Author Topic: Venezuela  (Read 311495 times)

captainccs

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We lose again
« Reply #200 on: April 14, 2013, 09:22:33 PM »
We lose again but by a smaller margin. Not the final count: Maduro 50.66% Capriles 49.07%, about 200,000 votes difference.

Miguel calls it a huge victory for the opposition. How is losing a victory if it means 6 more years of the same crap?

One electoral board member suggested a physical recount of the ballot. They would not be doing that if they had to fudge the results, I don't think.

The next step is hoping Maduro implodes.
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DougMacG

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #201 on: April 15, 2013, 07:10:39 AM »
Very sad and disappointing.  

"One electoral board member suggested a physical recount of the ballot. They would not be doing that if they had to fudge the results, I don't think."

A recount would be nice anyway to establish trust in the vote count and put would-be cheaters on notice for the future.

"Miguel calls it a huge victory for the opposition. How is losing a victory if it means 6 more years of the same crap?"  ... " The next step is hoping Maduro implodes."

Doesn't seem important now, but margin of victory matters in governing, and so does the approval rating after the election.

Interesting that opposition to socialism/fascism wins 49% support in Venezuela but only 27% support of Latin Americans in the US:  http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/09/politics/latino-vote-key-election
« Last Edit: April 15, 2013, 07:15:12 AM by DougMacG »

captainccs

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #202 on: April 15, 2013, 08:26:41 AM »
Don't let the term "hispanic" blind you. Obama is "un negrito," OIbama is "mi color." On the whole Venezuelans are a lot less racist than Americans but this also allows us to talk freely of color, nationality and other personal traits without being accused of racism. Chavez tried to bring race to the table but that essentially failed,  only the very young, who didn't know better, fell for it. It should not come as a surprise that color and nationality are attractors even for people who would not be considered racist.

Second, the vote here was not about socialism vs, capitalism at all. Capriles is best described as a "Lula da Silva" style socialist. Even if he were if he were a capitalism at heart (I have no way of knowing but he certainly has capitalists in his lineage), he would not be able to turn Venezuela on a dime. It is important to remember that CAP was impeached mainly because he tried to bring economic freedoms to Venezuela (eliminate price controls, privatize state enterprises) some of which were not kindly received in great measure because he never prepared people for the transitory pain these changes bring. Raising the price of gas at the pump broke the camel's back and he was fired.

One can live with socialism and populism provided one's basic economic freedoms remain intact, specially the right to own property. One doesn't particularly care if the government is misspending oil income but one sure cares if one's home or business is taken away. Milton Friedman put it very nicely.

Quote
A final personal note: it is a rare privilege for an author to be able to evaluate his own work forty years after it first appeared. I appreciate very much having the chance to do so. I am enormously gratified by how well the book has withstood time and how pertinent it remains to today's problems. If there is one major change I would make, it would be to replace the dichotomy of economic freedom and political freedom with the trichotomy of economic freedom, civil freedom and political freedom. After I finished the book, Hong Kong, before it was returned to China, persuaded me that while economic freedom is a necessary condition for civil and political freedom, political freedom, desirable though it may be, is not a necessary condition for economic and civil freedom. Along these lines, the one major defect in the book seems to me an inadequate treatment of the role of political freedom, which under some circumstances promotes economic and civil freedom, and under others, inhibits economic and civil freedom. [emphasis added]

I analyzed the above in light of the Venezuela experience at Software Times  Venezuela 2011.

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Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: The Cuban vote in Venezuela
« Reply #203 on: April 15, 2013, 10:03:33 AM »
Venezuela held a presidential election on Sunday to replace left-wing populist Hugo Chávez, whose death was announced on March 5.

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) put up Nicólas Maduro, a Cuba-trained ideologue and the man the cancer-stricken Chávez anointed as his heir in December. Facing off against him was Justice First candidate Henrique Capriles, governor of the state of Miranda and the first politician since the 1998 advent of chavismo who has been able to unify the opposition.

As we went to press, returns were not yet in. But the opposition was calling on supporters to demand proof of the vote count at local polling stations. Tensions were rising.

If Mr. Capriles prevailed it would be a major upset. A Maduro victory was more likely not only because of the sympathy vote for the late Chávez. The chavistas have been using state power to cheat, intimidate and spend themselves first across the finish line for more than a decade. International observers were prohibited from sending missions to Venezuela and Mr. Capriles was denied access to almost all television and radio stations during the campaign.

Then there was the Cuba factor. The Castro regime has become a big player in Venezuelan politics and had a big stake in the outcome—namely the threat by Mr. Capriles that if he won he would curtail the shipment of some $4 billion in oil annually to the regime. As such Havana made sure it held considerable sway over the outcome.

Last month the Spanish newspaper ABC reported that the regime "is sending a detachment of agents for electoral control that could reach 2,500 officers, according to intelligence information that came out of the island." Havana admits that there are already some 46,000 Cubans serving the "revolution" in Venezuela. These are supposedly medical personnel, teachers and trainers, but a former high-ranking chavista who didn't want to be identified told ABC that "all of that is a cover to hide the control that Cuba has in Venezuela."

That comment was supported by the declaration by Cuba's chief of missions in Venezuela that the missions are there "to ensure our commitment; if until now we have been giving our all, [we] now are ready to give even our lives, our blood, if it were needed for this revolution."'

In 2005, while hosting a visit from Chávez in Havana, Fidel Castro proclaimed Venezuela and Cuba one country and its people "Venecubans." In 2010, the Economist magazine reported on an "apparently . . . long stay" in Caracas of Castro intelligence heavyweight Ramiro Valdés, "whose responsibilities at home include policing Cuban's access to the Internet."

The story also noted Cuban involvement in the operation of "Venezuela's ports, telecommunications, police training, the issuing of identity documents and the business registry" and that in 2005 it received "a contract to modernize [Venezuela's] identity card system."

In a fair fight, the 40-year-old Mr. Capriles might have won easily. Inflation for the first quarter of this year was well over 30% annualized. Currency weakness and price controls are causing shortages of many staple foods that now have to be imported because the agricultural sector has been destroyed by nationalizations and capital flight. The poor are also those who most suffer the effects of the soaring murder rate. Electricity blackouts have become routine.

The Maduro campaign relied heavily on emotion to counteract potential apathy for its candidate. The image of Chávez, whose death stirred thousands to weeping hysterically in the streets only five weeks ago, was never far from Mr. Maduro as he stumped on television or in person. He even claimed that Chávez returned to see him in the guise of a little bird.

Yet the chavistas and the Castro regime weren't willing to depend on the ghost of Chávez for victory. Last month, during the auditing of voting machines, the opposition uncovered evidence that the PSUV had in its possession pass codes that gave it the ability to sabotage the voting process on election day. The head of the opposition coalition said that this would not affect vote tallies, but it could be used to slow the process.

This might explain why in past elections at polling stations where the opposition vote was strong, waiting times often ran for many hours, leading many potential voters to skip the exercise altogether. The government-controlled electoral council denied the charges and the matter has not been rectified.

Electronic voting machines provide plenty of other opportunities for shenanigans. In past elections, Bolivarian enforcers executed a late-day roundup in poor neighborhoods of anyone who was a no-show at the polls. Many Venezuelans believe that because finger prints and identity numbers are taken at voting station, the vote is not secret. Fear of punishment either by getting fired from one's job or being denied state aid is real.

The upshot here is that Sunday's election told us very little about the real preferences of the Venezuelan electorate.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com

captainccs

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #204 on: April 15, 2013, 11:09:44 AM »
Of course the vote is not secret if they don't want it to be. The process:

You hand in your ID card and they find your name on the printed lists
They input your ID number into an online computer
You verify your ID number with your fingerprint
Then you vote.

Who just voted? The guy who just sent in his fingerprint.

Denny Schlesinger
  
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captainccs

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Capriles press conference
« Reply #205 on: April 15, 2013, 12:22:05 PM »
Capriles just wound up a press conference with the international press corps present, asking for a recount of the vote.

It seems the government wants to rush through the proclamation of Maduro without doing the recount. Capriles has asked publicly that people go to the state level electoral offices asking for a recount saying it's a local responsibility to do so. Should the recount not happen then he is calling for people to go to the national offices of the electoral body (CNE) to ask for the recount. In addition, he has asked people to join a cacerolazo (pot banging) tonight at 8 PM should there e no response from the CNE by then.

This is the closest call I have heard not to civil disobedience but to a public demand for a recount. Will the CNE accept? Will they call out the riot police to stop the people from asking for their rights? This could turn ugly quickly.

Capriles made the point that at least a million votes changed from Chavez in October to Capriles yesterday, proof that even Chavistas have had enough.

Capriles is a pretty good speaker. This isn't over as I feared yesterday. The game of chicken is now in force. Who will blink first?



I believe this is earlier news:

Henrique Capriles Wants Vote Recount in Venezuela Elections



By MANUEL RUEDA (@ruedareport)
April 15, 2014
Henrique Capriles, has refused to accept the results of Sunday's presidential election in Venezuela until votes are fully audited.

According to Venezuela's National Electoral Council, Capriles, the opposition candidate, obtained 49 percent of the votes this weekend. That means he lost to government candidate Nicolas Maduro by just 1.5 percentage points.

Capriles claimed there had been hundreds of violations at voting stations across Venezuela on Sunday and asked for a full recount of the votes before he would accept defeat.

http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/venezuela-elections-henrique-capriles-vote-recount/story?id=18948330#.UWxRHkZzrOk
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captainccs

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Coverage of the press conference
« Reply #206 on: April 15, 2013, 12:24:50 PM »
Capriles refuses to concede Venezuela presidential election, demands recount



By Juan Forero, Monday, April 15, 12:52 PM

CARACAS, Venezuela - Nicolas Maduro, the longtime loyal lieutenant of the late President Hugo Chavez, celebrated his apparent narrow victory in the presidential contest Monday, even as opponent Henrique Capriles refused to concede and demanded a recount, citing 3,200 irregularities on the day of the vote.

Instead of the resounding victory that many pollsters predicted for Maduro, who had the sympathy vote after Chavez died last month following a battle with cancer, his government begins on a shaky foundation with a questionable mandate. The margin of victory was just 235,000 votes.

“I want to say to the candidate of the government, the loser today is you,” Capriles said in an emotional press conference called moments after Maduro declared victory at the presidential palace where Chavez had given rousing speeches celebrating election wins.

He said that Maduro had benefitted from a vast state get-out-the vote machinery that included last minute tactics to bring voters to polls – including reopening closed polling stations.

“We are not going to recognize the results until each vote of the Venezuelan people is counted, one by one,” said Capriles, 40, an energetic lawyer and governor of economically important Miranda state. The Venezuelan electoral system is automated, but each vote also produces a paper receipt that can be counted by hand, according to electoral regulations.

One of the rectors of the National Electoral Council, Vicente Diaz, had called for a hand count after the results of the election were released. And in his victory speech, Maduro said, “We’re going to do it.”

“We’re not afraid – let the boxes talk,” said Maduro, 50, referring to the cardboard boxes that hold ballots. “That the truth be told.”

Still, on a tense Monday in which many businesses were shuttered, it remained unclear if a recount would take place.

The government continued with plans for a ceremony on Monday afternoon in which Maduro would be proclaimed the winner, to be followed days later by a swearing in ceremony. And the electoral council – which has five members, the majority of whom are allies of the government – had not said whether a recount would take place.

“These are the irreversible results that the Venezuelan people have decided with this electoral process,” Tibisay Lucena, the head of the council, said late Sunday as she read the results.

According to the council, voters gave Maduro 50.6 percent of the vote to 49.1 for Capriles, with 99 percent of the vote counted. It was unclear, though, if the Venezuelan vote from outside of the country – which analysts say is overwhelmingly opposed to Chavez – were included in that total.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney called Capriles’s request for an audit of votes an “important, prudent, and necessary step” to ensure that Venezuelans have trust in the election results.

The narrow margin was a letdown for many in Chavismo, the radical movement that Chavez founded, with the goal of turning Venezuela into a socialist state.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/capriles-refuses-to-concede-venezuela-presidential-election-demands-recount/2013/04/15/4db19c9e-a5eb-11e2-a8e2-5b98cb59187f_story.html

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Denny Schlesinger

captainccs

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Venezuelan opposition calls for protests to demand recount
« Reply #207 on: April 15, 2013, 01:46:48 PM »
Venezuelan opposition calls for protests to demand recount
By Marianna Parraga and Todd Benson | Reuters – 38 mins ago

CARACAS (Reuters) - Opposition leader Henrique Capriles on Monday called on Venezuelans to take to the streets and peacefully demand a vote recount if election authorities formally proclaim Hugo Chavez's chosen successor as the next president.

The day after Venezuela's election board declared acting President Nicolas Maduro winner of Sunday's presidential vote by a tight margin, Capriles insisted the opposition's own count showed he was the victor.

"We think we won the election. The other side thinks they won and we're both within our rights," Capriles, a 40-year-old state governor, said in a televised news conference.

"All we're asking is that our rights be respected, that the will of the people be respected, and that every single vote be counted, every little piece of paper, that paper isn't for recycling, it's proof."

The request appeared to fall on deaf ears.

Shortly after Capriles spoke, senior ruling party official Dario Vivas told Reuters the proclamation ceremony would go ahead and accused Capriles of trying to "destabilize" the country.

Conscious of Venezuela's long history of turbulent protests, Capriles urged his supporters to resist temptations to resort to violence. He called for Venezuelans to bang pots and pans in protest on Monday night if Maduro is formally proclaimed winner.

If the stalemate continues, Capriles asked his followers to gather in protest on Tuesday in front of election board offices around the nation. If there is still no sign of a recount by Wednesday, Capriles pledged to lead a peaceful march through the streets of Caracas to the election board's headquarters.

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

The controversy around Venezuela's first presidential election without Chavez on the ballot in two decades ushered in new uncertainty in the oil-rich country.

It also raised doubts about the future of "Chavismo," Chavez's self-proclaimed socialist movement, without its charismatic founder, who died from cancer on March 5.

Before dying, Chavez named his longtime protégé Maduro as his preferred successor, giving the former bus driver a huge boost heading into Sunday's election.

But the endorsement was not enough to ensure an easy victory for Maduro, who edged out Capriles with 50.7 percent of the votes, according to election board returns.

