International Venezuela, The Socialist Dystopia, v4: Legislative election leaves Venezuela in political standoff

A trail of 'bloody gold' leads back to the Venezuelan government
By Vasco Cotovio, Isa Soares and William Bonnett, CNN | August 23, 2019​



The crash of steel pounding rock echoes through the dark gallery, as Darwin Rojas, 43, hammers away in a small corner. He's muddy, sweaty and breathing heavily, crushing stone after stone around him.

Fifty meters underground, the air is hotter than at the surface. The humidity is overwhelming and you can smell the stench of the dozens of men who have already spent half their day down here, inside one of hundreds of gold mines deep in the jungle in southern Venezuela.

Venezuela boasts the largest oil reserves in the world, but gold is increasingly its lifeblood. In the area around the mines, gold has replaced the near-worthless bolivar, with even the cost of a haircut quoted in gold. In Caracas, it allows Maduro to allegedly buy the military's loyalty to his embattled government. And abroad, Venezuelan gold is sold by the ton -- one of the country's few remaining means of foreign exchange.

190817143204-03-venezuela-gold-mining-super-169.jpg


To extract the precious metal, these men must turn rocks into dust, from sunrise to sunset, under the brutal rule of a state-sponsored network of violent gangs and corrupt military, say several witnesses and a senior military source with knowledge of the security situation in the Orinoco Mining Arc.

"Just like the blood diamonds [in Africa], the gold that is being extracted from Venezuela, outside of any protocol, is bloody gold," Gen. Manuel Cristopher Figuera, the former head of Venezuela's intelligence service, told us.

Welcome to the Orinoco Mining Arc

Rojas moved here three years ago, when oil prices hit a 12-year-low. Such drops in oil prices, compounded by years of mismanagement and corruption, were already pushing Venezuela's state-run oil industry to near-collapse -- and the national economy along with it. Progressive US sanctions have tightened the vice, forcing the government to find alternative sources of revenue.

In November 2018, embattled president Nicolas Maduro announced a "Gold Plan" that would allow Venezuela to profit an estimated $5 billion dollars annually, starting in 2019. "Gold will strengthen our international reserves and it will strengthen the national finances," he said, claiming that his government had been negotiating with foreign investors to sell the valuable mineral.

"Welcome to the Orinoco Mining Arc and the Gold Plan, all investors worldwide," he said.

190817150152-01-nicolas-maduro-gold-file-exlarge-169.jpg


Most of the country's gold reserves are thought to lie in Orinoco Mining Arc, Bolivar state. It is a vast stretch of land, most of it jungle, that spans more than 40,000 square miles from Guyana to Colombia.

The three hour drive from the airport in Puerto Ordaz to the city of El Callao, considered locally as the mining industry's capital, is incredibly scenic, with lush terrain as far as the eye can see. Food and fuel sellers dot the journey, usually near small towns lost in the wilderness. The further into the jungle, the more expensive these goods get. The road is surprisingly well paved -- an indication of how well traveled it is -- but not without its perils.

151207213653-venezuela-election-aftermath-exlarge-169.jpg


El Callao is the most violent municipality in Venezuela, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (VOV). The Roscio municipality, less than ten miles north in the town of Guasipati, came second. The reasons for the violence are many but they all begin with mining, which has attracted "armed groups, the presence of so called 'syndicates', coupled with the lethal and violent actions of police and military operatives in the area," VOV said in its 2018 annual report.

We pass thirteen police checkpoints on the way in. It doesn't matter what we bring in -- it's what comes out that these men are looking for.

190817143332-06-venezuela-gold-mining-exlarge-169.jpg


In 2016, the government named Orinoco a "strategic development zone", which would facilitate the establishment of mining operations and allow it to receive special funding. It also bypassed local authorities and the opposition-controlled National Assembly, centralizing control in the country's Mining Ministry in Caracas, right under Nicolas Maduro. The move would boost Venezuela's economy by compensating for the fall in oil revenue, the government said.

But the US says that some gold profits are just going into private pockets. Maduro, members of his family and his regime have been using this legal framework to direct illegal mining operations in the region, granting the Venezuelan military "liberal access" to mines in order to buy their "staunch loyalty", the US Department of Treasury said in March as it imposed sanctions on Venezuela's mining industry.

Support from the military is the main reason Maduro has been able to remain in power. From Caracas to El Callao, there is little apparent interest from the armed forces in any type of change. "Maintaining the same leadership is a way of maintaining the same status quo," a senior military source with direct knowledge of the security situation in the Mining Arc tells us.

The Venezuelan government did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

Criminal gangs and corruption
At the mine, Rojas shows us rocks with gold filaments, which must be extracted. "We take these rocks to the mill and there they are processed," explains another miner, Angel Coro, 48, a six-year veteran at the same mine. "The mills extract 40% of the gold from the rock," he says.

"The other 60% stays in the crushed sand, which they sell to companies like (state-owned mining company) Minerven or other companies operating in the area, which process the sand with cyanide and other chemicals."

"In some areas you can get 100, 150 grams of gold, every day," Coro tells us back at the mine, reminiscing about another area he had worked in. That's more than $6,000 worth of gold in just one day. The average salary in Venezuela is the equivalent of $6 per month.

