Caracas Chronicles

María Corina Machado said on Thursday that the popular consultation scheduled for Sunday, July 16th, will have 598 polling stations across 536 cities in 82 countries, besides 2,030 stations in Venezuela – including the Esequibo – with over 12,304 tables.

The organization Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas (IDEA) announced that former Latin American presidents Laura Chinchilla and Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, from Costa Rica; Vicente Fox, from Mexico; Andrés Pastrana, from Colombia and Jorge Quiroga, from Bolivia, will come to Venezuela to lend their support for the election.

Censorship

Conatel banned the use of the expression “popular consultation.” They forbade journalists and media outlets to promote participation for July 16th and also to broadcast the campaign sent by the MUD.

They just needed to prevent the media to cover (and report on) the popular consultation on Sunday, to break their own records on free speech violations.

Journalist Lisbeth de Cambra, member of CNP Caracas, reported on her Twitter account that she spoke with Enrique Quintana, head of Conatel, and he denied the censorship, while claiming that Conatel’s merely demanding for “unrestricted impartiality (…) unbiased reporting on this Sunday’s events.”

It’s evident that you need to be a compulsive liar in order to be regime official.

Conatel has no authority to demand impartiality. Period.

What Tarek should be doing

Although he made a show out of the results of the graphotechnical test on the Moral Republican Council’s records, Tarek William Saab should use his time to process complaints such as that of Cecodap saying that an under age, Isabel Rodríguez, student at Colegio Loyola, was illegally arrested in a neighborhood called Los Mangos, in Puerto Ordaz. They’re keeping her in Detachment 625, Ferrominera.

Or perhaps he could find out where they’re holding leader Carlos Graffe, the new victim of harassment against Voluntad Popular. According to PoliCarabobo, he was arrested “with C4 explosives, a detonating cord and fireworks with nails taped around them,” which matches the pattern used against Yon Goicoechea, councilman José Vicente García and lawmaker Gilber Caro.

It’s worth mentioning that none of them was indicted by the Prosecutor’s Office, but they’re in prison anyway.

In contrast with Graffe

Oscar Pérez, the helicopter pilot who fired against the TSJ, attended Thurday’s night march, despite the widespread manhunt Interior Minister Néstor Reverol claimed there was for him, including efforts with Interpol (although they don’t list Pérez in their website). From Plaza Altamira, the pilot proposed a radical road blockade starting on July 18th, to mark la hora cero.

So the most wanted man in the country can pop up in the middle of a street protest and issue statements smoothly, while security forces arrest a civilian after a medical appointment, “with explosives on him”.

Two questions are in order:

• Do you know of any soldier accused with the crime of stealing military equipment that the State has been using so much as a crime against civilians during protests?
• Can the State keep prosecuting civilians for this crime while not a single soldier has been held accountable so far for these alleged robberies?

A door, a call

Despite her dubious career, Katherine Haringhton shows severe self-esteem issues. Supported by the Venezuelan embassy in Argentina, she showed up at the General Extraordinary Assembly of the Ibero American Association of Public Prosecutors and, as expected, she was denied entry.

On the contrary, Luisa Ortega Díaz was able to participate via phone call:

The Prossecutor General took the chance to denounce all the attacks against prosecutors and herself, the assault on the Prosecutor’s Office’s authority and the TSJ’s rulings against her.

The Prosecutors signed a resolution supporting Luisa Ortega Díaz’s work and condemning any harassment, threat or intimidation.

The barbarians

Those were vice-president Tareck El Aissami’s shouts, claiming that when the Constituent Assembly’s finally installed, the Prosecutor General will have to leave the Prosecutor’s Office because “she’s a turncloak and a traitor.” He demanded military justice for anyone who opposes the imposed Constituyente:

His words proved that due process is and will be irrelevant.

But don’t worry, then he asked the people for support, in exchange for food:

Add this to former minister Ricardo Molina’s threats against pensioners:

And then against carnet la patria holders.

Preciuous people.

Backtracking

There’s no better propaganda than Nicolás himself. If you harbored any doubts regarding Sunday’s election, you just need to listen to him for a while and they’ll vanish. The most relevant element of his speech yesterday, was the announcement that Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics are back in high school curriculums as separate subjects, claiming that it was a mistake “to have put them all in the same package and that mistake must be deeply corrected.”

My love to former minister Rodulfo Pérez. Idiot.

Abroad

Peru’s Prosecutor’s Office issued an 18 months of preventive detention against former president Ollanta Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, for money laundering. A detail: the funds that Humala received from Venezuela to finance his campaign back in 2011, are part of the evidence that Peruvian justice has against him.

Ecuador’s National Assembly approved a Resolution of Solidarity with Venezuela’s Parliament with 116 votes in favor.

The International Socialist Congress condemned the breakdown of democracy in Venezuela and demanded Nicolás to cancel his proposal for a Constituyente.

Yesterday, Colombia’s government regretted the death of one of their citizens in the border with Venezuela and expressed their condemnation “for the excessive use of force by security bodies,” demanding authorities to immediately open investigations to clear the events and to apply the appropriate punishment.

…

Brazil on Wednesday, Peru yesterday. Nobody’s above the law. Neither censors nor dictators. No hijacking lasts forever.

We go on.