Capriles took 49.1 percent, just 235,000 fewer votes, according to the official count. Opposition sources told Reuters their count showed Capriles won by more than 300,000 votes.

A sense of normalcy reigned in Caracas on Monday despite the election tensions, with businesses open and traffic flowing, although there were some isolated protests.

About 200 pro-opposition students protested in an upscale district, trying to enter a hotel where unofficial foreign election observers were meeting. Outside the opposition's campaign headquarters, some protesters shouted "No more fraud."

Maduro, 50, said he would accept a full recount, even as he insisted his victory was clean and dedicated it to Chavez. Senior government officials, on state television and Twitter, ridiculed the opposition as sore losers and praised Venezuela's election system as foolproof.

"It's impossible to manipulate the election result," Jorge Rodriguez, Maduro's campaign chief, said on state TV.

The U.S. government backed the call for a full audit of the results and the Organization of American States offered to send election auditors to help. Chavista allies such as Russia and Cuba, which receives generous aid and subsidized oil from Venezuela, immediately congratulated Maduro.

Venezuela's election board is no stranger to controversy. Over the years, the opposition has repeatedly accused it of turning a blind eye to the blatant use of state resources in favor of pro-Chavez candidates. Critics say four of its five members are openly pro-government.

"The next few hours are critical," Pedro Benitez, a senior member of the opposition coalition, told Reuters. "The opposition has to get access to the ballot boxes, which are under custody of the (military)."

A similar situation gripped Mexico in 2006, when a leftist opposition candidate alleged fraud after losing a tight presidential race to Felipe Calderon. A partial recount followed and Calderon's victory was upheld.

(Additional reporting by Eyanir Chinea and Mario Naranjo; Writing by Todd Benson; Editing by Kieran Murray, Jackie Frank and Bill Trott)

http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelans-vote-future-chavista-socialism-000101418.html
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captainccs

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Government nor backing down
« Reply #208 on: April 15, 2013, 01:57:10 PM »
They are about to proclaim Maduro president.

Cacerolazo going full blast.
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captainccs

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One member missing
« Reply #209 on: April 15, 2013, 02:13:00 PM »
One of the five members of the electoral board (CNE) is missing from the ceremony. I wonder if its the one who yesterday called for the recount. Didn't catch the names.

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captainccs

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Re: One member missing
« Reply #210 on: April 15, 2013, 06:50:43 PM »
One of the five members of the electoral board (CNE) is missing from the ceremony. I wonder if its the one who yesterday called for the recount. Didn't catch the names.


Yes, Vicente Diaz.
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captainccs

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The Devil Reports
« Reply #211 on: April 15, 2013, 06:53:49 PM »
One solid hour of cacerolazo.



Venezuela Tense, As Electoral Board Rushes Maduro Proclamation
by moctavio

So, the story is like this:

Yesterday, Maduro's team was telling diplomats and reporters that at 1:00 PM Maduro was ahead by 2% of the votes. At that time, it looked as if abstention was going to be more like 30% of the total number of voters. In the next couple of hours, participation increased dramatically, but the increase was higher in traditionally more pro-opo centers than in pro-Chávez centers. However, by 4 PM Chavismo was projecting a victory by 1-2% of the vote.

Meanwhile in Capriles' camp, all that was being counted at that point was participation. They had the same 30% abstention projection at 1 PM, but then it accelerated and they began projecting 22-23% abstention at the end of the day. But they could see the details and the participation by 4 PM in the more pro-opo centers was 75% (top 50% pro-opo centers) versus 69% in the pro-Chávez centers.

When the Actas began arriving, the opposition counting center began seeing a virtual tie from the time it had 20% of the tallies. Essentially, within the error of the tally, it was impossible to predict who was winning. If you added the international votes, then they would get a Capriles victory.

This continued and the Capriles team was hearing that Chavismo was saying that Maduro had an advantage of a quarter of a million votes. As the night went on, Capriles decided to call Maduro and told him that his numbers were saying the race was too tight and any announcement should be held off. Maduro told Capriles that he had to check (??) and never called back. Within twenty minutes CNE made the announcement.

Meanwhile, at the CNE, Vicente Diaz had argued that no announcement should be made and they should wait to reconcile the numbers. Vicente Diaz also suggested that the CNE itself shoudl call for an audit, something it can do. He was voted down and the announcement was made.

Today, Vicente Diaz went to CNE where there was supposed to be a meeting and instead found that Maduro would be proclaimed as the winner, while the meeting in which he was going to formally propose that a complete counting of the ballots and tallies be made, was not going to take place.

Thus, Vicente Diaz decided not to go to the proclamation.

At which point I ask: Why the rush? Why make the announcement if things were not clear or there were doubts? Why rush to proclaim Maduro if he was not planned to be sworn in until Thursday?

That is the big "if", Maduro who alraedy stars weak with a very small victory, makes himself more illegitimate by trying to be proclaimed early and while he claims he wants to count the boxes, the suggestion is this may not happen.

Meanwhile, Capriles was calling for people not to go out and protest, but instead participate in a pot banging tonight at 8 PM, as well as marches in all regional CNE's tomorrow and one on Wednesday to the CNE to formally request a complete recount of all the ballots and comparison with tallies and the voting notebooks.

But students had a mind of their own and began protesting in many parts of the country. In Caracas, near Plaza Altamira and the Autopista, students gathered to protest. Chavista motorcycles began showing up and there appeared that there would be confrontations. Then opposition motorcycles showed up and Chavistas fortunately left.

Meanwhile, the Government sent out the National Guard, who used tear gas to disperse the crowd away from the Autopista. I managed to get a little close at that time. Here are some protesters:

And here is the National Guard holding strong to stop students from going down to the Autopista:

And here is a picture of the fires the students built to stop the National Guard from going through:

And in the only gesture of peace and conciliation of the last 24 hours, Maduro ordered tonight that the National Guard withdraw from Alatamira and the Autopista.

Things are tense. Very Tense. Falcon said some Generals have been detained because they disagreed with decision to announce the results. Others tell me they are searching for Capriles' Minister of Defense "in pectore". The European Union, OAS, US and other UNASUR countries have sent the message they will not recognize Maduro until votes are counted again.

Stay tuned...

But I just don't believe any votes will be recounted and ballot boxes found in at elast eight places around the country, either being dispose of or being burned suggest I will be right. Fraud is the only word that comes to mind...

http://devilsexcrement.com/2013/04/15/venezuela-tense-as-electoral-board-rushes-maduro-proclamation/

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Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: The mess in Caracas
« Reply #212 on: April 16, 2013, 05:12:42 AM »
The Mess in Caracas
The close election is a repudiation of chavismo. .
 
Hugo Chávez spent 14 years ruining Venezuela, and the mess seems likely to get worse after Sunday's contested presidential election. His anointed heir, union leader Nicolás Maduro, claimed victory with 50.7% of the vote, but the narrow margin amounts to a repudiation of chavismo considering all of the obstacles thrown at the opposition.

Challenger Henrique Capriles is demanding a full recount and has refused to concede, and rightly so. The U.S., European Union and the even the left-leaning Organization of American States all came down on Mr. Capriles's side. Mr. Maduro at first said he'd go along with a recount, but Monday before we went to press the National Electoral Council declared him the winner. There are also reports that ballot boxes that were supposed to be under the eye of the National Guard have begun to disappear.

It's remarkable that Mr. Capriles came within 235,000 votes in the official count given that Chávez had put out of business every independent radio and television broadcaster. Mr. Capriles was banned from all state media and most of the few private airwaves that still exist. That meant that he literally had to be seen in person to be heard. Mr. Maduro by contrast enjoyed hours of television appearances daily.

Mr. Capriles was also up against an army of Cuban functionaries on hand to defend their investment in their oil-rich political client. Havana, which gets at least $4 billion annually in subsidized oil from Venezuela, now runs all of the government's information systems and document control.

For years Chávez refused to allow a pre-election audit of the voter rolls, making it impossible to know how many non-citizens have voter ID cards. The government treasury doles out favors to political allies, and the state-owned oil company controls the fate of thousands of workers. Many Venezuelans have said that they don't believe the vote is secret.

Chávez built his political success on a cult of personality that Mr. Maduro isn't able to match. The protégé tried to play up the sympathy vote for Chávez, who died in March of cancer, even claiming that the dead dictator had appeared to him as a little bird.

But Mr. Maduro also had to defend Venezuela's sinking economy, which is plagued by corruption and an annual inflation rate of more than 30%. Oil prices have been falling, and the national currency, the bolivar, is trading at nearly four times less than its official rate. That's despite an official devaluation in March.

The close, contested vote means that even if he bullies his way into the presidential palace, Mr. Maduro is unlikely to have democratic legitimacy. Mr. Capriles is now a national symbol of resistance and on Monday he asked his supporters to go to the streets to protest the declaration of a Maduro victory.

The Cubans and chavistas are no doubt anticipating that their strongarm tactics will once again prevail, and that the protests will fizzle. And maybe they will. But sometimes countries have arisen in mass peaceful protests to reclaim their democracy when a dictator tries to steal it. That was the lesson of the Philippines in 1986 with Corazon Aquino, the Ukraine's Orange revolution in 2004, among others. The only way Venezuelans will end chavismo is with such a popular uprising.

captainccs

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Venezuela: An Election That Reeks Of Fraud
« Reply #213 on: April 16, 2013, 08:06:03 AM »
Venezuela: An Election That Reeks Of Fraud
Posted 04/15/2013 07:01 PM ET

Latin America: Venezuela's election on Sunday, which saw bus driver Nicolas Maduro declared the winner by a razor-thin margin, reeked of electoral fraud. Kudos to challenger Henrique Capriles for calling it out.

Fraud is a strong word but, yes, it's the clearest conclusion from Venezuela's election Sunday to pick a successor to the late socialist dictator Hugo Chavez.

Chavez's hand-picked successor "won" Venezuela's election Sunday, with what Chavez's anything-but impartial CNE electoral body declaring he'd gotten 50.6% of the vote, while his challenger, Miranda state governor Henrique Capriles Radonski garnered 49.07% — a gap of just 235,000 votes. That's suspicious right there, given the structural advantages and Chavez "sympathy votes" Maduro had yet couldn't turn into a victory.

Polls — every one of them — showed that Capriles had crossed over to a tie or lead in the last week of the campaign, while the size of his spirited million-strong rallies — the largest since 2002 — told the same story.

Capriles says he had enough evidence amid a stream of down-ballot irregularities — from Chavista motorcycle goons intimidating voters to ballot boxes strewn across the Barinas state — to believe he had won.

Yet Maduro, a wooden candidate almost totally lacking in charisma, somehow was the people's choice.

His angry victory speech threatening voters was an odd thing, given his razor-thin margin of victory and presumed need to unify the country to govern.

Obviously, he was trying to hold together his base, which in fact is crumbling as his Chavista political rivals now call for "self criticism." That's not a good sign.

What's more he wasn't able to buy votes this time. Banker Russ Dallen of BBO Financial Services in Caracas points out that amid the shambles of Venezuela's public finances, Maduro didn't even have cash to dole out goodies to buy votes.

Perhaps the biggest reality that can't be ignored is that Chavez's, and by extension Maduro's, socialist record is one of massive failure.

Venezuela, with the world's largest oil reserves, is deeply in debt, has 30% inflation, repeated currency devaluations, empty store shelves, capital controls, crumbling infrastructure, and the world's worst crime and corruption.

The only place we've seen comparable results has been in Mexico during the PRI "perfect dictatorship" era of Mario Vargas Llosa's description, where a losing candidate in a stacked election would win by a small margin instead of a big one to preserve credibility.

As we go to press, tanks have been dispatched to the streets of the middle-class district of Altimira in the capital, a sign of the instability that comes of an election with zero credibility that couldn't even be disguised by Chavez's corrupt Chicago-style political machine.

Capriles has called for a recount and the White House, to its credit, has asked for an audit. They're unlikely to happen, given that the game of the Chavista machine is to hold on to power at any price.

They'll hold onto power with military tanks as the facade of Venezuelan democracy crumbles.


http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/041513-651977-maduro-victory-in-venezuela-stinks-of-fraud.htm#ixzz2QddWYeO5

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Venezuelan rivals rally supporters, four people reported dead
« Reply #214 on: April 16, 2013, 09:36:00 AM »
Venezuelan rivals rally supporters, four people reported dead
Reuters/Reuters - Supporters of opposition leader Henrique Capriles demonstrate for a recount of the votes in Sunday's election, in Caracas, April 15, 2013. REUTERS/Tomas Bravo

By Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne

CARACAS (Reuters) - Violent clashes over Venezuela's disputed presidential election have killed four people, the state news agency said on Tuesday, as both sides in the stand-off planned rival demonstrations.

The deaths occurred when hundreds of protesters took to the streets in various parts of the capital, Caracas, and in other cities on Monday, blocking streets, burning tires and clashing with security forces, in some cases.

The AVN news agency said two people were killed in Miranda state, which includes part of Caracas, one in Tachira state on the border with Colombia, and another in western Zulia state. It gave no further details.

In one of the confrontations, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets in a running battle with masked, rock-wielding opposition supporters in a wealthy district of Caracas.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles is demanding a recount of the votes from Sunday's election after official results showed a narrow victory for ruling party candidate Nicolas Maduro, the acting president.

Capriles said his team's figures show that he won the election and he has called his supporters into the streets for peaceful demonstrations.

The National Electoral Council refused to hold a full recount, saying a 54 percent audit of the widely respected electronic vote system had already been carried out.

The election was triggered by the death of socialist leader Hugo Chavez last month after a two-year battle with cancer. He named Maduro as his successor before he died and his protege won the election with 50.8 percent of the vote against Capriles' 49.0 percent.

Both sides have urged their supporters to hold peaceful demonstrations nationwide on Tuesday, raising fears of more unrest in the oil-exporting nation of 29 million people, which has seen plenty of political turbulence in the last few decades.

"Imagine if I went crazy and called the people and armed forces onto the street? What would happen in this country? How many millions would pour onto the street?" Maduro said late on Monday, blaming Capriles for the violence.

"We're not going to do it. This country needs peace. Where are the opposition politicians who believe in democracy?"