Most of these miners had other jobs before the collapse of Venezuela's economy. Some were mechanics, some were farmers and the list goes on. Now, they're doing better than the average Venezuelan, but they're far from getting rich. Miners must pay the mills to process the gold and then there are other, less transparent costs. When we ask who else they have to pay, they refuse to go into detail.

190817142504-01-venezuela-gold-mining-intl-exlarge-169.jpg


One miner is willing to say more, under condition of anonymity. We meet him in El Callao early in the morning, when most of his fellow miners are still asleep. His body is stiff, his hands are shaking and his voice is low -- he is nervous. He could be killed for speaking to us.

He's been working in the mines for five years, and explains that the area is run by criminal gangs called pranes, groups composed mostly of young men who battle each other for control of territory and charge the miners for everything they extract. Some groups charge a percentage ranging from 30% to 50%, others charge a flat rate, regardless of how much or how little the miners are able to dig out.

"You are forced to pay because if you don't there is a consequence," the anonymous miner explains, detailing the atrocities he witnessed. "They'll cut you, torture you, and those who speak out are also mutilated, tortured, killed and thrown down the mining holes." He's seen colleagues mutilated, their hands and arms cut, their eyes plucked out for failing to pay these armed groups their share.

Others simply go missing. "I've seen them kill people in the mines, sometimes 10 or 15 people at once," he says. According to him, they are permitted to run rampant as corrupt police and military officials collect their own payment.

190817143318-05-venezuela-gold-mining-exlarge-169.jpg


His allegations are confirmed by a senior military source who has direct knowledge of the security situation inside Venezuela's mining arc. Unlike the anonymous miner, he doesn't look nervous, though he too requests anonymity. The TV inside the café where we meet him is showing old movies and the volume is near maximum. It's so loud we have to lean in to listen to him -- perhaps what he intended.

"In order to survive in that territory, you need to carry a weapon," the anonymous military source says, adding that the pranes members carry heavy weapons bought or stolen from the military. "This didn't use to happen in Venezuela," he says.

190820114126-02-cnn-venezuela-gold-mining-exlarge-169.jpg


There are other well-trained outlaw militias in the region, too. "You can spot them a mile away," he says. "Their posture, their behavior is different. They are combat trained."

Gold oils the relationships between criminal groups and the soldiers who are supposed to uphold the law. "I've been offered gold many times," our source says. "Every time we stopped a truck for a check, for not having the right paperwork someone would make me an offer to try to get me to look the other way".

"Sometimes I did," he adds.

The military and Maduro's family

Members of the military are themselves invested in the dozen or so companies that refine gold from sand, the anonymous miner and military source both tell CNN. The resulting network of relationships between private industry and public officials leads to Caracas, where Maduro and his government exert direct control over both mining operations and the military.

"Everything, directly or indirectly, goes to the government," says one gold trader in El Callao, on condition of anonymity. "The environment is completely controlled by the government."

Our anonymous military source says that high-ranking Venezuelan military officials take advantage of their rank to seize huge swaths of land, and then partner with investors who bring the knowledge and capital to run an industrial mining operation. These companies are able to operate freely in this turbulent region because of their connections to the top, he adds, and their operations legitimize criminal gangs' exploitation of thousands of miners at the bottom.

190817143245-04-venezuela-gold-mining-exlarge-169.jpg


Letting officials profit from the gold business has allowed Maduro to "corrupt public servants and military officials in all power structures in order to perpetuate his rule," says Cristopher Figuera, one of President Maduro's most trusted generals before joining the opposition movement. He describes a "society of accomplices" in the gold industry, enriching themselves at the expense of the Venezuelan people, including the miners working around El Callao.

According to Cristopher Figuera, Maduro's own family has also profited from the gold. "There are companies linked to Maduro's family circle that buy the gold or negotiate the extraction of the gold in the south of the country," Cristopher Figuera claims. "They sell one part to the central bank and the other part they take out of the country without any kind of control," he says.

The US has also accused the embattled president and members of his family of personally profiting from mining operations, though the sanctions do not mention the Orinoco Mining Arc specifically.

A former fixture in Maduro's inner circle, Cristopher Figuera's own reputation is not unsullied. He took charge of the Venezuelan National Intelligence Service known as SEBIN, at the end of 2018, and was later sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury for overseeing "mass torture, mass human rights violations, and mass persecution against those who want democratic change in Venezuela."

He denies the charges and the sanctions were lifted after he turned on Maduro's government.

From the jungle to the city, from Caracas to the world
Venezuela's gold trail leads all the way up from the jungle to Venezuela's Central Bank. Surrounded by government buildings, it is here where the country's golden fortune has been amassed. According to a source inside the bank, around 70 tonnes of the valuable mineral remain inside its coffers, the lowest amount in decades.

The Central Bank did not respond to a request for comment.

Forced to provide some relief for a population starving under a crumbling economy, crippled further by US sanctions, which have made trade increasingly difficult, Maduro saw in gold the commodity that oil could no longer be: Increasingly prized, historically stable in value and considerably easier to ship around the world. Gold would allow the regime to suppress some of the country's needs while allegedly enriching Maduro and winning the military's favor.

