Alicia Bárcena’s blinders

/ March 27, 2015
Let's do this one more time: poverty is increasing. Source: your own minions, lady.

Let’s say this one more time, slowly, so you understand: poverty is increasing. Source: your own minions, lady.

The head of the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), well-known chavista hack Alicia Bárcena, was in Caracas yesterday. While she was there, she praised Venezuela for “poverty reduction” and for fighting inequality.

It’s too bad that Bárcena doesn’t read her own reports.

As we wrote about months ago, her very own organization confirmed what everyone knows – that poverty in Venezuela is on the rise. In fact, Venezuela is the only country in the hemisphere where poverty shot up between 2012 and 2014. Source: ECLAC!

Please, Ms. Bárcena, spare us your baloney. Come back to Santiago where you can continue to dine at the finest restaurants in the city at the expense of first-world taxpayers. And if you do go back to Caracas, make sure you pay a visit to political prisoners Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma while you’re there.

After all, your bosses at the UN have called for their release. A courtesy call would be the least you could do.

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24 thoughts on “Alicia Bárcena’s blinders”

  1. One point about the “fighting inequality” mantra: corruption. Income gained [I almost wrote “earned”!] from corruption hardly ever enters into income statistics. Were income from corruption entered into income statistics, income inequality would definitely increase.

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  2. I read a tweet today saying that to find any meat in Venezuela right now is impossible. That’s a hell of a way to fight poverty and inequality.

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    • That’s the brilliant idea rebolusionaria: less meat = less bowel movements = less use of papel toale, detergent and other scarce luxury items.

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  4. “Please, Ms. Bárcena, spare us your baloney” well stated and to the point. Holding these bloated bureaucrats accountable is what’s needed. Shameless! Judging from her official bio, she has overstayed her welcome. Seems like she is cut from the same cloth as Insulza.

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  5. Thanks for the article. I checked her Twitter account. It is a scandal! This creature seems like just Iris Varela, re-tweeting propaganda from Maduro.
    I sent a tweet of this article to CNN in Spanish & El Mundo. Perhaps other people can re-tweet to CNN English and other media?

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  6. José Luis Machinea was replaced as Executive Secretary of the ECLAC by THIS? She may have an MPA from the Kennedy School, but she appears to be a total idiot.

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  7. B… like this one must be getting Millions to talk crap. why would she care about being fired or her reputation, anyway?

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    • Spare us the abusive, sexist language please Floyd. It’s possible to have profound disagreements with someone without offensive gender references. I was going to tweet the link for this post direct to @aliciabarcena, but I won’t unless Juan will be kind enough to delete the above comment. (Ed note: I’ve mildly censored the B word references)

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      • Nothing sexist about dude, relax. Women probably steal a bit less than men, billions instead of trillions, that is. I reiterate that she was probably BRIBED. Looked her up in Wikipedia, a Mexican Biologist, from Harvard too, only reason she would say such an aberration is $$$$$.

        Many people, including transexuals, i suppose, are selling their souls these days at that age for a couple million: comfortable retirement.

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          • Ok. sorry if you’re so sensitive on a freaking blog.. What do you call a grossly incorrect Burguesa, who makes publicity having coffee with Maduro, praising their horrific regime?? A blatant Liar, and probably a corrupt thief like that does not deserve much respect, does she?

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            • The problem with using the word “b…” is that the hack can escape claiming you’re being mysoginist.

              Instead, there are many unisex insults that could be used instead, like “tariffed” (tarifado), hypocrite and some more.

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            • Hey Floyd. Calling a b… a b… is ok with me. This PC terrain for the morally hypersensitive really gets annoying, if not totally unrealistic. Dále puej.

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        • Oh my…. Being sexist or using derogatory language against women is so ingrained in some people (and particularly here in Venezuela) that they cannot come to acknowledge it. Dude, target this woman for what she is (an out of touch UN bureaucrat) and stop the nonsense of calling her names.

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  8. Would that Ms Bárcena were alone among UN bureaucrats in swallowing and regurgitating chavista falsehoods. This comes on top of other gems such as the award from the FAO for combating hunger (http://www.fao.org/americas/noticias/ver/es/c/230150/); the widely-touted Unesco claim about Venezuela’s “eradication of illiteracy”, debunked by F-Rod and co (http://frrodriguez.web.wesleyan.edu/docs/academic_spanish/Venezuela_libre_de_analfabetismo.pdf) and disavowed by Unesco hq; and the Panamerican Health Organization’s praise of Barrio Adentro as a model of primary health care (http://www.aporrea.org/misiones/n87247.html).

    A leading Venezuelan scientist said yesterday that Unesco was offering funds for research on living conditions in Amazonas, on the condition that infant mortality was left out of the report. These people are not so much blinkered as complicit in a major fraud.

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    • The food situation is going to get even tougher in the next 2 months or so. I have been tracking ship arrivals at Puerto Cabello since back around mid 2012.

      Throughout most of 2014 on any given day there were approximately 60-70 ships either discharging cargo or at anchor waiting to enter Puerto Cabello to discharge. In January and early February of this year that number had dropped to 25-45 ships on an average day, but in the last 3 weeks there have only been 15-18 ships discharging or waiting to discharge at Puerto Cabello.

      And when I look at the ships that are discharging corn or wheat the cargo sizes have been getting smaller as last year the ships were around 35,000 tonnes capacity and the last 3 grain ships at Puerto Cabello have all been under 20,000 tonnes capacity.

      I can only surmise that the food situation is about to take a turn for the worst in the next few weeks.

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        • That small debt is a factor, mainly with the container lines. With the bulk carriers (corn, sugar, fertilizer, wheat, etc.) I have noticed in the past 2 to 3 months the ships slowing down or just holding off Bonaire/Aruba area for several days or more before they continue on to Puerto Cabello. I most case this is because the charterer of the ship has not yet been paid for the cargo and he is worried that if the vessel arrives at Puerto Cabello the Venezuela receivers will present the bills of lading and demand delivery of the cargo and the ship owner is obligated to deliver and the cargo owner could very well get stiffed by the Venezuelans……so they hold the ship back outside of Venezuelan waters until payment is made.

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  9. Absolutely amazing. My grandparents used to put blinders on their mules. It kept them from seeing anything except what they wanted them to see, and not react to the world around them. It made them easier to control…. Just a thought from an old country boy….

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