The unrest in Caracas included demonstrations outside the offices of state television channel VTV and the home of the head of the election authority.

Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, hopes to highlight the weakness of Maduro's mandate and stir up opposition anger over his charge that the electoral council is biased in favor of the ruling Socialist Party.

The strategy could backfire if demonstrations turn into prolonged disturbances, such as those the opposition led between 2002 and 2004, which sometimes blocked roads for days with trash and burning tires and annoyed many Venezuelans.

A return to prolonged trouble in the streets could renew questions about the opposition's democratic credentials on the heels of their best showing in a presidential election, and just as Capriles has consolidated himself as its leader.

LEGAL MOVE AGAINST CAPRILES?

Senior government figures have raised the possibility of legal action against Capriles.

"Fascist Capriles, I will personally ensure you pay for the damage you are doing to our fatherland and people," National Assembly head Diosdado Cabello said on Twitter, requesting that state prosecutors open a criminal investigation.

But the opposition leader says he will fight on.

"We are not going to ignore the will of the people. We believe we won ... we want this problem resolved peacefully," Capriles told a news conference.

"There is no majority here, there are two halves." Opposition sources say their count showed Capriles won by more than 300,000 votes.

His team says it has evidence of some 3,200 election day irregularities, from voters using fake IDs to intimidation of volunteers at polling centers. It wants an exhaustive check of the paper-ballots printed at the time of casting a vote.

The focus of Monday's protests in the capital was the Plaza Altamira, which was often site of opposition demonstrations during Chavez's polarizing 14-year rule. Burned-out debris and glass lay strews on the ground on Tuesday morning.

"We will protest for as long as it takes. We will not give up the streets," said Carlos Cusumano, a 20-year-old student who took part in the protest.

Wearing T-shirts wrapped around their faces, some demonstrators threw sticks and stones at the ranks of police, who wore body armor and carried shields.

Maduro, who had initially said he was open to a recount, called on his supporters to demonstrate all week. The official results showed him winning by 265,000 votes.

"Maduro won and the people have proclaimed him," said dental technician Alicia Rodriguez, 38. "Learn to lose!" she added in reference to the opposition's stance.

The head of the electoral authority, Tibisay Lucena, shot down the opposition leader's call for a recount, saying "threats and intimidation" were not the way to appeal its decisions.

She also accused the U.S. government and Organization of American States of trying to meddle in Venezuelan affairs after they backed the idea of a vote audit.

The controversy over Venezuela's first presidential election without Chavez on the ballot in two decades raised doubts about the future of "Chavismo" - the late president's self-proclaimed socialist movement - without its towering and mercurial founder.

Chavez named Maduro as his heir in an emotional last public speech to the nation before his death, giving the former foreign minister and vice president a huge boost ahead of the vote.

But Maduro's double-digit lead in opinion polls evaporated in the final days as Capriles led an energetic campaign that mocked Maduro as a non-entity and focused voters on daily problems ranging from crime to inflation and creaking utilities.

Maduro's margin of victory raises the possibility he could face future challenges from rivals in the leftist coalition that united around Chavez, who won four presidential elections.

At his last election in October, the former soldier beat Capriles by 11 percentage points even though his battle with cancer had severely restricted his ability to campaign.

(Additional reporting by Diego Ore and Girish Gupta; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and David Storey)


http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelan-rivals-rally-supporters-four-people-reported-dead-150350204.html

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Denny Schlesinger

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Capriles blinked, we lose again
« Reply #215 on: April 17, 2013, 08:10:38 AM »
Capriles blinked, we lose again

Capriles blinked first, we lose again. There is this incredibly naive belief that dictators can be dethroned by voting, history to the contrary. In 2002 I did a survey of the life expectancy of a number of well known dictators, from our very own Juan Vicente Gomez and including such notables as Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Franco, Oliveira Salazar, Castro, Saddam Hussein, Chapita (Rafael Trujillo) and a few others.

These were ousted or killed outright

Allende
Bishop
Chapita
Hitler
Noriega
Mussolini
Saddam

all but one (Chapita) was done in by a foreign power. These died of natural causes:

YearsName
1908-193527Juan Vicente Gomez
1924-195329Joe Stalin
1932-1968 (1970)36Antonio Oliveira Salazar
1938-197537Francisco Franco
1949-197627Mao Tse Tung
1959-? ? ?54Fidel Castro
1998-201315Hugo Chavez Frias

Based on these observation I forecast that Chavez would die of natural causes while still in power. i was spot on even if I didn't figure he'd go early victim of cancer. It's hard to tell this early if Maduro will grow into the job but so far he is playing the dictator perfectly. To stay in power you have to be ruthless and the other side has to blink, which it did.


Quote
Canceling the march “was a responsible thing to do because
you cannot win the battle when Maduro has all the guns and
tanks,” Dallen said in a phone interview from Caracas. “But
this is not the end of it at all.”

Not the end but another six years of Chavista dictatorship.

----------------------------------------------------------

Received by eamil:

Capriles Calls Off Protest After Venezuela Threatens Crackdown
2013-04-17 03:30:01.0 GMT
By Charlie Devereux and Corina Pons

April 17 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski took a step back from the brink of a mounting confrontation with the government by calling off a march planned for today to protest the results of the April 14 presidential election.

Capriles acted after Nicolas Maduro, proclaimed the winner by the national electoral council, vowed to come down with a “firm hand” on opposition supporters and seven people died in political violence, according to the public prosecutor. Capriles urged supporters to bang pots and pans at home to avoid violence. Maduro responded by telling his followers to drown out the protest with fireworks and music.

“We know that your agenda in the government is to try to get the country into a situation of confrontation and violence,” Capriles, 40, told reporters yesterday in Caracas. “Tomorrow we won’t mobilize.”

Tensions have escalated in Venezuela after a close result in an emergency election following the death of President Hugo Chavez March 5. While Capriles’ gesture averts the likelihood of bloodshed for now, Maduro’s response points to a protracted conflict, said Gregory Weeks, head of the department of political science at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte.

“This eases the tension, but I don’t know for how long,” Weeks, former director of Latin American studies at the university, said in a phone interview. Maduro’s response “is in many ways a provocation.”

Dollar Bonds

Venezuela’s dollar-denominated bonds fell the most in almost 15 years yesterday as traders anticipated political instability will undermine the economy. Inflation accelerated to 25 percent in March, the fastest official rate in the region. The central bank’s scarcity index, which measures the amount of goods that are out of stock in the market, rose to a record high of 20.4 percent in January.

Maduro will be sworn in on April 19 even as the opposition insists irregularities affected about 300,000 votes, enough to overturn the result. Capriles said he believed he had won the election and is ready to concede defeat if a recount confirms Maduro’s victory.

Maduro said he didn’t recognize Capriles as the governor of Miranda state. Capriles, who the electoral council said took 49 percent of the votes, temporarily stepped down as governor to run for president. Maduro won the race with 50.8 percent of the votes, the council said.

“I’m going to take legal measures, because you have violated the constitution and assassinated the people,” Maduro said, referring to the opposition leader, after the march was called off.

Nationwide Protests

The nationwide protests also left 61 injured and led to the arrest of 135 people, Public Prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz said. Opposition protesters have attacked health centers and local offices of the ruling socialist party, Maduro said.

“You won’t go to downtown Caracas to fill it with blood and death,” Maduro, 50, said yesterday in comments broadcast on state television. “This is a chronicle of a coup foretold.”

Capriles, in an interview with CNN’s Spanish-language channel yesterday, said “the government wants violence. We are calling for peace.”

In 2002, Chavez was overthrown for two days after opposition street protests in Caracas turned violent. A decade earlier, Chavez became a national figure by leading military rebels in a failed coup against President Carlos Andres Perez.

Protests should die down in the coming days or weeks after the march was canceled, said Francisco Rodriguez, senior Andean economist at Bank of America Corp. Rodriguez said he thinks Capriles doesn’t have enough evidence to overturn the result.

Busted Bonds

The country’s bonds due in 2027 dropped 6.89 cents to 91.22 cents on the dollar yesterday, the biggest decline since August 1998. The yield rose 95 basis points, or 0.95 percentage point, to 10.44 percent, the highest since November.

Bonds will continue to fall as the future of Venezuela remains unclear amid the political dispute and the potential of violence remains high, said Russell Dallen, the head trader at Caracas Capital Markets.

Caracas was flooded with music, fireworks and the sound of pots and pans being banged last night for more than an hour as supporters from both sides showed loyalty to their leaders.

Chavez, who tapped the world’s biggest oil reserves to reduce poverty, left the country polarized as he nationalized more than 1,000 companies or their assets and implemented currency and price controls that created food shortages and fueled inflation.

Canceling the march “was a responsible thing to do because you cannot win the battle when Maduro has all the guns and tanks,” Dallen said in a phone interview from Caracas. “But this is not the end of it at all.” 

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Now Maduro Blinked
« Reply #216 on: April 20, 2013, 06:35:05 PM »
Venezuela is in total confusion. After the vote Capriles asked for a recount and Maduro accepted. Then Maduro did an about face. A couple of days later Maduro accepts an audit but the CNE, the election board does not go along and wants to send the mess to the supreme court, a bunch of hand picked Chavista judges.

The opposition is banging on pots and the Chavistas are firing unending barrages of fireworks. If there is an alien civilization near by, they will pick up planet Earth by our noise. I don't have a cue how this will end.

Historically tyrannical governments that don't let go of the iron grip are very hard to remove but at any sign of weakness they can quickly cave in. I mentioned the other day that was was coming was a game of chicken but tis is ridiculous. First Maduro blinks then about turns. Then Capriles takes a hard stand but blinks when threatened with violence. Now Maduro blinks again but the CNE takes a hard stand. How can anyone make heads or tails of it?

Yesterday Miguel had this to say:


Maduro Blinks, Recount Will Take Place » Madurosilla

Despite all the bravado, all the refusal to recount and even Luisa Estela’s opinion, the CNE spent a full nine hours yesterday discussing the possible recount and magically. an hour before UNASUR was to recognize Maduro but strongly request a recount, the CNE announced that the 46% of ballot boxes would be audited.

You have to realize that the other 54% was not 100% audited and that an audit is truly a recount, as votes, machines and voting notebooks have to match in detail.

So, what happened? Simply, Maduro was forced to blink. It was not only UNASUR, but also the Venezuelan military that exerted its pressure and force the acceptance of the recount that Maduro had backtracked on. And opposition radicals can claim what they want, but 46% is statistically VERY significant. Any discrepancy, any irregularity, any inconsistency will certainly come out in this audit.

Maduro may look really bad after this recount…

What Maduro and his cronies did not realize is how sensible a recount sounds no matter how partisan you may be. Thus, internationally, Maduro accepting the recount only to “recular” (go back) the next day, looked certainly suspicious to say the least.

For Capriles, this is a win-win situation. He knows the hundreds of irregularities in the voting and his team will focus on it. Any ballot box not present, any inconsistency and those votes will be subtracted from Maduro’s lead. Add Capriles 57,000 international votes and Maduro’s lead of 270,000 could easily melt into the 100,000 lead.

And make him look even weaker.

And what do you say at that point? If all irregularities add up to something significant, the road ahead could be quite difficult.What happens if Maduro’s lead is reduced to 100 thousand or even less? Do they audit the remainder votes?

Nobody knows…

But it could get tricky as soon as next week, when the audit begins and Capriles’ team asks for international observers and the CNE refuses them. Or Tibisay says in this audit no actual ballots will be counted. The road will not be easy or simple.

But I am told the military knows what happened in detail on April 14th.Thus, Maduro blinked, but not only because of UNASUR, but because the military knew what was happening on Sunday. The Government claimed all afternoon that Maduro was ahead by as much as 10%, only to announce a small (<2%) victory at the last minute and rushing the proclamation of Maduro, and event that has always taken two or three days to take place.

And the military is divided. Yes, they have opinions, but leadership, true leadership, is nowhere to be seen on either of the two sides. Or maybe they are afraid to show their true colors.

But in the meantime, Maduro blinks and backtracks, Tibisay goes back on her words and Luisa Estela is made to look like the obeying fool everyone knows she is.

The whole thing is more volatile than most people imagine. Maduro was weak, even if he won. But his performance since has weakened him even further, while many of his comrades wonder why Hugo picked Nicolas, if they are so much better than him.

Things could change so fast, that I can’t predict a month, let alone a year. And as I had suggested before the election, politics is a new game in Venezuela. Chavez dominated politics and the agenda for fourteen years, but Capriles has lead the first political fight of the post-Chavez ear and he seems to have won resoundly.

In fact, Maduro may want to sound tough, but in reality nobody fears him, after all, Capriles and others already made him blink…


http://devilsexcrement.com/2013/04/19/maduro-blinks-recount-will-take-place/

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Denny Schlesinger

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Opposition, election body differ on Venezuela vote audit
« Reply #217 on: April 20, 2013, 09:38:47 PM »
Opposition, election body differ on Venezuela vote audit
By Daniel Wallis and Deisy Buitrago | Reuters – 2 hrs 10 mins ago

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's opposition and electoral authority expressed on Saturday widely differing expectations for an audit of the contested April 14 presidential election, a day after Nicolas Maduro was sworn in to succeed the late Hugo Chavez.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who says there were thousands of irregularities, wants a manual recount of all ballots cast in the vote, but has accepted the electoral body's decision to carry out a more limited electronic audit.

That move by the National Electoral Council's (CNE), the night before Maduro's inauguration, helped calm tensions after the government said opposition-led protests killed eight people and both sides accused the other of potting more violence.

The opposition said on Saturday that the audit, which is expected to take a month, must examine all aspects of the vote.

Official results showed Maduro winning by less than 2 percentage points in a much closer race than had been expected for the presidency of the OPEC nation with the biggest oil reserves in the world.

"This is going to be a long process ... and our people have to stay alert," Carlos Ocariz, national director of Capriles' team, told a news conference. "We want to know the truth. Once we see what happened last Sunday, a new phase can begin."

Ocariz said an opinion poll showed a majority of Venezuelans supported the call for a manual vote-by-vote recount, a more comprehensive review than the authorities agreed to conduct.

He also denounced what he said were cases of state employees being persecuted over suspicions they voted for the opposition.