In 2018, Venezuela sold almost 24 tonnes of "unrefined" gold valued at more than $900 million dollars to Turkey, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute shows. It was exchanged for supplies later included in government subsidized food boxes for poor Venezuelans. However, the US government has said the Venezuelan government is skimming its own profits from such food imports and distribution.

The Turkish government did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

Official exports of gold to Turkey seemed to end in early 2019, following an Executive Order issued by US President Donald Trump in November 2018 authorizing new sanctions on Venezuela's gold sector. A few days later, speaking on Venezuelan National TV, Maduro accused the US of "persecuting the Venezuelan gold," vowing Venezuela would continue to "produce and sell gold.

Today, trade continues, according to Cristopher Figuera and a senior source at the Venezuelan central bank. According to the bank source, up to 26 tonnes of gold were taken out of the bank until the end of April. They were packed into planes and shipped to the Middle East and Africa, the source says.

One of those shipments was sent to Abu Dhabi-based Noor Capital, who days later admitted it had purchased three tonnes of gold from the Venezuelan central bank for an undisclosed amount. "Clear commercial contracts regulated the relationship between Venezuela's Central Bank and Noor Capital," the company said in a statement in February. "Until the situation in Venezuela stabilizes, Noor Capital will refrain from any further transactions."

In March, a Russian cargo plane made two trips from Caracas to Entebbe, Uganda. On board it carried a total of 7.4 tonnes of gold, worth more than 200 million dollars, purchased by the Africa Gold Refinery (AGR), the spokesman for Uganda's police and a source at AGR told CNN.

After intelligence received by Uganda suggested the cargo had been smuggled into Uganda illegally, local authorities launched an investigation and seized a portion of the gold. But the allegations were dismissed by Uganda's Attorney General, William Byahuranga, who instructed police to "withdraw officers deployed to AGR premises and release any gold that may have been seized or impounded during this investigation," according to a letter obtained by CNN.

Byahuranga also instructed AGR to "cease and desist from any further importation of gold from Venezuela, until further notice."

The gold was processed at AGR and later re-shipped to Abu Dhabi, skirting US sanctions on the Venezuelan gold sector, according to the sources.

In response to CNN's requests for comment, a UAE government spokesperson told CNN that the country is "fully compliant" with international law, and had not received an "official request" to investigate any violations.

The trail of gold shipments has grown cold in recent months as the United States and its allies have increased the pressure on Venezuela and its gold exports. But multiple sources tell CNN that Nicolas Maduro and his inner circle are still selling the gold where they can. "They have countries or companies in other countries that allow them to make some profit through gold, or work with different currencies, sell the gold in currencies other than the dollar," Gen. Cristopher Figuera says.

190817143353-07-venezuela-gold-mining-exlarge-169.jpg


As the road that allowed gold to leave Venezuela through Caracas grows narrower and narrower, Venezuela's porous border with Brazil and Colombia has become the main avenue through which the gold leaves the country.

"We have a border, which is not under any sort of control and which is very large as well," Cristopher Figuera explains. "The ones who smuggle gold have been able [to take] advantage of those vulnerabilities.'' These allegations have been confirmed by our military source, a source in the gold trade with direct knowledge of operations involving gold from Venezuela, and multiple witnesses in the region.

A Venezuelan "Wild West"

Back at the cafe, angered by the long-lasting impact the mining industry is having on the environment and on the people living in the area, our anonymous military source lashes out. "What irritates me is these people, the ones who have profited, have created these issues and then they leave."

It's not just the corruption and the violence that have spread throughout the region that aggravate him. This part of Venezuela has become a sort of Wild West, where the lines between what is legal and illegal mining have become increasingly blurry. Most mining sites operate in illegal conditions, with little regard for health and safety norms and a complete disregard for their environmental impact, while local officials and security forces turn a blind eye.

Companies operating in the Orinoco Mining Arc do so with outdated technology and practices using dangerous chemicals, poisoning vital water resources with mercury, cyanide and others toxic substances. The mining operations also continue to clear huge areas of rainforest, some of it protected under Venezuelan law, such as the Canaima National Park, a UNESCO heritage site.

"I haven't seen much of the world, but the Canaima National Park is," he says, pausing as he searches for the right word. "It's just spectacular," the military source says with a sigh. "And they are destroying it."

Back in El Callao, the miner we spoke with and whose identity we've agreed not to reveal tells us he believes the gold he's been digging out was divinely created -- but necessarily good.

"It is on the ground because God deemed it so," he says. "And there's a biblical text that says your money is not to be used for evil deeds." Reflecting on the corrupt system of self-gain around the gold, from El Callao all the way to Caracas, he despairs.

"It's cursed money," he says. "It's evil money."

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/08/20/americas/venezuela-gold-mining-intl/index.html

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/08/20/americas/venezuela-gold-mining-intl/index.html
 
Venezuela’s implosion is becoming Colombia’s security nightmare
By Francisco Toro | July 5, 2019

DPW7HLUSGYI6TFLKRDBJDK24HA.jpg

An ELN guerrilla commander in the jungle, in the Choco department of Colombia

As Venezuela’s economic and political situation continues to plumb new depths, analysts fret that the crisis is bound to spill over its borders sooner or later. The most obvious candidate for destabilization is Colombia, which lies just across a long, porous, heavily populated border region that stretches over the Andes and down through the Amazon jungle.

