Caracas Chronicles

• In Venezuela, consulting firm Anova presented “new evidence” to prove the effect of sanctions starting in August 2017. They explain that even when there’s consensus in the economic crisis beginning before the first sanctions, it’s different when it comes to how much responsibility can be attributed to when this pressure mechanism was implemented. That’s why they evaluated before and after August 2017, from April 2015 till December 2019) and the evidence allowed them to affirm that, even though the strategy of sanctions on PDVSA is partially responsible for the drop in oil production and therefore the revenue, there’s no evidence that the sanctions have had a negative impact on the availability of food and medicine. On the contrary, it was starting August 2017 when there were an increase and stabilization of food and medicine imports. Anova warns that that date coincides with some flexibilization of the economy when they stopped asphyxiating certain sectors to let them be when Maduro’s regime “abandoned de facto the price controls and currency exchange policy and allowed free imports of goods and services.” That’s why they think it’s possible to argue that this flexibilization was also a direct consequence of the strengthening of sanctions. 
• Maduro’s AN subpoenaed Juan Guaidó, the president of the Delegate Commission of the 2015 National Assembly, to give an accountability speech on January 25th, before an institution he doesn’t recognize. Guaidó was subpoenaed by the alleged special committee to investigate actions perpetrated against the Republic which José Brito presides. The committee is also investigating former PDVSA President Rafael Ramírez, and Claudia Díaz, former treasurer and Chávez’s nurse. 
• Constituent Assembly imposed prosecutor general Tarek William Saab spoke yesterday of his alleged achievements: 631 officers charged, 857 officers are on trial and 131 have been sanctioned, all of them for human rights violations in Venezuela and he added that there have been 4,489 investigations for human rights violations. 
• The World Organization Against Torture demanded the release of five workers of NGO Azul Positivo who were arbitrarily detained and expressed their concern for the harassment of organizations doing humanitarian work in Venezuela. 
• Miguel Pizarro, commissioner of the caretaker government for the UN, warned that the OCHA’s decision of suspending transfer programs in Venezuela sets a bad precedent. 
• In an audio message that’s structured too well to be a leak, Jorge Rodríguez ordered firing all workers of the Legislative Branch who were hired by the National Assembly elected in 2015. “All those bums that Guaidó, Borges, Barboza and the other guy put there, they’re out. they’re out. Right, secretary? Fired, all of them, not one person left,” said the speaker of Maduro’s AN.  He even forgot the decree they extended for two years, which says that nobody can be fired from their job. The leaked audio was posted by photojournalist  Jesús Medina. 

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“But if democracy can very well be periodically delayed 

It can never be permanently defeated.” 

Amanda Gorman.