create new mechanisms to defend economy and productive development: “to reach an agreement for Venezuela’s economic stability,” attributing the disgrace of our economy to foreign financial agents. According to Nicolás, a lot of businessmen told him to count them in.

The cara’e tabla bit

The rains have affected more than 1,000 families in Carabobo in the last few days. Nicolás ordered an investigation to find the people responsible for the obstructed sewers that caused the floods in Puerto Cabello: “I expect that report to take measures and determine responsibilities,” supporting Jorge Arreaza, who claimed that the previous administrations of Henrique Salas Römer and Henrique Salas Feo are to blame for the damage, even mentioning their yachts. Nicolás said that he’ll repay the material losses suffered by the victims in Puerto Cabello through the Misión Mi Casa Bien Equipada.

The steady rains

The rain is welcome, I’m not afraid of it. Let’s rejoice because it’s holy water

He had enough moustache to claim that the rains haven’t caused more damage thanks to the measures taken by his government. He doesn’t read the same people that you and I do. In his words: “The rain is welcome, I’m not afraid of it. Let’s rejoice because it’s holy water.” The collapse of roads, the floods, the evacuations, the disappearances, the dead, are they all welcome? The panic that anybody can feel in this circumstances doesn’t lie in his words but in the sad certainty that it catches us with a failed State and a weaker infrastructure, due to poor maintenance and lack of investment on drainage systems. The heavy and constant rains have already caused schools to suspend activities in several states and the declaration of emergency in several municipalities in the country. Civil Protection expects another 48 hours of rainfall, accompanied by electrical activities caused by the steady rains.

Judicial cynicism

The chain of command remains unpunished as the trial for the homicide of student Bassil Alejandro Da Costa Frías, which took place on February 12th, 2014, during an opposition protest, comes to an end. SEBIN officer José Ramón Perdomo Camacho, 43, was found guilty of qualified homicide with premeditation and ignoble motive, and of misuse of institutional weapon, for which he was sentenced to a little less than maximum punishment, 29 years and six months in prison. Two commissioners, two detectives and one inspector of SEBIN were acquitted in the same trial, was well as a deputy sergeant of the Army. It remains to be seen whether the sentence says that Perdomo was following orders and that he was under the command of then Interior minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres -another lackey who’s talking now about leadership and future, without a shred of decency-.

Predictable cynicism

The signature-verifier, Jorge Rodríguez, said that the Democratic Unity Roundtable can’t give an ultimatum to the peace of the Republic and that the PSUV will insist on keeping negotiations open “with great patience, four times greater because four of the MUD’s parties are present.” About the political prisoners he said that Nicolás has been wanting to establish a Truth Committee since February, to tend to their cases, but of course, they must face their alleged victims. About the agreements, Rodríguez only said that the opposition hasn’t released to the public the fulfilled economic agreements and that the MUD’s leaders diminish their representatives’ authority.

HIV in Venezuela

The World AIDS Day was commemorated -not celebrated- yesterday, in this country, where there are no antiretrovirals or medication for HIV patients. Lawmaker José Manuel Olivares, head of the National Assembly’s Health Sub-committee, tweeted yesterday: “The shortage of treatments have increased mortality for complications associated with AIDS,” adding that there isn’t an epidemiological monitoring plan for HIV in the country, that the figures of people infected with the virus are not publicly available, and that there are no official studies to reveal the reality about HIV. “Misinformation and lack of epidemiological practices sustain the spread of HIV in the country,” he says in one of his tweets.

Another diplomatic embarrassment

She demanded founding members to abstain from taking any actions against the country because “you violate Mercosur’s constitutionality

The Venezuelan delegation before the OAS took the opportunity of the honorary session for ambassador Bernardo Álvarez to attack secretary general Luis Almagro and some member States. Foreign Affairs minister Delcy Rodríguez also used Twitter to say that Venezuela activated Mercosur’s mechanism to resolve controversies due to the attacks and harassment against the country’s presidency in the bloc. She demanded founding members to abstain from taking any actions against the country because “you violate Mercosur’s constitutionality.” Funny, everything Delcy demands in her statement is precisely what the PSUV has done against Parliament. Experts on the matter say that the alternative available for Mercosur to suspend Venezuela is the application of the Ushuaia Protocol, acknowledging the breakdown of democracy.

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Nicolás didn’t offer details regarding the expected price of the oil barrel, but neither did he say that his administration immediately demands a $100 barrel para quedar tablas. Meanwhile, take this important information: on December, 2014, the black market dollar’s price was Bs. 150; in 2015, it was Bs. 911.11 and in 2016, it peaked at Bs. 4,600. A hit, Nicolás.