The former Centro Financiero Confinanzas in Caracas, now known as “La Torre de David”. But if the Chinese finally have their way, it will be transformed into a brand new International Financial Center.
If there’s a symbol of today’s Venezuela, is probably the skyscraper-turned-slum known as “La Torre de David”.
The high-rise slum has become so famous abroad, that even Hollywood has taken note. But its days could be numbered according to this report from newspaper Tal Cual. Why is that? Because China.
Our Chinese overlords want to turn the building into an “international financial center”, so the government (through the Ministry for the Transformation of Caracas) will start negotiations with the families who live there and relocate them to Cúa, Miranda State. Some neighbors said that it could happen by the end of the year, but they were pretty tight-lipped. Our friend Setty thinks the whole thing is scandalous, reminding us that there were plans to sell the tower before it was invaded but Chávez canned the plan for ideological reasons.
These news come just in time for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s upcoming Latin American tour, which also includes Venezuela. Recently, both countries celebrated the 40th anniversary of bilateral relations, so what better gift of appreciation than a high-rise building where they can make business deals? Not that they got plenty of those already.
P.S.: A little note to Jose Suarez Ñunez, the author of TalCual’s report. It’s obvious that you were trying to give some context in the last paragraphs of your story, but I must say … that was really bad writing. It brought this guy to mind.
Caracas Chronicles 
There is a Ministry for the Transformation of Caracas?!! Seriously?
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There’s even a vice-minister of supreme happiness…
I am not making this up.
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IT’S TRUE … U.U
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Only in modern Venezuela would it take two decades and a forced negotiation with China to bring this building back to its original intended purpose. Back in the early years of Chavez, before the international business community saw him as a threat, I’m kind of surprised the government didn’t try to auction the place off to a foreign investor for quick cash, or try to sell it to someone like Cisneros or Ruperti.
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Oportunism.
Whe the gangs invaded the building, the turd bag left them alone, because his main strategy to have the criminals on his side was giving them absolute impunity to do anything they wanted (they vote too, so that’s a bonus)
It’s the same populism that’s driven politics in Venezuela from decades to now, it’s just that in the “cuarta”, the government didn’t do the extreme stupidity of distributing weapons like candy among muggers, murderers and rapists.
The chavismo showed that a government could do far more worse than any of the previous ones, and that all the defects of the cuarta got amplified and perfected in chavismo.
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The building wasn’t invaded until 2007, though. For the first 8 years of Chavez, it just sat there rotting away.
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Back then they did not need the money.
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They needed the money back in 1999 when oil was still only $10 per barrel.
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“…and relocate them to Cúa, Miranda State.”
Funny, how the government kills two birds with one stone.
First, they get rid of those malandros that turned the infamous tower into a crime lair.
Second, they toss the crime problem right into the hands of one of the most hated political enemies of the regime: Capriles.
I could bet Cúa is in an opposition-controlled municipality, it would look like a plan that somebody like some asshole like pedro carroña or diosdao one-trillion-dollar-thug could think, but I wouldn’t discard another of those nutjobs like fosforito valera, who has demonstrated already that she’s gonna release numbers of dangerous, murderous criminals into “opposition territories” to do some “cleaning”.
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Cua’s mayor is Adyaniz Noguera, a member of PSUV party.
Good job, you fucked it up.
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Meh, doesn’t matter, chavistas still consider Miranda an “oppo territory”, sending hundreds of murderers (their meat shields matter little for chavistas) there is the perfect build up for a crime wave which they’ll use as an excuse to attack him.
So my point stands, and you’re the one that fucked up for being so naive.
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Why stop with an International Finance Center? Why not Disney del Sur?
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chavismo already built one of those in the fabled “cuartel de la montaña”, lots and lots of contruction space and structures dedicated exclusively to be a shove-into-your-throat torture of the turd bag.
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This could also be a symbol of new Venezuela, when are you going to understand that Venezuela is not black and white but a country with strong contrast ,1/3 of Venezuelan are the product of recent immigration that’s the last fifty years, inside chavismo there are many groups with different ideologies from nationalist to internationalist Marxist ecc. That’s way the opposition is always defeated,they don’t understand the country, live of wishfull thinking and living mentally in a past that is over…
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D6oWLkzj1yI
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Exactly. The opposition to sanity in Venezuela always tries to break everything down into ethnicity and light skinned democracy protesters against dark skinned Chavistas. In reality, the opposition to sanity has some of the lightest skinned members who descend from immigrants before fifty years ago, Giordani is a good example!
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A new symbol, as in, turning the tower into a financial center, which is exactly the original purpose for which it was built? Yeah, that’s about as ground-breaking as discovering agua tibia. Oh, but since it’s the Chinese who are in charge and not the U.S., that makes it all ok.
Independencia y patria mejma.
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Here a very intelligent article byJoaquin Villalobos
http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/03/02/opinion/1393795243_401646.html
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GDC. You mean Joaquín Villalobos, the man who murdered the Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton in 1975? Sure, “intelligent.”
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The guy seems to support the narco-terrorist-pedophile farcassassins, so it’s no surprise he takes such people as “smart”.
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Since you are so smart you will become old writing stupidities and insulting in this blog…. but believing you are a bunch of genius ….
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It never late to remedy past blunders . If thanks to Chinese initiative the tower is restored to what was to be its original use then there is nothing to criticize except perhaps the regimes neglect in waiting so many years until the Chineses took the initiative . !! Lets remember it is the Chineses initiative not the regimes initiative which would accomplish this . the govt just goes along to please those foreign interests on which financially it depends so much after.having wasted and stolen all the money it could have used to restore the tower to its intended function !! .
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“It never late to remedy past blunders”.
Very true.
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… what international finance you can do on a country where you cant get free exchange of currency?
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The most ironic thing is that in that last video of the Tower by Atlas Obscura the documentees kept talking about how the opposition could not be allowed to return to power because we would have them thrown out of the tower in a heartbeat.
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And the invaders now’ll be fed some bullshit that they’ll latch into to keep their sanity.
More or less the same thing the regime did with the devaluation.
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I’m surprised anyone would invest anything more into that building. Seems like it would be cheaper to start over.
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Knowing the Chinese, they’ll use cheap Chinese construction materials and low wage workers brought over from China, if and when they do this. If this is the case, it would be cheaper than starting over.
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