Briefing

Almost 7,000 Protests in 2020

The OBC expect more protests in the next months. The BCV dollar surpasses the blackmarket dollar, another month without international flights and they’re playing the ethnic rename game with highways while they ignore ethnocide

Naky Soto

Photo: EFE

  • The director of the Observatorio Venezolano de Conflictividad Social, Marco Ponce, estimates that they expect more protests in the last quarter. Until September, there were close to 7,000 protests in Venezuela in 2020. 
  • On Monday, BCV said the dollar was almost 300 bolivars over the price of the black market dollar. 
  • In Puerto Ordaz, the house of the director of the newspaper Correo del Caroní David Natera Febres was raided by SEBIN officers, with a commission led by chief César Sánchez. The officers blocked Natera’s lawyer, Eliézer Calzadilla from entering. Later, SEBIN took David Natera Febres “to declare” for several hours, even though he didn’t know the reason why this operation was carried out. The caretaker government said that the actions against Natera are part of a series of intimidation actions against the members of the National Council for Judicial Defense, appointed on Friday to defend assets that Nicolás wants to sell. David Natera’s son is among those new officials. In addition, there’s former councilman for Zulia Romer Rubio, who lives in Chile, but SEBIN went to his parents’ house too. “The events today prove that the dictatorship punishing Venezuela doesn’t rest,” said the communiqué released by the AN Commission for Interior Policy. 
  • INAC announced that the country won’t have international flights this month either. Let’s say it again: the pandemic has been a great excuse for chavismo’s social control, they have no interest in reactivating the economy. 
  • VE sin Filtro identified over 30 blocks in CANTV during the last couple of days, especially against media outlets (13) and porn sites (8). It also affected websites like  SoundCloud and Livestream. Some of them are simply the reactivation of previous actions. 
  • Nicolás’s Communications minister Freddy Ñañez reported that there were 619 new cases and 7 deaths on Monday, for a total of 83.756 cases and 704 deaths they’ve admitted to. 
  • The Venezuelan Association of Orthopedic Surgery and Trauma reported the death of Dr. Guillermo Piñeiro, who was in the Military Hospital for COVID-19 for two months. 
  • This week started with protests in several states because the gas shortage makes the crisis worse. Gas distribution hasn’t been equal, subsidized gas stations are a mystery and in some states the circumstances are truly critical. In Monagas, for example, governor Yelitze Santaella shamelessly announced that they won’t sell gas in any gas station. Not because of the shortage, (Tareck El Aissami said there was enough gas for all gas stations in the country), but because she doesn’t want to. 
  • There were reports of power outages in Aragua, Carabobo, Caracas, Lara, Miranda, Vargas, Yaracuy and Zulia on Monday. 
  • David Navarro, WHO leader for coronavirus in Europe, exhorted governments to not use the quarantine as a main method to control COVID-19, because he thinks that confining can have “a negative impact in people’s lives”, including “making poor people more poor.” 
  • Three small investment funds (Canaima Capital Management, Altana and Copérnico) have accumulated Venezuelan bonds in default to try to align a new strategy now that the expectations of a change of government in Venezuela are diluting, according to them and that Nicolás’s team is pushing for another restructuring, said sources to Reuters. Some investors think it’s time to act and evaluate legal options because of the profound political crisis in Venezuela, while Delcy Rodríguez reinforced the proposal that she made in September to renegotiate with bond holders. The offer was extended til November 13th, according to a memo published by the Economy Ministry. Even so, chavismo doesn’t generate enough trust or guarantees to renegotiate debt. 
  • Journalist Javier Ignacio Mayorca reported five officers (PoliVargas and PNB) were detained on their way to sell uranium. Even though the news caused panic, it’s ruled out that it’s enriched uranium (radioactive). 
  • In order to “decolonize all spaces” and restore the dignity of Indigenous people, Nicolás changed the name of a Caracas’ highway. He didn’t mention the protest of the multiethnic Indigenous community of Betel in Picatonal and five communities in Atures (Amazonas), blocking access to the national highway because they don’t have cooking gas and it’s been three months since they got CLAP boxes. He didn’t say anything about the repression by GNB against the Wayuu in Paraguaipoa, only because they were protesting the lack of electricity  (for up to 48 hours straight), water, cooking gas and phone lines. Rubber pellets, tear gas, raids, injured, detained people, harassment and militarization of Paraguaipoa “are a systemic pattern of repression against the Wayuu people to create a state of terror and fear,” assured  the Human Rights Committee of La Guajira. Deputy Mauligmer Baloa accused Nicolás of being a hypocrite because “he moves forward with his ethnocide for his blood gold” in the Mining Arc… nothing changes when the highway stops being Francisco Fajardo (1528-1564), who was also a descendant of Guaquerí people.”
  • Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya, reiterated on Monday that they won’t recognize the results of the “election” in December for lack of democratic conditions: “What we’ve done is reiterating the commitment of the European Union to push for elections under democratic conditions,” she said at the end of a European Council session. She said that the EU keeps getting proof of this election not meeting the necessary requirements. The EU Foreign ministers said to the EU Minister for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, their support to his attempts to “facilitate dialogue” in order to find a political solution to the Venezuelan crisis, added González Laya.
  • U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that he’ll never allow his country to become a bigger version of Venezuela, referring to the risk of Joe Biden winning in November. 
  • Nicolás’s Foreign minister Jorge Arreaza replied that Trump is looking to scare voters when the real problem “is at the White House with him in it”. 

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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