Briefing

The Unitary Pact for the Opposition is Finally Signed

36 political parties and over a hundred associations from civil society agreed with the document; Capriles insists on his strategy; Bachelet says that legitimate elections require true guarantees and conditions

Naky Soto
NGO Acción Solidaria was visited by FAES agents.

Photo: El Impulso

  • Delcy Rodríguez reported 1,061 new cases of COVID-19 in Venezuela, for a total of 54,350 cases they’ve admitted to and eight deaths (summing 436 deaths). 
  • On Monday, geriatric doctor Emilsy Vegas Contreras died of coronavirus in Barinas state, at the Venezuelan plains; down south, in Bolívar state, nurse Yenni Osto passed away; in Carabobo state, up north, ICU specialist Víctor Lugo, and OBGYN Elio Margiotta in Nueva Esparta died. We have to add nurse Julio Lares’s death to the awful count of deaths in Caracas on Sunday. 
  • NGO Provea published a second report about the work conditions of the health sector during the pandemic for the month of August, when 74 healthcare workers died, making Venezuela one of the countries with the highest death rate among doctors in the world. We must insist, the lethality of the pandemic on healthcare personnel reveals that the government is not taking the necessary measures regarding the protection of our medics.
  • The AN Speaker, Juan Guaidó, called on Venezuelans to fight for credible and verifiable elections: “The dictatorship is planning a fraud and we are calling for the fight for free elections.” During the event to sign the Unity Pact for Freedom and Free Elections, which was backed by 36 political parties and over 100 associations from the civil society, Guaidó reiterated his rejection of the fraud called for December 6th and announced a national and international campaign against it. The pact establishes a consultation, setting the foundation for a national emergency government and the call for a free election. “As we fulfilled our duty to the heroes of health, we will do so with Venezuela, together. We must build the bridges and guarantees. Those aren’t the opposite of force, of international pressure, or a fracture of power, as some call it. The point is turning these spaces into a real way out and today, there are no conditions. We can’t diminish our political position that took years to build,” said Guaidó. 
  • UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said that if Nicolás’s regime wants the elections to be legitimate, they must seek guarantees and conditions so “most people can participate.” 
  • Henrique Capriles confirmed to Spanish newspaper El País that on September 4th, La Fuerza del Cambio nominated people for 277 positions to be elected for the National Assembly. He reiterated that he’s talking to Nicolás’s regime to return to democracy, he didn’t name names or mentioned strategies, but he said that he didn’t find space within the rest of the opposition and decided to seize the moment. 
  • The president of NGO Acción Solidaria, Feliciano Reyna, condemned an illegal raid on their headquarters by FAES officers, infamous for their extrajudicial executions. They detained eight members of the team. Acción Solidaria specializes in health issues and taking medicine and supplies to those who need them, sustaining the humanitarian aid program. All members of the team were released later in the afternoon and the FAES committed to giving back everything they confiscated. We’ll see. 
  • NGO Foro Penal set the record straight: only 13% of political prisoners benefited from Nicolás’s “pardon”: out of 110 people on the list, only 53 had been detained for political reasons, one was a common inmate, 24 were people who had been released but had ongoing processes, six were declared free of all charges, while 26 where under investigation and not detained. As of September 3rd, this organization states that there are 333 political prisoners. Meanwhile, ANC-imposed prosecutor general Tarek William Saab said that 110 people who had been “pardoned” must abstain from committing their crimes again or they’ll be taken to court and the pardon will be canceled, reinforcing the threat made by PSUV vice president Diosdado Cabello on Wednesday. The pardon, even if it’s political, is a figure that means forgiving and forgetting, nobody has the power to cancel it… except chavismo. The worst part? Some of the people “pardoned” didn’t even know what the charges against them were. 
  • The Amuay, Cardón and El Palito refineries, operated by PDVSA, stopped producing gas after their catalytic cracking units were disconnected, explained union leader Iván Freites to Bloomberg agency. The gas shortage made its way to Caracas and has been happening in the rest of the country for weeks. According to Tanker Trackers, a second round of Iranian gas could arrive to Venezuela, around 820,000 barrels in the tankers that already came last June. 
  • Nicolás’s regime decreed on the Official Gazette the temporary occupancy (expropiation?) of AGA GAS, after the alleged refusal of its owners to provide liquid nitrogen, a necessary component to “restart” the gas production in the country. According to the joint resolution by the Oil and Work ministries, it was decreed because their activity would help to solve processes in the oil and petrochemical industries. 
  • “I call for maximum unity, with the truth first. I propose unity with Capriles and Stalin, without issues, just immediately!” tweeted the infamous Henri Falcón (who opposed Maduro on the “presidential elections” of 2018), after his quick recovery from COVID-19.
  • The Prime Minister of Cape Verde, Ulisses Correia e Silva, said that public powers in the country are not under pressure for the extradition process of Colombian citizen Alex Saab: “This case has been told as a soap opera in the media (…) Cape Verde insists on not joining the cast of this show.” 
  • Nicolás’s Foreign minister Jorge Arreaza tried to protest on Twitter that Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Rafael Correa (Ecuador) can’t be candidates in the elections in their countries, because of the legal cases against them, for corruption and authoritarianism. He was solidary enough to say that “they were illegally barred from running, because oligarchs fear them too much.”
Briefing

Naky Soto

Naky gets called Naibet at home and at the bank. She coordinates training programs for an NGO. She collects moments and turns them into words. She has more stories than freckles.

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