It’s no picnic having a failed state on your border. As Rwanda found out in the ’90s when the perpetrators of its genocide set up camp across the border in the vast, ungoverned jungles of Congo, security threats quickly become unmanageable if your foe has a safe harbor just across a lightly patrolled border. And while the scale of violence in the northern tip of South America is much less, the basic dynamic looks distressingly similar.

Take a moment to consider Colombia’s Ejército de Liberación Nacional, known as the ELN. Insofar as American commentators think about the ELN (which, in fairness, isn’t very far at all), they tended to view it as the unruly little cousin of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC. The ELN was considered a murderous gang technically adhering to old-school Marxist ideology but, in practice, much more devoted to running drugs than to overthrowing the bourgeoisie.

That perception is out of date. Over the past few years, the ELN guerrilla has grown massively in wealth and power. And it has done so largely by turning Venezuela’s collapse to its advantage.

You may remember that Colombia signed a historic peace deal with the FARC, earning then-President Juan Manuel Santos the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016. The ELN did not take part in that deal. In fact, the end of the war with the FARC paradoxically strengthened the ELN, which is now the biggest Colombian terrorist group around. It now has an estimated 2,500 fighters, and Colombian intelligence believes nearly half of them are now in Venezuela. It has reportedly come to an understanding with renegade “dissident FARC” groups that refused to join the peace agreement to divvy up drug routes through Venezuela.

In Venezuela’s collapse, the ELN has found endless opportunities, setting up bases throughout rural Venezuela. The guerrilla group is now the de facto governing authority in a growing portion of the country. While there has certainly been some friction, and at least one deadly skirmish, between the ELN and the Venezuelan military, the two more often cooperate with one another than fight each other. In fact, the Colombian military believes the Venezuelan armed forces are now actively training the ELN to use sophisticated weaponry.

Particularly in the remote jungle mining regions of Venezuela’s Bolívar and Amazonas states, the Venezuelan military seems happy to outsource the job of imposing a brutal kind of order over the territory to ELN guerrillas. Venezuela’s economic tailspin has left thousands of young Venezuelans hungry and desperate for any chance to make a living, creating rich recruiting grounds for the guerrillas. That same hunger has pushed thousands of Venezuelans out of the cities and toward the frontier mining regions the ELN controls, bringing a much-needed pool of labor to exploit.

The result is a seriously strengthened ELN that, today, has more fighters, more income, more weapons and more territory under its control than ever before. Some analysts are now describing it as a “Colombo-Venezuelan rebel army.”

It’s easy to see why this is so alarming from Bogotá's point of view. Its peace talks with the ELN collapsed early last year after a string of ELN bombs left seven members of the security forces dead across the country. In January, the ELN claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack outside a police academy in Bogotá that left 21 people dead, an event that shocked Colombia to the core and brought back memories of the darkest times in the long war with the FARC.

What’s clear is that, far from receding, the ELN threat is growing. A group that seemed on its last legs just a few years ago has engineered an unlikely turnaround on the back of Venezuela’s implosion and FARC’s retreat. And Colombia’s peace and stability — the singular achievement of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America over the last generation — is profoundly threatened.

Policymakers in Washington are just starting to realize what their counterparts in Bogotá have known for some time now: Venezuela’s crisis will be regionalized, and Colombia is going to be hit first, and hardest.

The challenge isn’t just about the millions of desperate Venezuelan refugees heading west toward the Colombian border (with more than a million settling in the country) in search of work, medical services, a meal. It’s also about thousands of Colombian fighters heading east to Venezuela in search of ungoverned spaces to control and exploit.

Whether you sit in Washington or in Bogotá, the ELN’s growing power inside Venezuela is not the kind of problem you can ignore indefinitely.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ion-is-becoming-colombias-security-nightmare/
 
Last edited:
A Venezuelan El Dorado Hits Rock Bottom
By Katrin Kuntz and Adriana Fernández | September 03, 2019

image-1461505-galleryV9-xhqy-1461505.jpg
Maracaibo used to be the Dallas of Venezuela, it's wealth fueled by oil. But today, residents are fighting for survival and the city is experiencing an exodus. The collapse of Maracaibo is emblematic of what may lie in store for the country at large.

The day on which residents of Maracaibo destroyed their own city out of sheer desperation began relatively normally, considering the circumstances. It was March 10, 2019, and for the preceding three days, the power had been out across almost the entire country. Fernel Ricardo, a resident of Maracaibo, the second-largest city in Venezuela, remembers how his city took one step closer to the abyss that day.

The 40-year-old father of three girls, Ricardo relates how he was standing in his kitchen that morning trying not to completely lose his sanity. "Food was rotting in the refrigerator and there was no water coming out of the tap," he says. They were unable to make money transfers or withdraw cash, meaning they couldn't buy anything.

Because much of the telecommunications infrastructure had collapsed, making calls was also difficult. "We received no information, no explanation from the government," Ricardo says. There was just one state radio station that continued to broadcast, with people in Ricardo's neighborhood able to listen in with the help of a generator. "Nobody told us what was going on," Ricardo recalls. "The station just played music."

