Caracas Chronicles

For Sunday, May 14, 2017. Translated by Javier Liendo.

This isn’t my typical briefing but a compendium of the reports I gathered throughout the day, while I cooked, cleaned, bought vegetables and wrote to my mom. I put them in order them to keep a narrative of the barbarity that’s getting worse, speeding up, almost at the same rate as Nicolás and his cronies are losing argumentative capacity. All of the reports are serious. We’re in a dictatorship.

1. For using a speaker, professor and Human Rights activist Sergio Contreras was accused of treason, rebellion and of stealing from the Armed Forces; military justice has limited creativity but it’s fast. He was sent to Ramo Verde.
2. In Pariaguán (Anzoátegui,) el finado’s statue was left as he left the country: in ashes. The fact that it was made out of mache paper despite having been budgeted for bronze didn’t help.
3. An oil spill near Trinidad and Tobago in April reaches Venezuela’s eastern coasts (Sucre and Nueva Esparta,) damaging flora and fauna, especially fish and turtles.
4. A State-run campaign called “Profile of a terrorist,” promoted by the Interior Ministry, criminalizes protesters by equating them to terrorists and legitimates repression while scorning opposition leaders. If you check the hashtag, you’ll find relevant exercises of psychological projection: in the end, chavismo describes itself.
5. As is their custom now, State forces repressed demonstrations in Mérida, Portuguesa and Carabobo with tear-gas and affecting both vehicles and people.
6. Right when the opposition was protesting in Vargas, a driverless bus was burnt down in Av. Luis Roche in Altamira, even though there was no demonstration nearby. A minute later, minister Néstor Reverol tweeted: “Criminals hired by the Terrorist Right-wing burn a public transport unite in Av. Francisco de Miranda, Altamira.” Shortly after that, the Prosecutor’s Office appointed Prosecutor 62nd of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas to investigate the event. This was the most obvious setup ever.
7. A chavista paramilitary colectivo kidnapped activist Edioverth Araque after the protest in Vargas. His whereabouts remain unknown.
8. Nicolás complained that the Episcopal Conference is not taking his calls. He obviously didn’t read either the CEV’s most recent comminqué or the statements of Vatican state secretary Pietro Parolin, saying that Venezuela’s crisis can only be solved through elections. Nicolás denounced that AN Speaker Julio Borges “has ordered the burning of 100 buses in the past five weeks.” No evidence, just pure intuition.
9. There are reports of new forms of torture, like force-feeding feces and urine to victims, on top of beating them. Torture also escalates in dictatorship.
10. Judge Dubraska Linares sentenced two out of the six people arrested in Barinas during the students’ march on Thursday, May 11th, to prison. Additionally, Jesús Arcia, a 19-year old student, arrested on May 8th in Cumaná during a protest, was tried by a military tribunal and sent to La Pica prison in Maturín (Monagas.)
11. The National Guard’s repression in Pueblo Llano (Mérida) included a power outage and suspension of cellphone connection. Even the local priest was hurt. There was also repression in Torondoy and Caja Seca.
12. A Twitter campaign was launched for Human Rights activist Lisbeth Añez (Release Mamá Lis,) who was accused of treason after tending to inmates in El Helicoide, and sentenced to 45 days in prison until the Prosecutor’s Office comes to a final decision. But relax, we should be happy because Nicolás expects half of his imposed Constituyente to be made up of women.
13. Why is the oil rent such a lousy excuse for chavismo to justify its failure and an imposed Constituyente? Check the Twitter timeline of professor @fmonaldi.

Thirteen, as on a Friday 13th, or a Tuesday, or a Saturday, no matter, in a dictatorship, even Saturdays bring terror.

– Today’s a great day to remember Nicolás’ mother

And forgive me, Most Holy Virgin of Fatima.-