Caracas Chronicles

Photo: El Nacional, retrieved.

Caretaker President Juan Guaidó spoke on Monday about his government’s progress, reestablishing democracy and support from the international community, talking about TIAR, the decision of the UN Human Rights Council of approving the decision to create a mission to determine facts in Venezuela and the EU sanctions for seven security forces officers who violated human rights. “The regime is still isolated, alone and with no kind of international support,” said Guaidó, who criticized how chavismo is doing “political tourism with Venezuelan’ money” when we’re going through a complex humanitarian emergency. He also reiterated his rejection for paramilitary groups in Venezuela and the protection they receive from chavismo. Guaidó said that “not only does Nicolás protects them, he finances them, directly and indirectly.”

The Dialogue Mammoth 

Nicolás wants to laugh with the EU sanctions against his officers. According to him, these sanctions prove that the EU failed with its policy against Venezuela and somehow still asked to initiate a dialogue “among equals” so they can “leave this dead end where Donald Trump placed them.” He lied about Delcy Rodríguez’s intervention at the UN: “The room was full, there were more people, more governments in the room than when Trump spoke,” he said and repeated that if the Norwegian government calls for more dialogue, he’d immediately accept because he has “called for dialogue over 600 times” and that’s why he called himself the “president of political dialogue.” Nicolás said for the third week in a row that he wants to talk directly to Trump or one of his representatives. 

The Mammoth’s Many Agendas

Maduro said that the return of chavista deputies to the National Assembly is part of the effort to make it institutional again, recovering it to make it “useful to the country”… or does he mean useful to chavismo? He devoted some time to the fake pictures that contained the report about Venezuela that President Iván Duque presented to the UN, assuring he has a deep throat informant in Colombia. He accused Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra of being an accomplice of “neonazi sectors that impose discrimination against Venezuelans” and he was bold enough to ask for 200 million dollars to bring Venezuelans who ran away from the crisis he caused “in a month” and promised them jobs and schooling. He made fun of the figures of the diaspora and said that with the national census “we’ll know everything.” 

Renegotiating Bonds 

Nicolás said that he has declared a global renegotiation of all his foreign commitments, and because of that, he’ll install negotiation tables with bond holders, under Delcy Rodríguez’s and the Finance Minister’s supervision. He said the only obstacle “is Donald Trump and his sanctions” and insisted on talking to him to “undo the mistakes that they made him commit in the financial system.” Nicolás said that renegotiating payments and cryptocurrency is among his options. Economist Luis Oliveros explained that “mixing capital and interests, Venezuela has defaulted over the last two years in almost $13,000 million” and his colleague, Francisco Rodríguez said: “The Venezuelan public debt bonds were issued under New York law. That’s why any debt renegotiation can only be done by Juan Guaidó’s government, recognized as legitimate by the U.S. A renegotiation with Nicolás Maduro is null.” Meanwhile, an appeals court in the U.S. sentenced that Canadian mining company Crystallex can advance in its efforts for taking over Citgo actions, as part of the dispute with Venezuela.

The Non Country

– Two people died and several were injured on Monday in a grenade explosion at a Misión Vivienda complex in the Panamerican highway. 

– Tareck El Aissami said that 2020 will be “the year of a new economic beginning, Venezuela will have a new economy with diverse income, different from the oil revenue, like mining, agriculture, gas. It’s the year of economic take off.” Does it ring a bell?

– Deputy Karim Vera said that irregular groups (guerrilla, paramilitary and colectivos) took land property of Fogade in San Antonio del Táchira for their command center; she condemned GNB inaction, and explained that these people charge fees, extortion and vacunas.

Two Presidents in Peru 

President Martín Vizcarra dissolved Congress, dominated by fujimorista opposition: “In the face of factual denial of trust and respect of the Constitution (…) and calling for parliamentary elections.” The measure was deemed unconstitutional by lawmakers, who decided to present a motion accusing him of “moral incapacity” to declare vacancy of the presidency.

“The measure I’m taking today is contemplated within my faculties in the Constitution and it seeks to provide a democratic solution to a problem that has been haunting the country for over three years,” said Vizcarra. Even though the session of Congress was suspended,  fujimoristas refused to abandon their seats and said that they planned on resuming debate to discuss presidential vacancy. Hundreds of people have manifested in the streets in favor of the shut down, one of the institutions broadly accused of corruption. Later, Congress Vice-President Mercedes Aráoz: “I assume the presidency since President Martin Vizcarra has failed to comply with three articles of our Constitution.” However, the measure has no judicial effect because Congress had been dissolved already, so Araoz usurped functions and that’s a crime.

An Affront

Uruguay rejected the sanctions and alleged threats of military intervention of Venezuela in the UN. Insisting on the dialogue being the only way out for the country, Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa, said that “foreign intervention under the pretext of defending democracy while terrifying a country, as it’s happening in Venezuela” can’t be tolerated. Novoa expressed his concern for “the advance of extreme ideologies that are being used to forcefully apply their own recipes to other countries” and insisted that it’s being done by “blatantly violating regional institutions and generating crisis situations and violence as an excuse to impose their doctrine by means of arms.” Funny, he was bold enough to emphasize that it’s necessary to “fight poverty” because he thinks that it’s “the worst enemy of peace and the greatest cause for the problems of our era,” when Nicolás, whom he was defending, is responsible for multiplying poverty and extreme poverty in Venezuela. 

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Today, Venezuelans in Peru have four presidents.