Soon, panic began to spread in San Jacinto, the impoverished district where he lives, one that is considered a stronghold of former Chávez supporters. "What kind of country isn't able to deliver electricity to its people in the 21st century?" he found himself wondering.

A couple of hours later, Ricardo saw his neighbors marching through the district carrying bags and armed with sticks. "Let's go! To the supermarket!" they were yelling, according to Ricardo. "Enough is enough!"

A Bona Fide Dystopia

image-1463152-galleryV9-tvxd-1463152.jpg

Burning garbage at the Maracaibo flea market. Public services have virtually been eliminated in the city and even electricity isn't reliable anymore.

In the days that followed, the residents of Maracaibo plundered 523 shops. They raided 106 stores in a shopping mall and ransacked a gigantic supermarket, grabbing food and destroying the structure itself and even stealing the roof paneling. The looters also completely stripped a five-floor hotel, walking off with toilets and sinks in addition to taking the water out of the hotel pool.

A city of 2 million located near the border with Colombia, Maracaibo was once considered one of the richest cities in Venezuela. It was the first city in the country to receive electricity several decades ago, and the modern agricultural industry developed in the state of Zulia, of which Maracaibo is the capital. Huge oil deposits discovered beneath Lake Maracaibo further fueled development and turned the city into the Dallas of Venezuela's oil industry -- a city built on the wealth of the world's largest known oil deposit. The oil workers were known for their expensive cars while executives flew in private jets to gamble away money in the casinos of the Caribbean.

Today, Maracaibo is a ghost town, a bona fide dystopia reminiscent of the apocalyptic film "Mad Max." The limited resources at the disposal of President Nicolás Maduro's government tend to be reserved for the capital city of Caracas, located 700 kilometers (435 miles) away.

A walk through Maracaibo reveals a city where almost all of the restaurants and shops are closed. Stoplights don't work, bus service has been suspended and even schools are largely closed or, if they are open at all, only hold classes for a few hours at a time. "For sale" signs stand in front of many of the houses.

Children rummage through the garbage on the sides of the road on the search for something to eat as people in torn clothes walk past pushing shopping carts -- leftover from the days of plundering -- loaded with canisters full of brackish water. Butchers sell bits of unappetizing-looking meat. Some 6.8 million people in Venezuela are currently suffering from malnourishment. On the outskirts of the city, an emaciated man is taking an evening walk with his mother. When asked what the two of them have eaten that day, he responds: "Mangoes. Nothing else."

After years of neglect under President Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, the source of the city's and the country's wealth has run dry. The state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) is in terrible shape and oil production has plunged by more than two-thirds since 2013, a result of corruption, mismanagement and sanctions applied by the United States. Recently, the country has only been putting out a million barrels per day, roughly the level of 1945. Hundreds of drilling rigs in Lake Maracaibo have deteriorated, power plants have fallen silent and tankers are sinking.

The Need for an About-Face

Four weeks ago, the U.S. imposed additional sanctions against the Maduro government, a way for Trump to exert more pressure on the Venezuelan president following the failed putsch launched by opposition leader Juan Guaidó. The sanctions have led to an additional one-third drop in oil production even as they have primarily hit the people of Venezuela. The country is hardly earning anything from oil exports anymore and the consequences for the already disastrous economic situation have been catastrophic.

Many in the country see the almost complete collapse of Maracaibo as a harbinger for the ruination of the entire country under President Maduro. If there is no political about-face, all of Venezuela could end up looking like Maracaibo.

In recent years, fully 4 million people -- more than a 10th of the country's population -- have left Venezuela and many thousands more continue turning their backs on Maracaibo and the surrounding region. If current trends hold, around 8 million people will have emigrated from Venezuela by the end of 2020 -- many more than the 5.6 million people who have fled Syria in recent years. Already, the Venezuelan exodus has become the largest mass migration in Latin America and is perhaps destined to become the biggest in the world.

Almost five months have passed since the huge wave of plundering and Fernel Ricardo is sitting in front of his home on a day in August, watching the sand blow across the pothole-filled road. The neighbors across the street are playing dominoes. Ricardo has just asked them for a couple of tomatoes so that his wife can cook something for them in the evening. They don't have any running water and electricity is spotty.

"I used to work in the PDVSA cafeteria," Ricardo says. Since the state-owned oil company basically ceased functioning, he has been repairing electronic devices, though it doesn't provide a regular income. Parked in the garage behind him is an old car belonging to neighbors who have emigrated. Next to it is an iron and a suitcase full of clothes that were also left behind.

"I'm trying to sell everything," he says. "Nobody here can survive off their job. The minimum wage of USD 3 per months is only enough to buy just a single chicken." By the end of the year, the hyperinflation plaguing the country could rise to an astronomical 51 million percent, making the national currency, the bolivar, essentially worthless. Those who can try to get ahold of dollars, or they survive on remittances from family members who have emigrated.

Blinded by Chávez

image-1461646-galleryV9-xwez-1461646.jpg

Many homes in Maracaibo no longer have running water, forcing residents to collect water from a central pipe

Back in the days of chaos, when desperation and fury drove the people of Maracaibo to ransack the city, Ricardo was briefly among them. He says he initially saw hundreds of people on the streets. "They had grabbed everything, as if the world was ending. Noodles, rice, shoes, watches, mobile phones and even refrigerators from the shops." Ricardo says he grew fearful when he saw stores burning and heard gunfire, but the police didn't intervene." I quickly grabbed four bottles of water," Ricardo says, "and then I went home."

