Caracas Chronicles

• Political prisoner and former defense minister Raúl Isaías Baduel died on Tuesday.
  • Baduel led the military operation to bring Chávez back to power in 2002.
  • Chavismo says he died of cardiopulmonary arrest caused by COVID-19, under SEBIN custody. 
  • He arrived at El Helicoide on September 30th, after they moved him from La Tumba. 
  • In 2009, Baduel became a political prisoner and was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2010. 
  • He got parole in 2015 but was taken to prison again in 2017 and accused of conspiracy to overthrow Maduro. 
  • His sons, Raúl Emilio y Josnars Adolfo, are also in jail. 
  • Ten political prisoners have already died under the custody of the State. 

The IMF estimated that Latin America will have the highest inflation rate in the world (9.3%) in 2021. They expect inflation in Venezuela to increase by 2,700% this year and an economic contraction of 5%. 

• An internal report of Monómeros showed the company earned 9.18 million dollars between January and September 2021. The AN Delegate Commission debated the Monómeros situation and vice president Juan Pablo Guanipa proposed creating a commission to investigate the case. The commission was approved and will have ten days to investigate. Guanipa emphasized they must investigate the ties of members of the board with opposition parties. Guaidó backed the agreement. 
• Doctors and nurses of the Frente Amplio Profesional warned that Venezuela is facing the third wave of COVID-19 and that this is happening “under worse sanitary conditions than in 2020.” 
• COVAX has delivered 3,288,000 doses of the vaccine after the 2.5 million doses shipment arrived in Venezuela over the weekend. PAHO said that 21.57% of Venezuelans have been fully vaccinated and 3.8 million have received the second dose. 
• The Sputnik V Twitter account announced the arrival of 795,000 doses. 
• Two Venezuelan teenagers (13 and 18 years old) were murdered in Colombia after they were caught stealing from a store. Tarek William Saab demanded an investigation, and respect for the lives and human rights of Venezuelan migrants. The Colombian National Police offered a reward for information that leads to an arrest. 
• A VTV presenter tweeted that the ministry has opened an investigation on journalist Roberto Deniz, for allegedly promoting hate, defamation and extortion. 

NGO Espacio Público counted 14 cases (20 violations) against freedom of expression in Venezuela in September. 

• Virmalia García the wife of former deputy and PSUV candidate Christopher Constant denounced him for physical and psychological abuse. She said that three public prosecutors refused to take her case for fear of political retaliation. 
• Álex Saab’s defense asked the court to review and rule out his extradition to the U.S.
• Leopoldo López talked about former Colombian vice president Francisco “Pancho” Santos’s statement against Julio Borges, Henrique Capriles and PJ. He thinks the statement is a consequence of Borges’s “erratic actions”. He said that without Guaidó, “the dictatorship could obtain access to 10,000 million dollars.” 
• Iván Duque met with OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and praised Almagro’s actions against Maduro’s regime before the ICC. Almagro acknowledged the humanitarian labor of Duque’s government for Venezuelan migrants. 
• Financial Times revealed that Josep Borrell “ignored the advice of his own staff when he decided to send observers.” FT had access to the exploratory mission’s report, which came in July to evaluate the possibility of sending a mission, and the document warns: “It’s likely that deploying an EU mission has an adverse impact on the reputation and credibility of EU observers.” They also warned that “the minimal conditions for electoral observation aren’t met at the moment.”