Caracas Chronicles

Lawmaker Henry Ramos Allup presented on Wednesday the Accord of Governability, demanding the opening of a humanitarian channel and the embracing unity in Venezuela with the goal of recovering democracy. The document establishes that the next presidential candidate will be a civilian chosen through primary elections, and that he must renounce immediate re-election.

The first order of business is the application of a plan to tackle the crisis, prioritizing health care and food, as well as an efficient plan against crime and violence, including the cleansing of security forces such as the National Guard, and the dismantling of paramilitary groups.

Emphasis is on tending to the social emergency, stabilizing the country through a new social and economic model and carrying out the necessary reforms to allow the country’s modernization.

The new Pablo Escobar

The same day that vice-president Tareck El Aissami condemned the United States’ intentions to impose sanctions on his government and ratified that the Constituyente is irreversible, OAS chief Luis Almagro participated in a session of the American Senate’s Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere dealing with the Venezuelan crisis.

Almagro argued that the sanctions “are meant for those responsible for repression” and that they could work or not depending on pressure within the country. He criticized CNE chair Tibisay Lucena for contributing to “the dictatorship’s consolidation,” denouncing the presence of no less than 15,000 Cubans – as an occupation army in Venezuela – as well as the humanitarian crisis, with solid information on hunger in the country. He also said that the government is hijacked by “a drug-trafficking structure” and labeled the country as the “most corrupt in the continent.”

Senator Marco Rubio said that Diosdado Cabello is “the Venezuelan Pablo Escobar.”

Both Almagro and Rubio talked about mediation and negotiation efforts in Venezuela.

No indelible ink

Tibisay Lucena didn’t provide participation figures for the PSUV’s drill on Sunday, but she thanked the National Defense Council for accepting her proposals. Although only 45 out of the country’s 335 municipalities have seen violence recently (13.43%), the CNE decided that citizens may vote in any polling station in their municipality, calling it an unusual measure for unusual times, “to guarantee a clean, safe and transparent process.”

If you want to know more about the risks of this decision, read @puzkas’s timeline.

Mirroring Lucena’s partiality and in full battledress, Defense minister Vladimir Padrino López also expressed his support for the Constituyente.

For an 8th time

The government officially extended the decree of economic emergency restricting constitutional guarantees nationwide. The decission was published on Official Gazette N° 41,192 and is justified because: “we must take other measures to face the siege against Venezuelan economy.”

That must be why the Food Basket’s price for June was Bs. 1,229,698, a 24.1% increase compared to May and 343.2% in a year. 18.9 minimum wages are required to buy it. All prices went up, and the gap between controlled and market prices is now 8,623%.

Detainees

NGO Foro Penal reported that 4,072 people have been arrested since protests started. 1,007 of them are still detained, 479 have been presented before military tribunals, 307 have been sent to prison by military tribunals and 444 are political prisoners, adding that the “Special justice plan” announced by Nicolás is a formal admission of repression.

These figures don’t include five students from Universidad de Oriente, Nueva Esparta branch, arrested by the National Guard yesterday morning after violating the university’s autonomy. UCLA student Jinet Lara, arrested yesterday in Barquisimeto, as NGO Funpaz reported, is not included either.

Amnesty International issued an alert for the physical integrity of the 14 PoliChacao officers who have been in a hunger strike for the past 24 days, demanding their immediate release.

Las vidas de 14 agentes de Polichacao, detenidxs arbitrariamente por motivos políticos, corren peligro en Venezuela https://t.co/HqZZOoyf2J pic.twitter.com/9rfQTFbO3P

— amnistia . org 🕯 (@amnistia) July 20, 2017

The TSJ’s Constitutional Chamber summoned Lechería and Chacao mayors Gustavo Marcano and Ramón Muchacho, for allegedly violating the injunction, explaining that their absence will be understood “as a tacit admission of events.”

I beg your pardon!

Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega Díaz talked about the case of Gianni Scovino, the young man brutally beaten in Lechería, and said that the National Guard officers indicted for it haven’t been sent to prison, denying NONEbudsman Tarek William Saab’s claims that the attackers were detained.

She thinks that the polygraph test requested and commented by Saab is a distraction and said that she’ll keep denouncing the violations to due process despite the government’s threats. In her view, the appoint of new TSJ justices is similar to the appointment of stowaway Katherine Haringhton, because that doesn’t solve the country’s issues. Odd, isn’t it?

Aside from this, the Prosecutor’s Office requested the TSJ’s Full Chamber to order SEBIN to immediately transfer lawmaker Wilmer Azuaje to his home, since the decision issued on July 12th wasn’t carried out.

Abroad

Brazil will take on Mercosur’s presidency today during the summit in Mendoza, Argentina. Although it doesn’t formally appear in the agenda, they’ll also discuss Venezuela’s situation. National Assembly Speaker Julio Borges was invited to the summit to talk about Venezuela’s crisis.

Chilean president Michelle Bachelet expressed concern over escalating instability and violence in Venezuela and called for a peaceful solution, considering the 7.6 million Venezuelans’ vote in Sunday’s popular consultation as “impressive”.

Spanish Foreign minister Alfonso Dastis said that, given Venezuela’s situation, it was a priority to support regional efforts to try to end the crisis.

…

Last night, Diosdado Cabello threatened those whom the National Assembly appoints as new TSJ justices with the “Operación Tun Tun,” SEBIN’s version of the OLP, claiming that “nothing can be left unpunished,” comparing their appointment with a coup d’état. :0

We go on.