Meanwhile, the CNE sought to temper the hopes of Capriles supporters that the audit will produce a different outcome.

"We will not let something that aims to verify whether the system worked be turned into a sort of public impeachment that tries to question the results," CNE rector Sandra Oblitas told reporters at the council's headquarters.

"As always, when the CNE announces results to the country, it is because they are irreversible."

The body's president, Tibisay Lucena, has also cautioned against anyone raising "false expectations" from the audit.

On Thursday, the electoral authority said it would widen to 100 percent an audit of electronic votes from a previous audit on election day that reviewed 54 percent of the machines.

Venezuelans vote electronically, but the machines also print out paper receipts of each vote that are kept in boxes. The audit involves counting the paper ballots at some stations to ensure they are consistent with the machine-tallied results.

MADURO SWORN IN

Maduro, a burly former bus driver whom Chavez named as his preferred successor before dying from cancer last month, was sworn in on Friday at a ceremony in Caracas attended by heads of state including the leaders of Brazil, Argentina, Cuba and Iran.

In his first speech as president, Maduro paid homage to his late boss, and at times seemed to reach out to the opposition. "I'm ready to talk even with the devil," he said.

At other times, the 50-year-old revived his combative language from the campaign trail, condemning his rivals as fascists who wanted chaos and had tried to unseat him in a coup.

As well as welcoming high profile guests such as Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff to his inauguration, Maduro has also received the backing of South America's Unasur bloc of nations, whose leaders met in Peru the night before the ceremony.

Among the presidents who flew on to Venezuela after debating the post-election dispute was Argentina's Cristina Fernandez, who on Saturday visited the hilltop military museum in Caracas where the marble sarcophagus of her close friend and ally Chavez is on display.

"I felt a knot in my stomach and my eyes filled with tears," she said on Twitter, describing how loudspeakers in the museum played a recording of Chavez singing the national anthem.

Fernandez's vocal support for Maduro brought a sharp response from Capriles, who says Chavez frittered away Venezuelans' birthright by "gifting" oil revenue to political allies through subsidized fuel supplies and other aid.

"Has Argentina's president brought a check for the millions of dollars she owes the Venezuelan people?" he asked on Twitter.

"It is the people who funded Senora Cristina's election campaign ... To those who are visiting Venezuela and owe us, we ask you to PAY! Those resources belong to the people."

(Additional reporting by Pablo Garibian; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Paul Simao)

http://news.yahoo.com/opposition-election-body-differ-venezuela-vote-audit-022307880.html
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Analysis: Rough start to post-Chavez era augurs badly for Venezuela
« Reply #218 on: April 21, 2013, 04:51:09 AM »
Analysis: Rough start to post-Chavez era augurs badly for Venezuela
By Andrew Cawthorne | Reuters – 6 hrs ago

CARACAS (Reuters) - About the only tranquil place in Caracas over the last few days is a hilltop military museum housing the remains of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

Visitors tip-toe around his marble sarcophagus, reprimanded by guards if their voices rise above whispers.

Outside, a shell-shocked nation is still reeling both from Chavez's death from cancer last month and a week of violence and recriminations over the disputed election to succeed him.

Nightly protests - government supporters launch fireworks, opponents bang pots and bans - have been shaking the capital Caracas and most other major cities in the South American nation of 29 million people.

The beginning of Venezuela's transition into the post-Chavez era could hardly have been more raucous or controversial.

The dispute over Chavez protégé Nicolas Maduro's narrow presidential vote win led to the deaths of at least eight people.

It has also deepened the near 50-50 split in a nation polarized by Chavez's socialist policies, shown the fragility of Maduro's grip on the "Chavismo" movement, and left a raft of fast-accruing economic and social problems on the back burner.

"If we're at war among ourselves, everyone suffers," said construction worker Elias Simancas, 61, sitting on a bench in a square where police clashed with masked and rock-throwing protesters during riots after last Sunday's vote.

"We just want a country in peace," he said, expressing an oft-repeated sentiment by the less vocal but majority voices on both sides of the country's political conflict.

As well as longing for some quiet and normality after 14 years in the global spotlight under Chavez, Venezuelans also want plenty more tangible things on their street corners.

First on their wish list is an end to murders, kidnappings and violent robberies that rival the world's worst crime spots and leave many Venezuelan towns and cities eerily quiet at night.

Beyond that, most Venezuelans of all political creeds want an end to runaway price rises, shortages of basic products, power cuts, potholes, cronyism in politics, and the insulting rhetoric between politically divided neighbors and families.

"I'm sick of it. I want out. How can I bring up kids in this country?" said Manuel Pereira, a 39-year-old businessman who has seen his electronics importing company collapse due to lack of access to foreign currency under government controls.

Debating Venezuela's future with middle-class friends on Saturday morning as their children held weekend soccer training - instead of a local league match, canceled due to the unrest - he said he was going to use his Spanish roots to try and emigrate this year.

CHAVEZ'S SHOES IMPOSSIBLE TO FILL

Just as during Chavez's two-year battle with cancer, his re-election last year, and his death on March 5, ideological disputes rather than grassroots issues fill the headlines and dominate government and opposition agendas.

Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles' decision to contest Maduro's election victory - by less than 2 percent, or 265,000 of nearly 15 million votes - uncorked passions and resentments built up during Chavez's rule.

The day after the election, Venezuela teetered on the edge of all-out crisis as pro-opposition hard-liners took to the streets in protests that turned violent and, according to the government, killed eight and injured many more.

Capriles publicly distanced himself from the bloodshed - blaming government instigators for the violence and accusing officials of exaggerating and exploiting the trouble - and called off a march in Caracas that may have turned violent.

The election board then agreed to audit the result, helping to take more heat out of the immediate situation.

Longer-term, the political standoff remains unresolved.

Though safely sworn-in, endorsed by his peers in South America and very unlikely to see his win overturned by the audit, Maduro cannot hide from some obvious conclusions after the vote.

Clearly he failed to replicate Chavez's popularity despite presenting himself as his devoted "son" and deploying much of the state apparatus at his service for an emotion-charged election just five weeks after Chavez's death.

Lacking the charisma and iron grip of his mentor, and with a weaker mandate at the polls, Maduro may now struggle to keep the ruling Socialist Party together given its competing interests and factions ranging from socialist ideologues to military chiefs and businessmen.

There have already been a handful of calls from within the movement for a period of soul-searching and for improving social services to win back the more than half-a-million 'Chavistas' who defected to Capriles during the election campaign.

"Let what needs correcting be corrected and what needs rectifying be rectified," said Foreign Minister Elias Jaua.

Furthermore, though Maduro condemns his opponents as "fascists" and "ultra-right," almost half of Venezuelans voted against him and question his legitimacy given opposition leaders' claims of thousands of irregularities on polling day.

Many Venezuelans are deeply frustrated that their OPEC nation is not doing better economically despite being rich in natural resources from abundant rivers for hydropower to the world's largest oil reserves.

OPPOSITION WAITING GAME

Opposition supporters are downhearted at having come so close to the prize but just missed out.

The Democratic Unity coalition is also a disparate and fragile mix of right- and left-wing parties and competing egos.

Capriles' surprisingly strong showing - most opinion polls before the vote had left him for dead - has cemented his standing as the undisputed opposition flag bearer and reduced the probability of what many had anticipated would be an opposition implosion after a comfortable Maduro win.

But Capriles faces public vilification by Maduro, possible legal charges against him over the violence, and a potential move to debar him from the governorship of Miranda state, where he is serving a second four-year term.

"They should get rid of him and find a proper democrat to run the opposition," said Andrea Lopez, a government supporter in Caracas' largest slum, Petare, saying Capriles should be put behind bars for the week's events.

"Some of my 'Chavista' neighbors even voted for him. They were deceived by his lies. Now they have seen the wolf in sheep's clothes. If he had won, we would have lost everything," she added, listing the health, education and other welfare projects that sprung up in her neighborhood under Chavez.

With Maduro in a tricky situation and the economy slowing, Capriles will likely look to consolidate an image as Venezuela's president-in-waiting.

"This is unfolding chapter by chapter," Capriles said. "The whole system is collapsing. It is a castle built on sand."

The awkward economic backdrop adds to Maduro's challenges, especially if the gloom-and-doom predictions of most Wall Street and private analysts are to be believed.

They see economic growth slowing from 5.6 percent in 2012 to perhaps half of that or even lower this year, inflation heading for 30 percent, bottlenecks in dollar supply for businesses, and shortages of basics from flour and sugar to medicine and tampons.

"Time is on the opposition's side as the economic and likely also political dynamics may contribute to weaken the government," said Goldman Sachs analyst Alberto Ramos.

He predicts just 2.2 percent growth in 2013 and a minimum 25-percent currency devaluation in 2014 or earlier.

Balancing that, economic naysayers have exaggerated Venezuela's economic woes in the past, and the billions keep pouring in from the nation's oil production.

All the signs so far are that Maduro will stay faithful to Chavez's economic policies, including costly fiscal strategies to maintain and expand the social welfare "missions" that were the cornerstone of his late boss's popularity.

In the immediate aftermath of Chavez's death, Maduro, a burly former bus driver who became foreign minister, was seen in many quarters as an affable and experienced diplomat who could be a potential reformer and bridge-builder.

There was talk of possible free-market economic tweaking, rapprochement with the United States, dialogue with the opposition and amnesty for political prisoners.

But his need to imitate Chavez's rhetoric during the campaign, then the post-election dispute, have seen him looking every bit the hard-liner in public.

That may be exacerbated by his dependence on the support of tough-talking National Assembly head Diosdado Cabello, the country's second most powerful official, who had been seen as a candidate for the top job before Chavez gave his blessing to Maduro.

Cabello showed his teeth last week, banning opposition legislators from speaking unless they recognized Maduro's win.

"Capriles wants chaos," said Cabello, a former military comrade of Chavez who keeps strong ties with the security forces and is seen as the muscle in government behind Maduro.

"But we're not idiots! There is no weakness. We swear to defend Chavez's legacy."

(Additional reporting by Girish Gupta, Deisy Buitrago, Mario Naranjo, Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Kieran Murray and Xavier Briand)


http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-rough-start-post-chavez-era-augurs-badly-050622851.html
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Lindsey Lohan scenario
« Reply #219 on: May 06, 2013, 12:01:15 PM »
Good morning, I have attached our Report on Venezuela to this email, in which we cover the eventful first three weeks of the administration of Nicolas Maduro.  I call it the Lindsey Lohan scenario -- it's not as hot as it was (9 people were killed in election-related violence the first week), but it is still WAY out-of-control!

This weekend marks one month that my former Oppenheimer investment bank partner Johnny Pettus has been detained without bail in jail at the SEBIN secret police headquarters Heliocoide, when the government raided and closed down the Oppenheimer office in Caracas, along with simultaneously raiding Johnny's home for "illicit foreign currency trading." ( http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=737339 ).  I owned half the Oppenheimer investment bank franchise in Venezuela until mid-2007, when I sold my half to my then-partner Johnny.  Sadly, this may make that sale the best trade of my life.  In May of 2010, the government also raided our BBO offices in Caracas along with those of our largest competitor Econoinvest.  Though the government arrested no one from our office, 4 people from Econoinvest were held for 2 years and 7 months without ever being convicted before they were released on bail on the last day of December last year.  Their trial is still ongoing....

With that said, things continued to be Lindsey Lohan crazy in Caracas. Maduro's government arrested another American (Johnny is a US citizen as well), Tim Tracy, an actor and film-maker, and charged him as a spy.  Obama denied that this weekend, but Venezuela doubled-down on the charge.  I do not believe Tracy is a spy -- the closest he ever comes to working for the government is in an episode of the Geena Davis/Donald Sutherland series Commander-in-Chief when he plays a low-level White House administrative aide (you can watch the video here http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=760043 , as well as the trailer for another movie called Senseless where he plays a gay boyfriend.  Given where he is, if the government or fellow prisoners believe either of these movies is reality, these two roles are probably not helpful).

Several clients have asked me for my thoughts on the Tracy incident.  Personally, I believe that the government arrested Tracy to get his videos.  He has been filming the conflicts and student movements against Chavez and now Maduro for most of last year. He has in depth interviews with the various student leaders as well as behind-the-scenes protest and fight footage.  If they got all his video, it was a treasure trove of information for the government.  As I have noted in this weekly email before, the students are the violent wild-card in this battle with the government.  http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/04/15/guest-post-venezuelans-wake-up-to-economic-realities/#axzz2SWWXHx5x

Shortly after Tracy's arrest, the Government used some of Tracy's footage to arrest Antonio Rivero, a retired General who had gone into Opposition against the government and even showed an edited version of some of Tracy's tape at the announcement following the arrest.

Then, the day before the opposing Capriles and Maduro May Day marches, 7 opposition deputies -- including a woman, beautiful svelte Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado -- were brutally attacked and beaten in the National Assembly.  The clash was a wake-up call, and march routes of the opposing camps were changed to avoid any further violence on May 1.  The Government then blamed the National Assembly attack on the Opposition lawmakers (in which no one from the government was injured, but left Machado and Borges with fractures) and made a tape to try (and badly fail) to prove it, complete with an ominous soundtrack from Call of Duty 4 (kid you not, you can Shazam it as it plays). (Government video is here http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=13303&ArticleId=768218  and shots from cell phones that prove the Opposition delegates were attacked here http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=767095 ).

That would be enough for this missive for the week, but the week was still not over. The Opposition has dispatched members around Latin America to make their case for a recount (see my email from last week or request it again if you missed it) and expose the actions of the government.  Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez led a mission to Peru, where the Peru Foreign Minister is the UNASUR spokesman on the elections in Venezuela issue.  The Peruvian Foreign Minister Rafael Roncagliolo came out and said:

“Peru is promoting that Unasur pronounce itself in asking for dialogue and tolerance in Venezuela…the second element of the Unasur declaration consists in asking that there be in Venezuela a climate of dialogue and tolerance, request that we maintain, request that I reiterate," said Roncagliolo. "It seems fundamental to us for both Venezuelans and the region that such a climate of dialogue, tolerance and mutual respect can be established.”

