Caracas Chronicles

Photo: Telesur retrieved

Sixteen TIAR member countries decided on Monday to activate the agreement for collective action on the Venezuelan crisis. They agreed to identify and sanction the officers of Nicolás’s government that are linked to illicit activities, corruption and human rights violations, according to Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo. He also said that this instrument will allow to pinpoint which individuals and institutions from Nicolás’s regime are involved in criminal networks to try to capture them or freeze their assets in TIAR member countries. The resolution agrees to try a new reunion in a two month period to evaluate applying possible measures in Article 8 of TIAR. Jorge Arreaza, said during the ALBA Political Council that he sent a letter to the UN Security Council president Vasily Nebenzya, explaining the seriousness and illegality of calling the TIAR, even though the resolution doesn’t mention the possibility of an armed intervention. 

A Weird Agenda

With a team taping and taking photos of each of his meetings in the 74th period of sessions of the UN General Assembly, Jorge Arreaza has pictures of him as an attendee to the Summit of Action for Climate Change (despite the destruction caused by the Orinoco Mining Arc, isn’t it nice?) and photos and videos with the foreign ministers of Portugal and Equatorial Guinea. They met to evaluate the goals of the 5th Summit of Gas that’ll take place in November (despite destroying Pdvsa). He said that he formed ties with Serbia and the Philippines, but the most important thing was yielding and signing the Understanding Memo with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that opens the continuous presence of two human rights officers in Venezuela and is potentially a first step to open a human rights office in Venezuela. They have 30 days starting today to agree on commitments for a working plan. Chavismo conspires with the ALBA Political Council but it’d stop posting pictures of the attendees. 

But Nicolás Wants to Normalize

Nicolás said to Russian state TV station Rossiya 24 that he had information about the plans of the U.S. for interfering in the AN elections of 2020. According to him, Washington seeks to intervene in the Venezuelan elections because “they know they can’t win.” However, he insisted on his disposition to dialogue with the U.S. to try to normalize the relation, an issue that his vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, has touched on several times. According to Nicolás, if Donald Trump decided to change the policy regarding  Venezuela, he’d negotiate to try to build a relationship “based on respect”. In his variety show on a mandatory TV and radio broadcast he announced that he’s going to Russia: “I’m going to an official visit to meet with our friend, President Vladimir Putin, with his team and important Russian business conglomerates.” He said that it’s important to find new ways to “make cooperation in every area, the economy, social and cultural, more dynamic.” Nicolás confirmed the return of chavista deputies to the National Assembly: “They’ll go back to the National Assembly in contempt.” 

The Rastrojos, Part Three

On September 20th, Nicolás’s communications minister Jorge Rodríguez, showed a video where  Iván Posso Pedrozo, Los Rastrojos dissident detained in Zulia, confirmed that he escorted caretaker President Juan Guaidó from El Vigía to Puerto Santander. That same day, Guaidó’s National Communication Center  rejected the accusations. Tarek William Saab said that he ordered capturing three officials from the Tachira government who helped Guaidó cross the border in February. All of them are accused of treason because of Posso’s testimony, with which they allegedly revealed Guaidó’s alliance with drug trafficking paramilitary groups. 

Setting the Tables

Jorge Rodríguez announced forming eight working groups between chavismo and the new tailor-made opposition, saying that they’ll be installed in the next few days and will meet for 20 days.

Their topics will be:

1. Discussing the Electoral Branch and electoral guarantees.
2.  Studying cases of political prisoners to submit to the Commission of Truth.
3. Sovereignty and territorial integrity.
4. National economy (they’ll talk about the economic sanctions).
5. Institutional and political balance for cooperation of the public powers with the ANC (how about that?). 
6. Social rights.
7. Political parties.
8. Social movements.

Rodríguez asked to watch Diosdado Cabello’s show to get more information about the scope of the working tables and assured that the last negotiation in Barbados failed because of the divisions within the opposition. According to him.

The Non-Country

– NGO Fundaredes denounced that Colombian guerrillas are in at least 325 schools of five states in the country, which has allowed them to hold a census for over 20,000 children and teenagers in an alleged donation for school supplies called Friends of Schooling. 

– The UCV’s Constitutional Law Department informed that they had taken cases of persecution against Venezuelan universities to the IACHR, to obtain a precautionary measure. They’ll do the same before the UNHCR. 

–  Once more, the Caracas Metro stopped providing service to eight stations, for electrical failures in Line 1 of the system. 

– The National Institute of Meteorology and Hidrology informed that the effects of the tropical storm will keep affecting the country for at least 36 hours. The states that have been hit the hardest are Nueva Esparta, Monagas, Sucre, Anzoátegui, Cojedes, Bolívar, Táchira and Zulia.

Other Movements on the Board

– The European and Latin American countries that are part of the International Contact Group for Venezuela asked Nicolás’s government and the opposition to return to the negotiating table and warned that the country’s situation doesn’t admit further delays. 

– The ICG called donors to increase humanitarian financing and coordinate to use it more efficiently. They think that the migrant and refugee crisis is becoming one of the worst humanitarian crises in our time. 

– The Lima Group rejected blocking dialogue with the opposition by Nicolás’s “illegitimate and dictatorial” government, for considering they prevent then from reaching a way out through free elections. They expressed their disposition for applying new sanctions or “other economic or political measures.”

…

A total of 66 countries agreed at the UN to reach neutrality in carbon emissions by 2050. 

The Alliance of Ambition for Climate they’d settled to reduce emission of greenhouse effect gas by at least 45 % by 2030 and prepare to reach a carbon footprint equal to zero by 2050 and making the transition to renewable energy to contain global warming. In addition, they will give around $ 500 million for the Amazon and other tropical rainforests.