Right in the middle of the chaos, the government issued a statement claiming that "opposition sabotage" had been responsible for the power outages. Following the most recent outage in July, Maduro blamed an "electromagnetic attack" from the U.S. Now, though, it is thought that a wildfire caused it.

Ricardo says he is ashamed of the plundering, but he also feels partially responsible for the situation in which the county now finds itself. "I voted for Chávez," he says with tears in his eyes. "I allowed myself to be blinded by the good deeds he performed." He says he never thought that Chávez would destroy the country.

These days, it isn't uncommon for lines stretching several kilometers to develop at gas stations in Maracaibo. Because state fuel reserves are running low, and because the Maduro regime is no longer receiving any supplies from the U.S. due to the embargo, many people wait for up to 12 hours to buy a bit of gasoline. People also crowd around in front of the banks, but nobody is allowed to withdraw more than 50 U.S. cents a week.

A strained silence lies over the city, with hardly anybody daring to protest against the government out of fear of being locked up and tortured. A United Nations report alleges that security personnel loyal to the government murdered at least 6,800 people across the country between January 2018 and May 2019. Many districts of the city are controlled by gangs who make their money through smuggling. Anyone who walks along the street with a bag full of groceries risks being attacked. Indeed, Venezuela is now considered to be the most dangerous country in all of South America.

During the days of plundering, hundreds of people were injured by knives or gunfire and doctors were forced to operate by the lights of their mobile phones. Due to the lack of equipment, many amputations were performed that otherwise would have been avoidable.

'We Lost Many'

image-1463136-860_poster_16x9-rkre-1463136.jpg

Undernourishment has become a severe problem in the city, with many people earning less than $5 per month.

"In the nights of the plundering, panic broke out among the doctors," says a doctor in the city's central hospital. Hundreds streamed into the operating rooms in a single night, she says. "We lost many of them."

She asked that we refer to her here as Dr. López to protect her safety. The government doesn't want journalists to learn about conditions in the state-run hospitals and doctors put themselves in danger if they allow access. But López is furious about the collapse of healthcare in the country. When the guards head out for lunch, she leads us inside.

The hallway in front of her office reeks of blood and urine. A man is lying on a stretcher and screaming. Everywhere, there are patients waiting to be tended to. "The five beds we have in intensive care are all full," López says. "That's why there are patients lying in the hallways."

The hospital used to be one of the best in the country. "We performed heart surgeries and computer tomography scans," she says. "But now, almost all of the specialists have emigrated and young doctors aren't coming up to replace them." A total of around 22,000 doctors have left the country since 2017, around half of the country's erstwhile total.

López earns the equivalent of $10 per month, but she has remained in the country anyway to "serve the people," the doctor says. She adds that she wouldn't be able to survive without the help of relatives in the U.S. -- part of the up to $2 billion in foreign remittances sent to Venezuela every year.

But the patients have an even tougher time of it. "Families who bring their relatives must provide the things we use to treat them," López says. "Medicine, latex gloves, even clean water." The patients aren't even provided with food any longer and the doctor says she just bought cleaning supplies on her own dime. "Because most families have no money for treatment, many patients just lie here and don't get better."

The huge, half-empty building has essentially become a gigantic homeless shelter as a result of the crisis. Maracaibo residents bring people by who they have picked up on the street and already, a dozen homeless people have simply moved in. A few days ago, López says, an emaciated man was found standing in the doorway. Nobody knows who he is or where he came from and now he is just sitting on a bed, confused and naked. "It is increasingly the case," López says, "that families simply drop off their older relatives because they can't afford to take them along when they emigrate."

At the beginning of the year, many hoped that the Maduro regime was coming to an end. Juan Guaidó, the young president of the National Assembly, invoked the constitution on January 23 and named himself the interim president of Venezuela. Around 50 countries, including Germany, recognized him as such, in part because in the presidential elections the previous year, when Maduro was re-elected, there were massive irregularities. But hopes among Western countries that the country's powerful army would throw their support behind Guaidó and turn away from Maduro proved to be in vain.

Complete Economic Destruction

image-1463165-galleryV9-aykl-1463165.jpg


Now, a kind of political trench warfare has developed between the regime and the opposition, a situation that has contributed to the complete destruction of the country's economy.

With the help of the Trump administration in the U.S., the opposition continues to work on a strategy for toppling the current government. The sanctions are designed to undercut the Maduro regime economically while Guaidó continues trying to get the military on his side. Back in January, he promised amnesty to those in the military who turn away from Maduro.

Guaidó also blasted the government for being responsible for the power outages this spring and residents of Maracaibo took to the streets at his request. It was a time when the opposition seemed to have momentum on its side, but since then, it seems to have faded. Following the introduction of stricter U.S. sanctions in early August, Maduro broke off talks with the opposition aimed at agreeing on a process of transition.

It is currently unclear what a solution to the crisis might look like. Thus far, it is primarily the people themselves who are suffering from the oil boycott. All accounts belonging to the state-owned oil company PDVSA in the United States have been frozen. And because the regime lacks sufficient hard currency, it is becoming increasingly difficult to import food and medical supplies.