In a knee-jerk response to that tame diplomatic statement, Maduro recalled the Venezuelan Ambassador to Peru, saying

 “You may be Peru’s Foreign Minister, but you can not give opinions about Venezuela. I do not accept that lack of respect towards the political process that Venezuela is living. I don’t accept it…But to involve yourself with Venezuela’s problems to give us advice, please, don’t," said Maduro. "You made a mistake Peruvian Foreign Minister, you have made the mistake of your life”

Then, in response to the recall of the Ambassador, the Vice President of the Congressional Foreign Affairs committee Lourdes Alcorta said that it was clear in Venezuela that there is no President, but that there is a monkey holding office who has stolen the powers of the people.  (Video here:  http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=769672 ).

Never a dull moment in this Telenovela!

Until next week's chapter, please don't hesitate to let me know if we can be of any assistance. (PDF attached).

                                                                                                                    -Russ


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Venezuelan Bank Official Charged in U.S. With Two in Bribe Plot
« Reply #220 on: May 08, 2013, 06:22:49 AM »
Venezuelan Bank Official Charged in U.S. With Two in Bribe Plot
Bob Van Voris and Patricia HurtadoMay 08, 2013 12:01 am ET

May 8 (Bloomberg) -- An official with Venezuela’s state- owned economic development bank directed its bond-trading business to a New York brokerage in exchange for bribes from two of its employees, U.S. prosecutors said.

Maria Gonzalez, 54, vice president of finance at Banco de Desarrollo Economico y Social de Venezuela, Tomas Alberto Clarke Bethancourt, 43, and Jose Alejandro Hurtado, 38, were charged in a criminal complaint unsealed yesterday in federal court in New York.

Prosecutors said Clarke was a senior vice president and Hurtado an employee in the Miami office of the brokerage, which was identified in a lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as Direct Access Partners LLC, or DAP.

“These latest charges certainly highlight the widespread corruption throughout the Venezuelan government and the immense sums of money available with no Venezuelan oversight,” Russ Dallen, head bond trader at Caracas Capital Markets, said yesterday in an e-mailed response to questions.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said that the three defendants engaged in a conspiracy to pay bribes to Gonzalez in exchange for her directing the bank’s financial trading business to DAP. All three were arrested by agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on May 3 and presented in federal court in Miami on May 6.

Intermediary

The SEC said Hurtado, who lives in Miami, was the intermediary between DAP and Gonzalez. The Venezuelan government has a majority ownership interest in the bank, known as BANDES, and provided it with substantial funding, according to the SEC.

Henry Bell, a lawyer for Clarke, had no comment on the charges. Frank Rubino, who represents Hurtado, and Jane Moscowitz, a lawyer for Gonzalez, didn’t immediately return phone messages yesterday seeking comment on the allegations.

Phone calls to DAP’s offices yesterday after regular business hours weren’t answered.

From April 2009 through June 2010, Clarke, Hurtado and Gonzalez participated in a conspiracy in which Gonzalez directed trading business which she controlled to DAP and in return, agents and employees of the broker-dealer split the more than $60 million in mark-ups and mark-downs from trading with BANDES, the U.S. alleged.

Split Commissions

Clarke and Hurtado allegedly devised a scheme with Gonzalez to split commissions which BANDES paid the broker-dealer, and the government said Gonzalez received monthly kickbacks from DAP and its employees which prosecutors said “were frequently in the six-figure amounts.”

Gonzalez, who was in charge of overseas trading for BANDES, made at least $3.6 million in kickbacks from the scheme according to prosecutors. In exchange, Gonzalez allegedly directed bank business to DAP. Hurtado and his wife made millions from DAP in salary, bonuses and finder’s fees in connection with the BANDES business, prosecutors said. Millions more went to a foreign entity controlled by Clarke, which then transferred some of the money to a Swiss account for Gonzalez’s benefit, according to the government.

In addition to generating money on mark-ups and mark-downs, Clarke caused DAP in January 2010 buy and sell the same bonds for BANDES on the same day.

“The result of such trades was that BANDES was left with the same bond holdings as before the trades, except that it had paid the broker-dealer approximately $10.5 million in mark-ups in the course of the two round-trip transactions,” the U.S. government said in its complaint.

Wife, Relative

The SEC’s lawsuit against Clarke and Hurtado includes as defendants Haydee Leticia Pabon, 33, who is Hurtado’s wife, and Iuri Rodolfo Bethancourt, 40, a resident of Panama. According to the SEC, Clarke and Bethancourt are “apparent relatives.”

Bharara’s office yesterday filed a civil forfeiture lawsuit seeking control of bank accounts used in the alleged scheme and Miami-area properties that Hurtado allegedly bought with his proceeds.

“The defendants’ arrests lay bare a web of bribery and corruption in which employees of a U.S. broker-dealer allegedly generated tens of millions of dollars through transactions in order to fund kickbacks to a Venezuelan government official in exchange for her directing the Venezuelan economic development bank’s financial trading business to their employer,” Bharara said yesterday in a statement. “The defendants also engaged in international money laundering to carry out their corrupt scheme.”

Charges

A BANDES press official, who declined to be identified because of bank policy, declined to comment on the charges. An official in Venezuela’s finance ministry, who declined to be identified because of ministry policy, also declined to comment. A representative of the Information Ministry, who couldn’t be identified because of ministry policy, declined to comment.

Gonzalez is charged with conspiracy to violate the Travel Act, violation of the Travel Act, money laundering and money laundering conspiracy. Clarke and Hurtado are each charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, violation of the FCPA, Conspiracy to violate the Travel Act, violation of the Travel Act, money laundering and money laundering conspiracy.

The money laundering and money laundering conspiracy charges carry maximum prison terms of 20 years.

The case is U.S. v. Clarke, 13-mag-00683, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). The SEC case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Bethancourt, 13- cv-03074, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

--With assistance from Nathan Crooks in Caracas and Joshua Gallu in Washington. Editors: Michael Hytha, Peter Blumberg


http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-MMG3TS6S972D01-69H9N3AN7OB7HBKH6RMMSPND4K

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Opposition Challenges Results In Over Five Thousand Ballot Boxes
« Reply #221 on: May 08, 2013, 09:47:14 AM »
Opposition Challenges Results In Over Five Thousand Ballot Boxes
May 8, 2013

As you may have noticed, I have been traveling the last few days. But my friends keep me informed by sending all sorts of information which I read and file, but was not thinking of posting. Then yesterday I got the note on the second challenge to the April 14th. vote and thought I would mention it.
The opposition is challenging the results in 5,720 tables or boxes, which comprise 21,562 tallies. Each table challenged includes some form of irregularity which is documented in the challenge. The opposition is requesting that the vote be redone in all these, which comprises of 2.3 million votes.
Separately, the fingerprint analysis shows a large number of inconsistencies. But the most significant one is that 20% of he voters had no fingerprint on file, including over four hundred thousand new voters, all of which were supposed to have their prints on file.
 
This challenge to the election votes is separate from the first one, which was based on irregularities associated with violations of the electoral laws,such as assisted voting, propaganda and abuses, not with the details of the voting process and the results. Both include recusing those magistrates that have expressed an opinion on the case or are related to Government officials.
 
http://devilsexcrement.com/2013/05/08/opposition-challenges-results-in-over-five-thousand-ballot-boxes/

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #222 on: May 08, 2013, 03:16:45 PM »
Denny:

Any chance of this getting some traction?

captainccs

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¿Traction?
« Reply #223 on: May 08, 2013, 03:41:07 PM »
Crafty Dog:

I don't know. The fact that the opposition is still at it and has not run for Costa Rica or some other safe haven like the previous opposition leaders did is a good sign. They need the backing of international bodies.

Time will tell.
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WSJ: Why Venezuela offers Snowden asylyum
« Reply #224 on: July 08, 2013, 07:58:56 AM »
Why Venezuela Offers Asylum to Snowden
President Nicólas Maduro sends a message of his loyalty to Iran.

    By
    MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY



Edward Snowden, the former U.S. government contractor wanted for leaking sensitive national intelligence, is a victim of "persecution" by "the world's most powerful empire," Venezuelan President Nicólas Maduro said on Friday.

Mr. Maduro offered asylum to the fugitive, who was running out of prospects. Nicaragua and Bolivia have chimed in with similar offers. What plans are afoot to spirit Mr. Snowden from his Moscow airport sanctuary—assuming he accepts refuge in Latin America—are of course secret.



(L to R) presidents of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro; from Argentina, Cristina Fernández; from Bolivia, Evo Morales, and from Ecuador, Rafael Correa.

Mr. Maduro would have us believe that his gesture is a demonstration of Venezuela's commitment to free speech and its fierce opposition to withholding information from the public. He also wants the world to know that he disapproves of secret government intelligence-gathering operations. Funny that.

Venezuela has expressed no such righteous indignation about information suppression by allies. Take Argentina, which has recently refused to allow its special prosecutor Alberto Nisman to travel to Washington and brief a U.S. congressional committee about intelligence collected on Iranian and Hezbollah terror cells in the Western Hemisphere. Mr. Nisman's 500-page report on the subject is public but in a July 1 letter to the U.S. Congress he said that by order of the Argentine attorney general he has been "denied the authorization to testify before the honorable parliament."

Mr. Maduro's lack of concern about Argentina's information suppression deserves attention.

His offer of refuge to Mr. Snowden is most easily explained as an attempt to distract Venezuelans from the increasingly difficult daily economic grind and get them to rally around the flag by putting a thumb in Uncle Sam's eye. Yet there is something else.

Venezuela has reason to fear increasing irrelevance as North America becomes more energy independent. This makes Iran crucial. Mr. Maduro may be trying to establish himself as a leader as committed to the anti-American cause as was his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, who had a strong personal bond with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He also needs to establish his own place in South American politics.

Reaching out to Mr. Snowden is a way to send a message to the world that notwithstanding Secretary of State John Kerry's feeble attempt at rapprochement with Caracas last month, post-Chávez Venezuela has no intention of changing the course of the Bolivarian revolution. Rather, as the economy of the once-wealthy oil nation deteriorates, Mr. Maduro is signaling that Venezuela wants to become an even more loyal geopolitical ally and strategic partner of Russia and Iran.

Mr. Maduro's presidency is still viewed as illegitimate by roughly half of the Venezuelan electorate, who voted for challenger Henrique Capriles in April. The official rate of the currency known as the "strong bolívar" is 6.3 to the dollar. But a shortage of greenbacks has forced importers into the black market where the currency trades at somewhere between 31 and 37. There are price controls on just about everything, producing shortages of food and medicine. Even so, inflation is now hovering at around 35%, which means that some vendors are skirting government mandates.

In a free society with competitive elections, economic chaos generally prompts a government response designed to mitigate hardship. Venezuela needs liberalization. But that would threaten the profits of the military, which is largely running the country. When the nation ran out of toilet paper in the spring, it was the perfect metaphor for the failed state. But Mr. Maduro's foreign minister, Elias Jaua, responded by scolding Venezuelans for materialism, asking, "Do you want a fatherland or toilet paper?"

If the government is saying that it doesn't give a damn about the economic death spiral, this is because it believes it has the nation in a head lock. State control of information—by a president who has now become the world's foremost defender of Mr. Snowden—is almost complete. The last large independent cable television station was finally sold in April and the independent print media market is shrinking.

Another tool of repression, which Mr. Snowden supposedly abhors, is the ability to spy on citizens. Chávez had no compunction about recording the conversations of adversaries, and the practice continues under Mr. Maduro. Competing factions inside the government may even be getting into the act. Two recent high-profile cases—one involving a well-known government insider alleging crimes by members of the government in a conversation with the Cuban military, and another targeting an opposition politician—have increased the feeling among citizens that there is no such thing as a private conversation.

Yet even a government that locks down the press and spies on its own citizens without answering for it needs allies. No nation can survive in full isolation, especially when its economic power collapses.

Latin despots get this. Argentina is depositing goodwill in its account with Iran by blocking Alberto Nisman's trip to Washington. Venezuela, by offering refuge to Edward Snowden, is undoubtedly making a similar offering to the enemies of its enemies.

DougMacG

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #225 on: August 19, 2013, 10:09:51 AM »
Just as the Soviet Union suffered something like 75 years of “bad weather” on its farms following the revolution, much the same is happening in tropical Venezuela:

    U.S. Rice Farmers Cash in on Venezuelan Socialism: U.S. Exporters Benefit as Production Falls in Latin American Country

    STUTTGART, Ark.—Steve Orlicek, a rice farmer here, is living the American dream. He owns a thriving business; he vacations in the Bahamas.

    His good fortune springs from many roots, including an unlikely one: He is a prime beneficiary of the socialist economic policies of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s late president and critic of what he called U.S. “imperialism.”

    It is a paradoxical legacy of Mr. Chávez’s self-styled socialist revolution that his policies became a moneymaker for the capitalist systems he deplored. During his 14 years in power, he nationalized large farms, redistributed land and controlled food prices as part of a strategy to help the poor. But these policies turned Venezuela from a net exporter to a net importer of rice—from farmers like Mr. Orlicek. “The rice industry has been very good to us,” Mr. Orlicek said, sitting in his newly renovated home, appointed with a baby grand piano played by his wife, Phyllis.

    It isn’t just rice. Production of steel, sugar and many other goods has fallen in Venezuela, leading to occasional shortages. Until recently, Venezuela was largely self-sufficient in beef and coffee. Now it imports both.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/08/another-epic-fail-for-socialism.php
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323681904578640291651501034.html

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #226 on: August 19, 2013, 10:36:57 AM »
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
 
This is known as “bad luck.”-Robert A. Heinlein





Just as the Soviet Union suffered something like 75 years of “bad weather” on its farms following the revolution, much the same is happening in tropical Venezuela:

    U.S. Rice Farmers Cash in on Venezuelan Socialism: U.S. Exporters Benefit as Production Falls in Latin American Country

    STUTTGART, Ark.—Steve Orlicek, a rice farmer here, is living the American dream. He owns a thriving business; he vacations in the Bahamas.

    His good fortune springs from many roots, including an unlikely one: He is a prime beneficiary of the socialist economic policies of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s late president and critic of what he called U.S. “imperialism.”

