Caracas Chronicles

• Luis Ugalde said that the negotiation between the opposition and Maduro’s regime must be reactivated in January 2022. He assured it’s a moment to be humble, for chavismo and the opposition because “they were defeated” in the elections in November. He called out everything that explains the regime’s political and administrative failings and warned: “If you want to try and fool yourself, go ahead, but you can’t fool the country.” To the opposition, he said that the lack of a joint vision impacted the November results but, “the good news is that it was proven that you can win.” He said that Venezuela has deteriorated tremendously, so investments are needed. Ugalde thinks that it’s important that both chavista and opposition leaders should feel like they’re being punished. 
• The Universidad Central de Venezuela was founded on December 22nd, 1721 as the Real y Pontificia Universidad de Caracas, when Venezuela was a Spanish colony. Yesterday, UCV authorities celebrated its 300th anniversary. Dean Cecilia García Arocha ignored and didn’t mention the tragedy that this institution is going through because of a political decision by chavismo. During the speech, students protested to demand answers for classes being suspended. There weren’t any protests regarding the professors’ wages, which are $8 dollars, while the average is 3,000 dollars in Latin America, the fact that the UCV has lost over 1,200 professors in four years and that they’ve lost one-third of their students since 2015 and the state of disrepair of its infrastructure. It was a day to demand better conditions for the next 300 years. 

CEOFANB chief Domingo Hernández Lárez said that the Armed Forces “neutralized” a plane of an alleged Colombian drug trafficking group. They didn’t say who did it, where, or how they identified the plane. 

• Chavista deputy Gladys Requena said that they managed to pass 55 laws and block 33 laws, “including some laws regarding human rights.” 
• Guárico governor José Manuel Vásquez said that food production increased by “150% compared to previous years.” He emphasized that they have created a plan to sow 300,000 hctrs. in 2022, and that the gas situation has notably improved. 
• Julio Borges revealed the reasons for his resignation to the caretaker government before the AN Delegate Commission: “It’s up to the AN, to decide what will be done and what’s the future of the democratic alternative when the Statute for Transition must be approved in a couple of days, the only thing that provides legality (…), there’s no other way but reforming this Statute before January 4th,” he warned. He announced that Primero Justicia will present a reform project so “we can have a different organization, we must have the ability to change and adapt.” 
• Doctors say that the number of vaccinated patients in Aragua has decreased because some vaccination centers have shut down without providing explanations. The president of the state’s Doctors Guild, Ramón Rubio, asked for the reopening of the vaccination centers so patients can get their second dose. 
• Meudy Osío, the widow of councilman Fernando Albán, assured that sentencing two officers to five years and ten months in prison, which was announced by ANC-imposed prosecutor general Tarek William Saab, trivializes what happened and is a joke. She said that after three years after her husband was murdered, they haven’t had an autopsy and she hasn’t been allowed to exhume his body to bury him out of the country. 
• The secretary-general of the Workers of the National Assembly Union (SINFUCAN), José Vicente Rivero, asked the speaker of Nicolás’s AN, Jorge Rodríguez, to stop persecuting workers: “We are denouncing harassment and siege (…) SINFUCAN leaders’ wages have been suspended, which is a violation of the law.” 
• Remigio Ceballos reported they’re working on a plan in three peace quadrants with workers of the Public Ministry and the Supreme Tribunal of Justice to “relieve bottlenecks in the criminal investigation system.” 
• Pablo Zambrano, leader of FETRASALUD, denounced that 600 doses of morphine, 25 oxygen tanks and 12 computers have been stolen from the Luis Razetti Oncology Hospital.

FundaRedes denounced the deterioration of Javier Tarazona’s health, who’s a prisoner in SEBIN El Helicoide. 

• Public employees denounced on social media that Maduro’s regime deposited their “hallaca bonus”, 1.75 bolivars or 0.38 dollars, which doesn’t cover the cost of a small portion of annatto, the seed used in Venezuela to dye the cornmeal for hallacas, a traditional Christmas food.  
• A report by the U.S. Department of State on terrorism in 2020, warned that Venezuela is still a country that’s permissive to armed groups and assured that Nicolás’s regime has financial ties with groups like FARC and ELN.