In Maracaibo, five men have pulled up their chairs to a table in the backroom of a hotel, all of them hoping that a worsening of the crisis could lead to the fall of the Maduro regime. One of the men has brought along a photo showing himself -- smiling at the camera -- in a group at a Juan Guaidó event. "I was fired because of this picture," says the man, who worked for PDVSA until recently. Now, he is required to stay at least 800 meters away from any refinery in the country -- "as if I was a terrorist." His colleagues shake their heads, all of them bitterly disappointed by the government in Caracas.

"The government has driven the oil industry into the ground," says Carlos Labrador, a 52-year-old with carefully combed hair and a purple shirt. "Venezuela's working class has been destroyed." Twenty years ago, early in his career, he says, it was a privilege to work for PDVSA. "Today, though, it is something to be ashamed of." Labrador used to love the company and said he could have worked eight more years there had he not been forced into retirement.

"The oil industry promised me stability," Labrador says, adding that before Chávez destroyed the system, a normal worker could earn the equivalent of at least $1,200 per month. "We received allowances to buy homes. There were supermarkets and hospitals for oil workers along with stipends for our children who went to school. We saw it as our right to a good life," he says. "Today, an oil worker makes just $5 per month."

A System of Patronage

The collapse of the state oil company started to become palpable around 10 years ago, the men say. Chávez began pumping the billions in oil earnings into social programs, but he failed to invest in the maintenance of the facilities responsible for that income. Following an oil worker strike that threatened both the economy and Chávez's own presidency, he fired more than 15,000 workers in early 2003 -- including many experts -- and replaced them with tens of thousands of people loyal to him. "He politicized the industry and continued hiring more and more people even though production was falling," one of the men says.

The system of patronage drove the company into ruin and production began falling due to the lack of knowledgeable engineers. When the price of oil collapsed in 2015, PDVSA had no financial buffer anymore and Chávez's successor Maduro inherited a ruined economy. The military was given responsibility for PDVSA and Maduro began printing money to prop up the state. Predictably, the result was hyperinflation, which drove the economy into the abyss.

Those who work for PDVSA today say the former oil workers in Maracaibo, cannibalized the company. "They stole motors, adhesives and tools. Recently, a ship apparently sank because someone stole a seal that was made of bronze." Should Maduro resign one day, the U.S. and other Western investors could earn a pretty penny refurbishing the ramshackle oil infrastructure. "Assuming that there is anything left at all," one of the workers adds.

Following our conversation, they stand up and head outside. Not, though, to proudly work in the oil industry, but to continue selling ice cream or water in an attempt to make ends meet.

According to the architects of U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, which were tightened significantly under the guidance of U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, they were never intended to harm the populace. The hope had been that they would quickly lead to Maduro's fall, or that the military would sweep him out of office before the economy collapsed. But that isn't what happened. Indeed, the sanctions have turned into a welcome means for local politicians in Maracaibo to pose as victims of foreign powers.

The situation in Maracaibo is essentially "controlled chaos," says Juan Romero, the 50-year-old vice president of the Legislative Council of the state of Zulia. A close confidante of the governor, Romero receives his guests at the seat of state government in the center of Maracaibo. A medallion bearing a likeness of Chávez hangs on his necklace. On the table in front of him are several blank sheets of paper that he will fill up during our interview with numbers, arrows and circles to illustrate his points.

What the Government Says

image-1463156-galleryV9-aeyl-1463156.jpg

Juan Romero is the vice president of the Legislative Council of the state of Zulia, of which Maracaibo is the capital. He insists that the government of President Nicolás Maduro isn't to be blamed for the current state of the country and that foreign elements are at work.

Why is the infrastructure in such bad shape in and around Maracaibo? Romero explains that due to climate change, the state of Zulia has to deal with temperatures of more than 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). "The electricity grid isn't prepared for that." Furthermore, he alleges, "external elements" severed an underground telecommunications cable to destroy the system.

Who exactly does he think was responsible? "Colombia, because it has an acute interest in the oil beneath Lake Maracaibo. And the United States of America, which wants to destabilize Venezuela."

Who is to be blamed for the high rate of inflation? "Currency distortion in Colombia." He never fully explains what exactly he means by that. Romero needs more paper. On his desk are several rubber figurines of important members of government, with Maduro in the middle.

Why did the people of Maracaibo plunder 523 shops? He says that "sleeper cells from Colombia" were responsible. And Juan Guaidó also bears responsibility, because the opposition leader is intent on seizing power in Zulia. "He wants to divide the territory controlled by the Maduro government and establish a parallel regime here in Maracaibo."

Is it not a sign of the government's failure that 4 million people have left the country? "For historical reasons, the border between Venezuela and Colombia has always been extremely permeable," Romero says. "Plus, we have calculated that it is 2 million people at most. And many are returning."

Romero doesn't deny that there is a crisis. But as far as he is concerned, his government bears no responsibility for it. Meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations believes it possible that a famine could break out in Venezuela.

Those most threatened by starvation live in the district of Alto del Milagro Norte, one of the city's most dangerous slums. In every third house, an elderly person is lying motionless on a bed, many of them hardly more than a skeleton. Babies with the distended bellies of hunger scream in their mothers' arms. Many undernourished residents of the slum have died recently.