    It is a paradoxical legacy of Mr. Chávez’s self-styled socialist revolution that his policies became a moneymaker for the capitalist systems he deplored. During his 14 years in power, he nationalized large farms, redistributed land and controlled food prices as part of a strategy to help the poor. But these policies turned Venezuela from a net exporter to a net importer of rice—from farmers like Mr. Orlicek. “The rice industry has been very good to us,” Mr. Orlicek said, sitting in his newly renovated home, appointed with a baby grand piano played by his wife, Phyllis.

    It isn’t just rice. Production of steel, sugar and many other goods has fallen in Venezuela, leading to occasional shortages. Until recently, Venezuela was largely self-sufficient in beef and coffee. Now it imports both.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/08/another-epic-fail-for-socialism.php
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323681904578640291651501034.html

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: Venezuela inflation
« Reply #227 on: August 26, 2013, 05:54:14 AM »
Hyperinflation and political witch hunts seem to go together. Just ask the Venezuelan opposition.

With the bolivarcollapsing and prices spiraling higher, the government alleged this month that its No. 1 adversary, former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, is linked to a prostitution ring that was using minors in the state of Miranda, where he is governor.

Lest that not be enough to turn Venezuela's socially conservative working-classes against the popular Mr. Capriles, a leading congressman from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) used gutter talk on the floor of the national assembly to accuse the governor of homosexuality.
Related Video

Does the collapsing “bolivar fuerte” really make opposition politicians more sinful? Photo: Associated Press

Don't suppose for a minute that this mudslinging is merely about destroying Mr. Capriles. The ruling chavistas, led by President Nicolás Maduro, need a circus because there is no bread—and that's not a metaphor. At times in Venezuela, there really is no bread. Earlier this year there was, for a time, no toilet paper. Mr. Maduro knows he is in trouble.

The "proof" of the allegations against Mr. Capriles's chief of staff, who is accused of running the sex ring, cannot be shown to the public, according to Mr. Maduro. He says that the "videos and photos" that the government confiscated in a raid are of "un-publishable orgies." Venezuelans will have to use their imaginations while trusting the courts—now controlled by the military government—and the government itself to get to the bottom of it all. Developments will be reported on television, which is almost exclusively state-controlled and where most Venezuelans get their news.

Mr. Capriles has said that the allegations are an attempt to distract the population from the real problems in the country. The charges are certainly well timed. An official 46% devaluation in April took the bolivar-to-dollar exchange rate to 6.3 from 4.3. Those who actually need dollars are unlikely to get them at that rate. Instead they have to go to the black market, where one greenback costs as much as 38 bolivars, up from 22 in March.

The government forecasts that inflation will hit 40% this year. But Johns Hopkins University economist Steve Hanke, director of the Cato Institute's Troubled Currency Project, says that the soaring cost for the bolivarin the market translates into an implied annual inflation rate of more than 250%.

Earlier this month Caracas-based economist José Manuel Puente described the perfect storm to the Los Angeles Times this way: "The slowdown in economic growth, high and persistent inflation and high levels of scarcities [of basic foodstuffs] will combine to make Venezuela's the worst-performing economy on the continent, despite the extraordinary oil boom that the country is still benefiting from."

Enlarge Image
image
image
European Pressphoto Agency

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro

A mid-July survey by the Venezuelan polling company IVAD, posted on the website lapatilla.com, suggests Mr. Maduro is having no luck dodging the blame like his predecessor Hugo Chávez did so deftly. Asked what are the principal problems facing the country, almost 82% of respondents named crime. More than 53% also pointed to shortages. The scarcity is caused by the price controls that the government is using to try to hold down inflation. Those controls could explain why only 31% named "the high cost of living."

But more than 65% said the economic situation was worse or much worse than one year ago, and more than half blamed either the national government or Mr. Maduro for the country's problems.

Because the allegations against Mr. Capriles by the PSUV included a pejorative term for a homosexual, gay-rights groups took offense. But Venezuela's homosexuals needn't feel special. Hate speech as a political tool has been common practice in Venezuela's military government for more than a decade. Catholics, Jews, entrepreneurs and the bourgeoisie have all been on the receiving end.

Mr. Maduro, coached as he is by Fidel Castro, immediately recognized that gay rights are a priority for many members of the international left. So in the aftermath of the impolitic comments by his colleague in Congress, he quickly seized a gay-pride flag to wave while he continued his verbal assaults against Mr. Capriles.

Political nonconformists regularly singled out by chavista politicians for ridicule and acrimony won't get off so easily. This week Mr. Maduro is expected to try again to force through congress an "enabling law" that will allow him to rule by decree.

Opposition Congressman Richard Mardo has already been stripped of his congressional immunity and is slated for trial on corruption charges. Other opponents are being investigated. The Venezuelan daily El Nacional reported this month that more than one third of congressional sessions in the first half of the year were spent "harassing the opposition," including with physical violence.

The goal is to drum up mass hysteria against opponents. Apparently Mr. Maduro has decided that if inflation cannot be contained, Mr. Capriles and his allies will be

captainccs

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Venezuela Expels Top US Diplomat, 2 Others
« Reply #228 on: October 01, 2013, 03:42:43 AM »
Maduro went to China hoping to get a $5 billion loan but returned empty handed. At home things continue to deteriorate, recently we have had various blackouts, the dollar is sky high, over the last few months we have had the highest inflation rate I remember. The outcome is the expected one, blame the empire! What an asshole!



(VIDEO) Venezuela Expels Top US Diplomat, 2 Others (VIDEO)
Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro says they were meeting with the country's "right wing" saying “Out of Venezuela! Yankee, go home! Enough with the abuse!”


CARACAS - Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro announced the expulsion of 3 US diplomats during a live speech to Venezuela soldiers commemorating 200 years since the day when Atanasio Girardot died fighting for Venezuela's independence.



Maduro asked Foreign Minister Elias Jaua to expel the 3 US diplomats, giving them 48 hours to leave the country.

Maduro accused the 3 US diplomats of meeting with the country's "right wing" to plan economic and electricital system sabotage.

“We have sufficient evidence collected of the hostile, illegal and interventionist attitude of the officials,” Maduro said. “Out of Venezuela. Yankee, go home! Enough with the abuse.”

He did not provide any evidence but identified the diplomats as Kelly Keiderling, who is the charge d'affaires and the top US diplomat in the country, Elizabeth Hunderland and David Mutt. The U.S. Embassy says it has not yet been officially informed of the expulsions.

Keiderling has been the US Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires since July 2011. She joined the State Department in 1988 and has had a long and varied list of appointments, including in Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Back in Washington, she has served as Senior Panama Desk Officer in the Office of Central American Affairs, Public Diplomacy Desk Officer for the Caribbean, Acting Deputy Director of Central American Affairs, and Chief of Staff of the Iraq Office.

Venezuela has been plagued by electricity shortages as well as shortages of water and basic foodstuffs despite having the largest known oil reserves in the world.

Venezuela-watchers point out that Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez, who died in March, often blame the US "imperialist gringos" for the country's problems, despite being in power for over 15 years.

On that theme, the leader of the Opposition, Miranda Governor Henrique Capriles Radonski, tweeted that "Nobody believes the alerts from Miraflores. Pure smoke to cover that he cannot run the country! Maduro has no plan for the country and does not know how to solve the problems facing our people!"

Capriles narrowly lost a controversial and disputed special election to Maduro in April in the wake of the death of Chavez.


The last time Venezuela expelled U.S. diplomats was on March 5, when it ejected two military attaches on similar allegations. That move came several hours before Maduro announced that longtime President Hugo Chavez had died of cancer.

Despite the fact that the US is the largest customer for Venezuela oil and Venezuela is the fifth largest supplier of oil to the US, the two countries have not had ambassadors in each others countries since former Venezuela President Hugo Chavez expelled US Ambassador Patrick Duddy in 2008 in "solidarity with Bolivia" and failed to approve his nominated successor in 2010.

The US reciprocated by expelling Venezuela Ambassador to the US Bernardo Alvarez after Chavez publicly said that Venezuela would reject the newly designated US Ambassador Larry Palmer in late December 2010.

“I don’t care what actions Barack Obama’s government may take," Maduro told the soldiers today. "We’re not going to allow an imperial government to bring money and see how they shut down the basic industries, how they turn off electricity to black out all Venezuela. What is that?”

Maduro called on national soldiers and all those who feel proud of belonging to the fatherland set free by Simon Bolivar to "continue hoisting the flag of independence, revolution and socialism."

"I'm so proud of having the homeland we have, we should be so proud of feeling and being Venezuelans and continue raising the flag of independence here," Maduro said.

"An independent Venezuela endured difficulties, betrayal, defeats, painful losses as that of Atanasio Girardot, setbacks, hesitation, but its flag was always raised, there was someone to raise it and feel proud of it," Maduro stressed. "Soldiers, we only have our life to give it to our Republic, if necessary, to keep it alive, for independence to be strengthened."

Atanasio Girardot (May 2, 1791 – September 30, 1813) was a Latin American revolutionary leader who fought beside Simón Bolívar in the Campaña Admirable and other battles. He died during the Battle of Bárbula, trying to plant the republican flag on Bárbula Hill.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvXznVxAV9Q&feature=player_embedded
[/youtube]

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=1049644&CategoryId=10717
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Venezuela: Expelling Bad and Playboy Too
« Reply #229 on: October 01, 2013, 06:15:52 AM »
Received by email"


From: "RUSS DALLEN (BBO FINANCIAL SERVIC)" <rdallen1@bloomberg.net>
Date: October 1, 2013 8:27:12 AM GMT-04:30
Subject: Venezuela: Expelling Bad and Playboy Too
Reply-To: "RUSS DALLEN" <rdallen1@bloomberg.net>


Good morning,


Well, it's October 1 and we now know how the Third Quarter of 2013 ends, how Breaking Bad ends, and how the Federal Government ends.  And after yesterday's expulsion of 3 US diplomats by Venezuela, including the top US diplomat in Caracas -- who was just a Deputy Chief of Mission, since the Ambassador had already been expelled, along with a host of others -- we now know how the Venezuela relationship with the US ends.  Last one out of the US Embassy in Caracas please turn out the lights.

The last time Venezuela expelled U.S. diplomats was on March 5, when it ejected two US military attaches. Despite the fact that the US is the largest customer for Venezuela oil and Venezuela is the fifth largest supplier of oil to the US, the two countries have not had ambassadors in each others countries since former Venezuela President Hugo Chavez expelled US Ambassador Patrick Duddy in 2008 in "solidarity with Bolivia" and then failed to approve his nominated successor in 2010.  The US reciprocated by expelling Venezuela Ambassador to the US Bernardo Alvarez the day after Chavez publicly said that Venezuela would reject the newly designated US Ambassador Larry Palmer in late December 2010.

We can expect that the Venezuelan charge d'affaires in Washington, Calixto Ortega, will be back in Caracas by the end of the week in the tit-for-tat strategy that the State Department has for dealing with the nettlesome Venezuelans.
 
And to say that the reason for the expulsions was wafer-thin is to insult wafer-makers all over the world:  Maduro said it was because they were meeting with the "right wing" and making "economic war" on Venezuela and "sabotaging the electrical grid."  He said he had evidence, but of course, did not provide any.  Straight out of the Cuban playbook, which seems to be more of a one-pager these days than an actual binder.   Sadly, this is all circus in this Bread and Circus satire, as there is not enough bread to go around as shortages and inflation continue ravaging the Venezuela economy.  http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=1049644&CategoryId=10717
 
Speaking of expulsions, you may remember Tim Tracy, the US film-maker/actor who got arrested, jailed and held as a US spy by Maduro back in April before being expelled in June.
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=760043

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/u-s-helmer-jailed-in-venezuela-moved-to-notorious-prison-1200490807/
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=797837
I spent several hours with Tim last week, chatting about his ordeal (in Miami, not Caracas, for obvious reasons).   He is busy working on his documentary and showed me a bit of what he has so far, which was pretty interesting and which he hopes to enter into the Sundance Film Festival.  This month's Playboy has a piece on his adventure titled "Inside El Rodeo", which is one of Venezuela's most notorious prisons where he ended up. Now you have an excuse to really read it for the articles!
http://www.playboy.com/playground/view/tim-tracy-filmmaker-venezuela-prison
 
I have attached our latest Weekly Report on Venezuela (attached pdf), in which we cover the continuing travails of the economy, including going into further analysis of the Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro's China trip and more.
 
As always, please don't hesitate to let me know if we can be of any assistance. (PDF attached).

-Russ

P.S. By the way, you can make sure that you get these and other Latin headlines (including the best Picture and Cartoon of the day) delivered to your email inbox FREE every morning by signing up for headlines from the Latin American Herald Tribune. Sign up here: http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=381843&CategoryId=35316
You can also join our 100,000 followers on Twitter to get real-time headlines: @lahtonline

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Russell M Dallen Jr
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About ExPatria
« Reply #230 on: October 01, 2013, 07:46:18 AM »
ExPatria

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN9AFCzwuSI[/youtube]
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U.S. defends diplomats expelled from Venezuela
« Reply #231 on: October 01, 2013, 02:49:48 PM »
U.S. defends diplomats expelled from Venezuela

By Brian Ellsworth and Deisy Buitrago | Reuters – 3 hrs ago

CARACAS (Reuters) - The U.S. Embassy in Venezuela on Tuesday defended three diplomats expelled by President Nicolas Maduro, rejecting charges they were involved in espionage and accusations Washington is trying to destabilize the OPEC nation.

In the latest spat between the ideological foes, Maduro on Monday ordered out three U.S. diplomats including Kelly Keiderling, temporarily in charge of the mission.

He alleged they had been meeting with "right wing" opposition leaders and encouraging acts of sabotage against the South American nation's electricity grid and economy.

The expulsions throw a wrench into cautious efforts this year to restore full diplomatic ties that were frayed for most of the 14-year rule of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

The U.S. government was evaluating its response and may take reciprocal action in accordance with the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, a statement from the embassy said.

"We completely reject the Venezuelan government's allegations of U.S. government involvement in any type of conspiracy to destabilize the Venezuelan government," it added.

"We likewise reject the specific claims against the three members of our embassy."

In an address to the nation, Maduro repeated his accusations on Tuesday, saying the three Americans had been handing over money and stirring up plots in southeastern Bolivar state.

"You can see the hand of the gringo conspiracy ... they talk of a Benghazi," Maduro said, referring to the cradle of revolt against late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Maduro showed a video of the three in a special TV broadcast all local channels were obliged to show live.

