Last night Robert Serra, the silver-tongued chavista legislator and standard-bearer for the younger generation of the ruling PSUV party, was shot dead along with his partner in their heavily-guarded home in Central Caracas. Details are scarce. We’ll post more as they become available.
Esteemed Capitalist Pig, A socialist greeting to you! The following is to notify you that, even though the Central Government is now working on a new political framework to cope with violence against women – specially that inflicted by family members or partners – you, by virtue of being a dirty capitalist, imperialist and escuálida apátrida, do not qualify for said…
Back in the 1970s, people used to refer to Caracas as “a branch of heaven” (“la sucursal del cielo“). As a maracucho, I never really got why people said that. It seemed like typical caraqueño BS to me, unnecessary chutzpah for celebrating a city that, even back then, was merely … OK. As an occasional visitor,…
A few years ago I was invited to write the first OpEd piece of my life by the Venezuelan newspaper El Globo. I was in graduate school at the time, immersed in trying to understand economics, and so I wrote a little piece reflecting what seemed to me a self-evident truth: that industrial policies are the pits.…
Most Venezuelan businesses are having a tough time these days, but you would think funeral homes would be booming – what with a crime wave and all. Turns out funeral homes are just like any other business, albeit slightly creepier: in a recent interview, Ricardo Guedez, member of the Venezuelan Funeral Parlors’ Association (Canadefu), spoke of the multiple…
Venezuelans are taking extra precautions to protect ourselves and our belongings. What are these precautions, you might ask? Well, to give you a sense, we made this short list over lunch hour … and let’s just say that we decided to skip dessert. The saddest part of it all is that most of the things…
Tents, bare mats, improvised shelters, tattered refrigerators, and used-up kitchen utensils cover the sidewalk of this stretch of Avenida Lecuna, in downtown Caracas. Several government-subsidized buildings on both sides of the street are adorned with propaganda. Women, men, and kids stand by, looking at each other and at the cars driving on this busy street. They sit on…
(This is a rare double post on the blog. A few weeks ago, Audrey brought up the idea that we should write about abortion. After much prodding, I reluctantly agreed. Initially, I thought the topic was too painful and incendiary for us to reach any common ground. Since it cuts to the very essence of what it is…
In February 1939, two ships approached the shores of Venezuela after a long, desperate voyage. The Konisgtein and the Caribia’s captains had already asked for asylum in many other ports, now they pleaded with the authorities to allow the entry of its 251 passengers. But it was 1939, and the ship’s human cargo was considered radioactive. Why? Because most of the passengers were…
Yorman Márquez, aka El Gordo Bayón, was gunned down a few days ago. His story is like a micro-cosm of chavista Venezuela – union leader, alleged murderer, ex-con, high-level political operative, victim. Read it and weep. (HT: OB)
The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations has a handy data visualization tool here on worldwide causes of death and disability. The Venezuela pages are somewhat startling. One key measure is Years of Life Lost: a statistical measure of the years of life a person would have been expected to live had they not died prematurely. In…
Article 68 of the Venezuelan Constitution reads as follows: “Citizens have the right to demonstrate peacefully and without weapons, with no other requirements than those established in the law. The use of firearms and other toxic substances to control peaceful demonstrations is prohibited. The law shall regulate the actions of police and safety organizations when controlling public…
Having the second highest homicide rate in the world is not an honor that any nation wants to carry on its shoulders, and the burden is particularly high for those in charge of protecting the lives of its citizens. With so many government plans against crime launched in the last few years, it’s difficult to see how…
(A guest post by Daniela Alexandra Porat, a Toronto-based Venezuelan ex-pat and CC reader) Venezuela’s current crisis finds a mirror in the stories of the country’s padres huérfanos. These so-called “orphaned parents” are the older Venezuelans who send their offspring abroad to save them from the the brutal crime in Venezuela’s streets, helping them start…
On April 6th, Venezuelan journalist Nairobi Pinto, who works as head of correspondents for the TV news channel Globovision, was kidnapped by masked individuals outside of her home in Caracas. Eight days later, she was found alive and well in the town of Cúa (Miranda State). Her kidnapping was a source of concern not only for…
Caracas Chronicles 