Last night, while Maduro was rambling on TV about how he and Russia will stabilize world oil prices, the El Valle river flooded. Before signing off from his weekly TV show, the disaster was brought to the President’s attention, and he went on to criticize the ultraderecha twitter commentators who blamed his administration for the flood. “Imbeciles” he…
Jim Wyss has a shocking story in the Miami Herald about the sprawling state-sponsored human trafficking ring known as Barrio Adentro, and the Cuban doctors now getting stranded in Bogota as they try to flee indentured servitude in Venezuela. The stories the Cuban doctors tell tell read like the stories of Eritrean refugees trying to get…
This shaky footage, clearly the work of a trembling hand, is good enough to make out the basics: In broad daylight, in an alley behind some buildings, three or four lifeless bodies lay scattered across the ground. An SUV arrives and several police officers get out of the car. One of them scouts the area,…
Daniel Pardo’s reporting on the “Zonas de Paz” in Barlovento for the Beeb is really amazing – even if you think you know this story, you’ll learn as you read. A taste, “En Venezuela el que está en la cárcel es porque es idiota”. Cuando arrestaron a uno de ellos hace unos meses, cuentan, sobornaron al juez…
Good old Maria Corina Machado. Today she was not allowed to register her candidacy due to the government’s push to have her barred from public office. So, instead, she announced that her replacement candidate would be Sociologist Isabel Pereira. I didn’t know much about Pereira before today, but from the looks of it, she brings…
It’s undeniable that Venezuelan society is sexist. From the silly facts – the women can flutter their eyelashes at male waiters to get an extra basket of bread, while men are [supposedly] better than women at changing tires – to the very real but horrible fact that a more than capable woman might not get hired when…
For all that we have written about the terrible state of our public healthcare system, sometimes is difficult to convey into words how bad it is. But images can speak louder than words, and this report – made by Venezuelan photojournalist Betty Laura Zapata – for UK’s Channel 4 News is quite powerful. Zapata (who resides in…
In a recent meeting between political parties and the CNE, it was agreed that Tamara Adrián could run for Congress as part of the female cuota of the MUD. If this comes to pass, and I say If, considering it was not written down anywhere as far as I could see, this would be a huge…
The recent decision by Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal, ordering Copei to put in place a board consisting of people they selected, presents a difficult conundrum for the opposition coalition, the MUD. The key thing here is that the Supreme Tribunal has ordered the Elections Council to only accept the roster of candidates the new Copei board proposes. Indirectly,…
That title is not mine. I wish I could claim it: it’s brilliant. But it belongs to Jorge Giordani. It’s what he meant to call a book he wanted to write about La Revolucion Apparatchik. We hear about it in a long Contrapunto interview with perhaps the second figure most responsible for the mess we’re in. The interview…
The UN Human Rights Commission came out with a report (in draft form, but since everyone is tweeting about it, I assume it’s the definitive version) on Venezuela. You may recall that a few days ago, there was drama in Geneva as the Venezuelan government was dragged kicking and screaming to the UN to defend…
The Cota 905 area in western Caracas is a “peace zone” no more. Authorities launched a large-scale operation earlier today, including lots of National Police agents, National Guard soldiers and armored vehicles and SWAT teams from both the Criminal Investigations Police (CICPC) and the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN). The raid is part of the larger “People’s…
The National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL) has expanded its core duties into supporting the State’s repression apparatus by monitoring what Venezuelans say on social media, among other things. But as CONATEL tries to do too much at once, its workers are feeling the strain. On Wednesday, CONATEL employees organized an impromptu protest right in front of the agency’s main offices to…
Between August and October of last year, eight Twitter users were detained by the Venezuelan intelligence service (SEBIN). To this day, five remain jailed in the Helicoide. Four have plead guilty to minor charges in exchange for lesser sentences and were pressured to change their defense lawyers (from NGO Foro Penal) for public defenders. But how…
I leave La Chinita airport, relieved that my cargo – two suitcases filled with toilet paper, shampoo, diapers, and other essentials – went undetected through customs, as if covered by Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak. We are on our way. It’s 1 am, and the scene is what I expected – unlit streets, few cars out,…
Caracas Chronicles 