To a backdrop of dramatic music, the video showed images of diplomatic vehicles, a flight manifest and the three diplomats entering and departing what appeared to be offices of pro-opposition groups in Bolivar.

"Until the U.S. government understands it has to respect Venezuela as a sovereign nation, quite simply there will be no cordial relations, nor cordial communications," Maduro said.

The U.S. Embassy statement said the diplomats were in Bolivar state on entirely "normal" business.

"We maintain regular contacts across the Venezuelan political spectrum," it said.

"This is what diplomats do. Venezuelan diplomats in the United States similarly meet with a broad range of representatives of our society."

Maduro, who is Chavez's successor and part of a Latin American leftist alliance including Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador, named a new acting head of Venezuela's U.S. diplomatic mission shortly after his April election.

Many took that as a sign of warming relations.

That official may now face expulsion in the tit-for-tat style retaliation that has characterized similar incidents in the past.

Chavez in 2008 expelled Ambassador Patrick Duddy over what he called Washington's involvement in violent protests in Bolivia. In 2010, he blocked the nomination of diplomat Larry Palmer over comments that there were "clear ties" between members of Chavez's government and leftist Colombian rebels.

Venezuela's opposition says Maduro is continuing a Chavez-era tactic of inflating and inventing diplomatic crises to distract attention from economic and social problems affecting the nation's 29 million people.

(Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Cynthia Osterman)

http://news.yahoo.com/u-defends-diplomats-expelled-venezuela-165321484.html


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Maduro repeals law of gravity
« Reply #232 on: November 15, 2013, 06:50:18 PM »

Summary

At a time of furious rhetoric surrounding the "economic war" in Venezuela, the government has demonstrated its willingness to upset the public order. According to reports, Venezuelan officials arrested dozens of people accused of economic speculation in an economic crackdown targeting retail stores across the country. Security officials have inspected 1,400 stores over the past week, and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Nov. 14 that 100 people have been arrested in the process. Reports are conflicting and suggest that some of those in custody may be accused of looting. At least 50 in custody are accused of speculation and usury, according to Miguel Rodriguez Torres, the minister of interior relations, justice and peace. Maduro recognizes the dangers of the current course but has decided to forge ahead to show that he is in control.
Analysis

The Venezuelan government has tried before to rein in prices, but this is by far the most invasive effort, particularly if the reports of arrests are true. Former President Hugo Chavez implemented a system of indexation to control prices on a range of goods early in his administration. More recently, in 2011 Chavez established the Superintendency of Costs and Prices in an attempt to control prices all along the supply chain. Despite these efforts, prices have continued to rise and scarcities of basic goods are a constant reality for Venezuelans. On its current trajectory, inflation will reach 50-60 percent by the end of the year, up from an average annual rate of 30 percent in previous years.

Security forces have been used periodically to enforce price controls, but the ongoing crackdown is unprecedented. Some storeowners have refused to open their stores, according to local news reports, and others are lowering prices pre-emptively to avoid government sanctions. In at least one case, an entire electronics store was looted under the supervision of the National Guard. According to one local nongovernmental organization, there were 39 attempted lootings between Nov. 9 and Nov. 12, nine of which were successful.

Venezuelan Government Seizes Electronics Stores

Maduro's long-term goal in this process is to force retailers to adhere to a new policy of establishing profit margins of 15-30 percent. The government-proposed formula will take into account a range of factors, including whether retailers are importing goods based on the official exchange rate of 6.3 bolivars to the dollar or whether they are using the black market, which has reached more than 60 bolivars to the dollar. The new calculations would theoretically also take into account other costs, including taxes and overhead, to try to ensure a fair profit margin while reining in inflation.

However, it is very unlikely that the government will be able to implement an effective system of price controls in every retail sector in the country. If nothing else, the new system will create a range of opportunities for graft and speculation and will push goods onto the black market.

At the same time that the government is cracking down on retailers, the National Commission on Telecommunications has opened investigations into Internet service providers hosting websites providing information on the black market currency trading rate. The government is accusing the websites -- which include Dolar Today, TuCadivi and Lechuga Verde, among others -- of disrupting the peace and tranquility of the Venezuelan public.

Controlling information about the black market could help control the plummeting exchange, but it, too, is highly unlikely to succeed. Despite Venezuela's large volume of oil exports, the country is experiencing a serious cash crunch, and central bank reserves have fallen to $21 billion. Independent estimates put just over $1 billion of that in cash and the rest in gold.

There is no question that Venezuela has seen many instances of price speculation and corruption that have affected prices of goods or exploited the distorted currency markets for profit. However, the government's ability to determine which retailers are exploiting the system and which are scraping by is suspect, and there is a real danger that this crackdown will put many out of business, potentially worsening the country's scarcity problems. Even more concerning is the precedent of government-supported looting of stores that are thought to be gouging prices. The situation could spin out of control quickly.

Maduro realizes the risks of the current approach. The crackdown, as well as efforts to pass the enabling law, seems to be his attempt to prove that he is in control. Maduro faces a divided political base and is struggling to gain the respect and standing of his predecessor. He and his allies appear to have chosen to push forward with the economic policies of Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution.

Read more: Venezuela: Maduro's Gamble to Fight Inflation | Stratfor


captainccs

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #233 on: November 18, 2013, 11:14:30 AM »
Maduro hasn't a chance of curbing inflation just as all the presidents who predated him since the oil embargo didn't. If you get a huge amount of money from oil and you give it to people to spend but curb production in the name of ideology or other failed economic policy you get too much money chasing too few good, the perfect recipe for inflation.

Maduro's new policy of clamping down on retailers is nothing new. I was an Apple reseller when Black Friday hit in 1983 when all this mess started, or when the mess got out of hand. I was forced to sell my old inventory at old prices. I could charge
Bs. 10,000 for an Apple II but the new ones cost me Bs.14,000. Quite simply the government stole my working capital and my business went broke. What Maduro is doing in 2013 was already done in 1983 (30 years and they learned nothing).

Denny Schlesinger



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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #234 on: November 18, 2013, 11:43:22 AM »
Hugo Obama has us not far behind you...

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Iran, Russia, Venezuela
« Reply #235 on: November 24, 2013, 08:47:58 PM »
Check out the comments from about 02:00 until the end:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mf0LGPCfpw

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WSJ: Things getting ugly in Venezuela
« Reply #236 on: February 17, 2014, 04:36:02 AM »


Updated Feb. 16, 2014 9:18 p.m. ET

It's getting ugly in Venezuela. Three people were killed in anti-government protests on the streets of Caracas on Wednesday. The killers haven't been identified, but Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro is using the deaths to justify a government crackdown on growing civic unrest directed at his leadership and a deteriorating economy.

Mr. Maduro was Hugo Chávez's hand-picked successor, and one of Chávez's Cuban-influenced legacies was politicizing the armed forces and the police and developing an informal militia that still roams cities and towns on motorcycles to intimidate political opponents. Today, Caracas is one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Chávez also strangled independent television and radio outlets. On Wednesday the government blocked the signal of NTN television based in Bogota, Colombia. The only independent media left are newspapers, but the central bank won't sell them the dollars they need to import newsprint and they too are trying to survive.

The Venezuelan economy is in a downward spiral. The central bank admits an annual inflation rate of 56%, though it's probably much higher, and there is a shortage of foreign exchange. The bank's "scarcity index" reports that 28% of basic food stuffs are unavailable. Hospitals are running out of medicines and supplies and can't get dollars to import more. Inventories of car batteries and spare parts are run down and cannot be replenished. Last week Toyota 7203.TO -0.34% and General Motors GM +2.13% announced they would shutter assembly plants indefinitely, because without dollars they can't import manufacturing components. An estimated 12,000 jobs are affected.

In November, using a simple majority in the national assembly, Mr. Maduro won the power to rule by decree for a year. Now his hand is getting heavier. On Wednesday he blasted the organizers of anti-government protests as "coup-plotters." He also announced a prohibition on street demonstrations, closing down the last public space for dissent. Arrest warrants went out for at least two Maduro adversaries.

The opposition has vowed it won't surrender its right to gather in public spaces. The big question now is whether all the armed forces would follow a Maduro order to move against a big anti-government protest. Some likely would. Venezuela is also thick with Cuban intelligence operatives who trained the armed and dangerous militia. They are now calling the shots in Caracas as much as Mr. Maduro is, and the latest unrest is becoming another excuse to increase repression.

captainccs

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #237 on: February 17, 2014, 05:01:48 AM »
Quote
The killers haven't been identified,

Yes, they have. they were recorded on amateur video tape.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmHEEO_MpII[/youtube]




While Government Tries To Blame Lopez For Deaths, Paper Shows Otherwise
February 16, 2014

Ever since last Wednesday’s student March which left two dead, the Government has tried to say that former Presidential candidate Leopoldo Lopez and Congresswoman Maria Corina Machado, who led the protest, were responsible for the the deaths right after the demonstration ended. But, usually pro-Government paper Ultimas Noticias, has done an extraordinary investigation of videos and pictures and what it has found is a carefully orchestrated withdrawal of the police, which were replaced by Intelligence police officers and plainclothesmen, who were wearing and used guns against running students.Having guns near a demonstration is illegal, Government officers murdering people at a demonstration is a crime against humanity by them and their superiors.

What this investigation shows is the power of the smartphone, as the evidence came mostly from amateur tapings (note that one of them, the person making the video is hiding under a car)

Here is the text and the video

and here is a summary of the text for those that do not speak Spanish. I recommend watching the video (at the end) after reading the text:

“It was at 3:13 PM when Bassil Alejandro Dacosta fell. The line of fire was in the hands of individuals identified with unirforms, plates and vehicles of the Bolivarain Intelligence Service (Sebin) accompanied by others dressed as civilians. They had taken over between the Tracabordo and the Ferrenquin corners of La Candelaria, after the Bolivarain National Police withdrew its troops

Here is the reconstruction: A group of students tries to go up from Monroy to Tracabordo. The march was over. Those left were screaming at police. They advanced towards a Sebin motorcycle, knocking it to the ground. The Sebin and civilians move forward and start shooting pistols rifles. The students withdraw. Others, among which was Bassil Dacosta, cross to a lateral street. It is not clear why they decide to trun around 12 seconds later, they cross the line of fire. Dacosta falls. At no point does the shooting stop.

Dacosta is the next to last of  a line of students that crosses trying to escape the bullets. His buddies pick him up and carry him away”

Witneeses say the corner ahd been taken over by men and women in motorcycles, like “those you see in TV”. All dressed as civilains. Some with helmets and t-shirts. Some with their faces covered. They were shooting at the protesters in the Monroy corner. “They would shoot with their arms out and then hide”. In the wall of a City office there are at least 10 tarces of bullet impacts.

The civilians talked to the Sebin officers and withdrew. Sebin officers occupied their places.

At the head of the group came a  Kawasaki Versys 1000 motorcycle with another large guy with kaki shirt and jeans with a short wave radio in his hand. He seems to be the leader. After Dacosta falls, he gestures towards a man in gray camouflage clothes.

At the instant of Dacosta’s death a photographic sequence shows at least seven men wielding their weapons. Five are shooting standing up, one is shooting in the air and four are shooting at the protesters. Two wear uniforms.

One of them wears a white shirt, green military pants, helmet and blck lenses, He moves in a motorcycle with official palate 2-177. The other wears a long sleeved black shirt, jeans and black shows. No helmet or glasses. The civialisn were acting in coordination with those in uniform.

One of the shooters picks up the motorcycle overthrown by the students. Two pick up the shells from the bullets, they get on their motorcycles and leave.

Questions: Maduro said those responsible had been identified, a day later the scientific police was still studying the scene?

Why did the National withdraw from the scene?

Why were weapons used to repress the protest?

Why were there civilians with uniformed Sebin officers repressing the march?

From the video: Why did the motorcycles easily cross between the students and the police?

Why did the guy jump over the police only to be seen shooting later?”

Here is the video:


Here are a few pictures of the guy in white from three different angles, one of them while shooting:



Meanwhile the investigative police last night went to Leopoldo Lopez’ parents’ home and his home reportedly to arrest him, in part for being responsible for the death of Dacosta. . He was not there. Maduro called him a coward for not turning himself in.

Tonight Lopez distributes this video, upping the ante in these protests calling for a march to the Prosecutors office to demand a number of things and to turn himself in for crimes he has not committed. He is asking everyone to wear white, as a sign that this is a peaceful movement.


For the Government this represents a quandary. Jailing Lopez will only ignite things even more, but it was Maduro who accused him of crimes, nobody knows specifically which ones. Will the Prosecutor obey Maduro and jail Lopez? Will a Judge sign the order to capture him?

Can the Prosecutor accuse Lopez while Ultimas Noticias has shown clear evidence that it was police and civilians in official motorcyles who were shooting at that instant at the students. Will they go after those responsible for Dacostas’s death?

It is certainly an interesting week to be here.

Note added at 9:21 PM Sunday Feb. 16th. : This work is having an effect, President Maduro said tonight on nationwide TV that he had order all Sebin officers to stay at their barracks!!!


http://devilsexcrement.com/2014/02/16/while-government-tries-to-blame-lopez-for-deaths-paper-shows-otherwise/
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Una voz por Venezuela ante Associated Press
« Reply #238 on: February 17, 2014, 06:35:26 AM »
Una voz por Venezuela ante Associated Press

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDdOFRdQ5jc[/youtube]
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Censorship vs. Social Media
« Reply #239 on: February 18, 2014, 07:35:24 AM »
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It's all about the Benjamins.
« Reply #240 on: February 18, 2014, 07:37:26 AM »
Received via email:


Good morning,

In the immortal words of the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy, "It's all about the Benjamins."

In this week's weekly report on Venezuela (attached PDF), we cover the protests racking Venezuela, as rampant crime, an inflation rate officially over 56%, a bolivar currency that is virtually unconvertible (except in the black market where it has fallen to a fourth of its value in one year after falling to a third of its value the year before), and widespread shortages of everything from bread, flour and meat to toilet paper drive people out into the streets.

At the same time, the protestors are being put-down by well-armed state security forces and since the domestic television industry is now totally dominated and controlled by the Government, there is very little live coverage being reported.  As I noted in a mid-week update to you last week, Colombian TV station NTN24 and CNN en Espanol have stepped up their coverage in that deficit, in addition to social media reports, pictures and video on Facebook and Twitter.  Not happy that their "communicational hegemony" was being overcome,  the Venezuela government took NTN24 off the air in Venezuela and blocked its internet feed.  And learning from the failures of dictators in the Arab Spring, Venezuela even blocked Twitter -- which Twitter confirmed last week.  In comparison to trusted news sources, the problem that we are also finding with new media like Twitter and Facebook is the reliability of the posts:  while some of the information is good and current, other people put up old video and pictures, and some can be doctored, which confuses things and hurts its believability (the mistakes of which the government points out).

I spent some time on the weekend news shows talking about what is going on in Venezuela -- which has just kicked out 3 more American diplomats (third time in a year!).  China, which has loaned Venezuela over $40 billion, is especially interested in what is going on there and you can see my interview on China's dominant broadcaster CCTV here: http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=1620461&CategoryId=10718 

But in the end, many of the problems -- the inflation, the shortages, the crime, the collapsing currency -- are all about the Benjamins (as in Benjamin Franklin who appears on the $100 bill).  After the first of the larger size SICAD sales of $220 million was cancelled earlier this month, Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro promised the next one would be for $440 million. He lied, as only $216 million was announced on Friday (and the paper starved newspaper industry -- one of the last few outlets for opposition viewpoints -- was given nothing).

Here is the problem.

When oil prices crashed in late 2008 and into 2009, Chavez hit the capital markets to fund his spending.  Beginning in May of 2009 (when they also expropriated and nationalized the oil service providers they could not pay), Venezuela and PDVSA began issuing massive amounts of US dollar bonds, for a 5 year total of $46.3 billion in new dollar debt, mostly at high interest rates (these are just bonds and does not include the $40 billion in loans from the China), essentially doubling the country's indebtedness.

Interest payments on those bonds are paid semi-annually (every six months) and this month alone Venezuela will pay out $732.5 million in coupon payments on its dollar bond debt -- which is essentially one week's worth of Venezuela oil exports, assuming 1.3 million barrels a day in real cash oil exports.

Throw in 4 weekly SICAD distributions of $220 million a week for $880 million and you are down another week of oil export earnings. That doesn't include the $80-90 million that CADIVI was providing weekly at 6.3, for another half a week of earnings.  In the end, that doesn't leave much for paying the airlines the over $3.3 billion they are now owed, paying food companies the $2.43 billion they are owed, much less the billions owed to oil partners and service providers, workers, government employees, to say nothing of bread, chicken, flour or toilet paper.

It's all about the Benjamins -- or the lack thereof.

As always, please don't hesitate to let me know if you would like to speak further or if we can be of any assistance. The PDF of the weekly is attached, which touches on more of the these issues, or you can read it here online: http://www.scribd.com/doc/207729464/Venezuela-Report-18-February-2014

Thanks again for your continued readership and business.

                                                                                                              -Russ
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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #241 on: February 18, 2014, 03:06:22 PM »
How do you live, invest or run a business in an annual inflation rate of 56%("probably much higher")?  At what point does it just spiral into nonsense...

Why aren't we more careful to manage our own economy when we know the consequences of mis-management are so real?

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #242 on: February 18, 2014, 03:16:33 PM »

"Why aren't we more careful to manage our own economy when we know the consequences of mis-management are so real?"

Who is this "we" you are speaking of?

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #243 on: February 18, 2014, 03:27:58 PM »
Doug wrote:
"Why aren't we more careful to manage our own economy when we know the consequences of mis-management are so real?"
GM asked:
Who is this "we" you are speaking of?
I respond:
 :lol:

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Beauty queen the latest victim in Venezuela unrest
« Reply #244 on: February 19, 2014, 04:55:30 PM »
There is an ongoing protest about two blocks from my house


Beauty queen the latest victim in Venezuela unrest

 By Tomas Sarmiento and Deisy Buitrago

14 minutes ago

CARACAS (Reuters) - A local beauty queen died of a gunshot wound on Wednesday in the fifth fatality from Venezuela's political unrest, as imprisoned protest leader Leopoldo Lopez urged supporters to keep fighting for the departure of the socialist government.

Tensions have risen in Venezuela since Lopez, a 42-year-old Harvard-educated economist, turned himself in to troops on Tuesday after spearheading three weeks of often rowdy protests against President Nicolas Maduro's government.

The latest included college student and model Genesis Carmona, 22, who was shot in the head at a protest on Tuesday in the central city of Valencia. She died later in a clinic.

"How long are we going to live like this? How long do we have to tolerate this pressure, with them killing us?" a relative, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

"She only needed one more semester to graduate," he added of Carmona, who had been studying tourism and had won the 2013 Miss Tourism competition in her state.

Three people were shot dead in Caracas after an opposition rally a week ago, and a fourth person died after being run over by a car during a demonstration in the coastal town of Carupano. There have been scores of arrests and injuries.

State TV channel VTV said the mother of one its employees died while being rushed to hospital in Caracas. VTV said she suffered a heart attack while the ambulance carrying her was stuck in gridlock due to opposition supporters blocking roads.

'LET'S FIGHT'

Lopez has urged his supporters to keep fighting for the departure of Maduro's socialist administration.

"Today more than ever, our cause has to be the exit of this government," he said, sitting by his wife in a pre-recorded video that was to be released in the event he was jailed. (http://t.co/uJGiXVm0AV)

"The exit from this disaster, the exit of this group of people who have kidnapped the future of Venezuelans is in your hands. Let's fight. I will be doing so."

There was sporadic trouble across Venezuela again on Wednesday. Rival groups scuffled outside the Caracas court where Lopez was due, while student demonstrators also blocked a highway in the capital, burning trash.

In western Tachira state, security forces and protesters fought in the streets for about two hours, with two students injured, various vehicles damaged or destroyed, and local monuments charred, witnesses said.

In southern Puerto Ordaz city, pro- and anti-government marchers fought in the street, witnesses said, with police firing teargas to quell the trouble.

Three government supporters were injured in the melee when shots were fired, and both sides faced off with sticks and stones, the witnesses said.

The demonstrators are calling for Maduro's resignation over issues ranging from inflation and violent crime to corruption and product shortages.

Maduro, who was narrowly elected last year to replace Hugo Chavez after his death from cancer, says Lopez and others in league with the U.S. government are seeking a coup.

Street protests were the backdrop to a short-lived ouster of Chavez for 36 hours in 2002, before military loyalists and supporters helped bring him back.

Though tens of thousands joined Lopez on the streets when he turned himself in on Tuesday, the protests have so far been much smaller than the wave of demonstrations a decade ago.

Neither is there any evidence that the military, which was the decisive factor in the 2002 overthrow, may turn on Maduro now.

'FREE LEOPOLDO!'

Lopez was being held on Wednesday at the Ramo Verde jail in Caracas, and was due at a first court hearing.

Hundreds of his supporters waved banners saying "Free Leopoldo!" in the city center on Wednesday as a line of soldiers stood in front with riot shields. "We're prepared to give our lives," said pensioner Juan Marquez, 68.

Police held back a rival demonstration by several hundred 'Chavistas', some of them striking the protesters and chanting "Leopoldo, off to Tocoron" in a reference to a notoriously overcrowded provincial jail.

In an intriguing twist to the drama, Maduro said his powerful Congress head Diosdado Cabello, seen by many Venezuelans as a potential rival to the president, personally negotiated Lopez's surrender via his parents.

Cabello even helped drive him to custody in his own car given the risks to Lopez's life from extremists, Maduro said.

With local TV providing minimal live coverage of the street unrest, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have become the go-to media for many Venezuelans desperate for information.

However, many social media users are indiscriminately tweeting images without confirming their origin, leading to manipulation and gaffes including footage of unrest in Egypt and Chile being passed off as repression in Venezuela.

Old photos from past protests are also doing the rounds.

Detractors call Lopez a dangerous and self-serving hothead. He has frequently squabbled with fellow opposition leaders, and was involved in the 2002 coup, even helping arrest a minister.

"I've hardly been in office for 10 months and for 10 months this opposition has been plotting to kill me, topple me," Maduro said. "For how long is the right wing going to hurt the nation?"

Though the majority of demonstrators have been peaceful, a radical fringe have been attacking police, blocking roads and vandalizing buildings. Rights groups say the police response has been excessive, and some detainees say they were tortured.

In a nation split largely down the middle on political lines, 'Chavistas' have stayed loyal to Maduro despite unflattering comparisons with his famously charismatic predecessor. Many Venezuelans fear the loss of popular, oil-funded welfare programs should the socialists lose power.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Cawthorne and Diego Ore in Caracas; Javier Farias in Tachira; German Dam in Puerto Ordaz; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Ken Wills)


http://news.yahoo.com/beauty-queen-latest-victim-venezuela-unrest-003036908.html


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Denny Schlesinger

captainccs

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In Venezuela Opposition Leader Leopoldo Lopez Turns Himself In
« Reply #245 on: February 19, 2014, 05:18:38 PM »
This is from yesterday, I didn't get a chance to post it earlier.

The reason I find it significant is because Leopoldo Lopez turned himself in. Previous "opposition leaders," facing similar situations, went into hiding or exile leaving the opposition leaderless. This could evolve into making Lopez the true leader of the opposition, something that until now has ben sorely lacking.


In Venezuela Opposition Leader Leopoldo Lopez Turns Himself In

February 18, 2014

It was certainly a day to remember. Despite the Government banning the opposition march and prohibiting marches, Leopoldo Lopez turned himself in in a demonstration which was simply massive. His handover was perfectly choreographed, leaving images that have a highly emotional content and guaranteeing that this day, whatever may happen was a victory for the Voluntad Popular leader.

I mean, there are very few things missing from a picture like this one:



Lopez being pushed into the National Guard tank, white flowers in one hand, flag in the other and screaming at his supporters. Really, can it get any more dramatic than this?

And this was after Lopez had given a fiery speech to his supporters hanging on the statue of Jose Marti in Plaza Brion of Chacaito at the end of which his wife was lifted up by the crowd to say goodbye to him right before he turned himself in. How can anyone not be moved by this image?:



And it was Lopez who, from the inside of the military vehicle, used a megaphone to ask people to move aside to let the vehicle through. Lopez was calma calm and at times it seemed as if the guardsman taking him looked more scared than he did.

And the show of support was nationwide, as students organized protests in all major cities, all of them with huge crowds, all ending at the Palaces of Justice of each State with the students handing in their demands.

I went to the march, leaving somewhat late, but was surprised when a couple of Kilometers away from the march, the street was still full of people walking towards Chacaito. And when I got to Chacaito it became difficult to get through because it was so crowded. Once in the intersection with the main Country Club Avenue, I was surprised by the sea of people coming down from that direction. It turns out it was the people from the West of Caracas, who, because the march was not allowed beyond Chacaito, had to come via Libertador Avenue to where Lopez turned himself in. From there, we turned South towards Las Mercedes, went under the Autopista and then climbed back on it, only to find that the students had not only blocked it, but occupied it all the way to the Cienpies Distributor. There were people everywhere, in front, below, above. And there was lots of police and guardsman, but they they were clearly given the order to do nothing, despite our fears that we could be gassed any minute.

This is an overall picture from above, two blocks away from where Leopoldo Lopez turned himself in:

[Lots of pictures in the original post: http://devilsexcrement.com/2014/02/18/in-venezuela-opposition-leader-leopoldo-lopez-turns-himself/]

And at this time, 7:37 PM , students are still out in the streets blocking the way

I am still surprised the Government went ahead and jailed Lopez. To accuse him of being a terrorist, when there are pictures showing that it was the Government’s intelligence police who shot the students on Feb. 12th. is somewhat dumb. By jailing him, not only does he become a martyr, elevating his stature within the opposition, but also creating another political prisoner and another reason for the students to fight.

Maduro also loses credibility, when it was him that suggested Lopez was responsible for the deaths of the students, not the Prosecutor, raising doubts, once again, abut the separation of powers in Venezuela. To make matters even worse, it was the Head of the National Assembly, Diodado Cabello, who took Lopez to his arraignment. What is Cabello doing there? He does not belong to any of the braches of Government that should be involved. The Government later said it was to protect Lopez’ life from the “right wing”, a silly excuse, more so, given that Lopez is also labelled as “right wing”.

Because while all this was going one, Maduro was holding his own march, despite his ban on demonstrations, where he said Lopez was being taken directly to jail (Ughh?) by helicopter, showing the President does not even understand legal procedures. In his speech, Maduro rambled, attaching President Piñera of Chile and Santos of Colombia, for involving themselves in Venezuelan affairs.

But more importantly, you just don’t go jail an opposition leader like Lopez on trumped up charges, without raising suspicions that this is simply autocracy at work. Lopez now becomes a hot potato for Maduro: Keep him in jail he becomes a symbol, release him, you look weak (and somewhat dumb!). He will actually be charged with murder, a silly charge if there ever was one.

Lopez seems to have scored a victory sooner than he thought when he started going out to try to gather the protests under his wing. Even Capriles went to the demonstration, as all opposition politicians showed up at the demonstration to show their support.

For now, the students remain on their own, a random band of disorganized protesters that have kept the Government in check for ten days. They will not go easily away and now they have one more prisoner to defend.


http://devilsexcrement.com/2014/02/18/in-venezuela-opposition-leader-leopoldo-lopez-turns-himself/
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Denny Schlesinger

DougMacG

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #246 on: February 20, 2014, 08:11:04 AM »
It is inspiring to see that many of the popular uprisings across the globe, Ukraine, Iran 2009-2010 and Venezuela in this case, are in a pro-freedom and anti-oppressive government direction.

Once again, wishing you the best and wishing there was something we could do to help.

captainccs

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #247 on: February 20, 2014, 08:35:26 AM »
Thanks!

Send in the cavalry!    :-D
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Denny Schlesinger

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #248 on: February 20, 2014, 08:41:06 AM »
With our current CiC you could not be sure in who's favor they would be riding.

G M

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Re: Venezuela
« Reply #249 on: February 20, 2014, 09:12:14 AM »
With our current CiC you could not be sure in who's favor they would be riding.


Good point.