Buried in a Wardrobe

Some 50 men and women have gathered on a recent morning in front of the house belonging to the Sánchez family. They are here to pay their last respects to Guillermo Gallue, who died at the ripe old age of 95, something of a miracle in these times. He is now to be buried.

The Sánchez family has put the dead man's coffin on display inside their corrugated metal shack and Gallue's grandson, David Sánchez, is standing in front of it. "Our grandfather lived so long because he worked on a farm," he says, where he was able to eat meat and drink milk. That made him strong. In the slum, though, they were only able to give him a mixture of flour, sugar and water. "But he needed protein." For years, Sánchez says, he got thinner and thinner. Every now and then, Sánchez relates, he would dig a worthless banknote out of his pocket and whisper: "I would like some chicken."

The grandson smiles wryly, saying they never told him what had become of Venezuela. "We wanted him to die in peace." Sánchez himself sells mangoes to make a bit of money, while his children collect plastic and scrounge through garbage. Together, they earn the equivalent of around $4 per month.

"We can't afford a funeral," he says, adding that he already had to borrow money from several sources to afford the wake. He is ashamed that he is unable to offer anything to eat to the mourners who have gathered at his home.

At midday, the vehicle arrives to take his grandfather to the cemetery. Before he is taken away, the mourners march through the streets, with four men carrying the coffin up front. The grandfather, who only ever knew Maracaibo as Venezuela's proud oil metropolis, is lying in a narrow wardrobe that his family has converted into a coffin.

https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...ibo-in-ruin-as-economy-plunges-a-1284073.html
 
Last edited:
Colombia's Foreign Minister: Venezuela military exercises on border a threat
September 4, 2019

r

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Venezuela’s planned border military exercises are a direct threat to regional stability, Colombia’s foreign minister said on Wednesday, as the neighboring countries renewed their frequent verbal sparring over security.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro late on Tuesday ordered the armed forces to be on alert for a potential attack by Colombia and announced military exercises on the border, after a group of former guerrilla commanders said they would rearm.

Former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerillas last week announced a rearmament in a video that Colombian authorities believe was filmed in Venezuela, spurring concern of a worsening of the Colombian armed conflict and expansion of armed groups in Venezuela.

“It is a threat that reflects the consistent bad actions of a (Maduro) government which creates crisis situations,” Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo told journalists. “It’s a threat that doesn’t just have to do with Colombia, but with the stability and the tranquility of the region.”

“The dictatorial regime (of Maduro) favors the presence in its territory of terrorist organizations, not just Colombian ones, but from other parts of the world,” Trujillo added.

The two countries, which shared a 2,219 km (1,378 mile) border, have been frequently at odds over the past decade and do not maintain diplomatic relations.

Colombia is the top destination for Venezuelan migrants fleeing that country’s long-running economic and political crisis, which has caused widespread shortages of food and medicine. Some 1.4 million Venezuelans live in Colombia.

Colombia has repeatedly denied any plans to attack Venezuela or allow the United States to launch attacks from its territory, despite repeated accusations by Maduro.

Venezuela’s foreign ministry has blamed the dissident rearmament on Colombia President Ivan Duque’s failure to follow through on the peace accords. Maduro previously said that former rebel commanders are welcome in Venezuela.

The peace accord between the FARC and Colombia has led to the demobilization of more than 13,000 rebels, including some 7,000 combatants.

The FARC, now a legal political party, has condemned the rearmament of some of its former members.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rder-a-threat-colombia-minister-idUSKCN1VP2H6
 
Last edited:
Venezuela starts military exercises along Colombia border
By Scott Smith and Luis Alonso Lugo | September 10, 2019

54GGDKGUDQI6TCJEDW35VR4X7M.jpg

Venezuelan soldiers take part in a military exercise at the Garcia Hevia airport in La Fria in the State of Tachira, Venezuela, Tuesday, Sept 10, 2019.

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Nicolás Maduro launched extended military exercises along Venezuela’s border with Colombia on Tuesday, drawing Washington’s attention amid rising friction between the South American neighbors.

Maduro has come under mounting pressure from Colombia and the United States, which are among more than 50 nations that back opposition politician Juan Guaidó’s bid to oust the socialist president. They contend Maduro’s re-election in 2018 was bogus.

Tensions spiked recently when Colombia and Venezuela accused each other of harboring hostile armed groups within their borders that are trying to overthrow the neighboring government. In response, Maduro put soldiers on alert and summoned his defense council, saying the machinery of war has started against Venezuela.

“The moment has come to defend our sovereignty and national peace by deploying our defense resources in full force,” Maduro said on Twitter.

Roughly 150,000 military personnel will conduct drills through Sept. 28, said Remigio Ceballos, strategic commander of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, who is overseeing operations.

An array of tanks, missile launchers and aircraft were staged at the Garcia de Hevia International Airport near the border. A military band played as the vehicles filed out.

“This is an operation to defend our national territory,” said Ceballos, adding that the armed forces are on the watch to intercept attacks from Colombia, the U.S. or any other threat.

Officials in Washington on Tuesday expressed unwavering support for Colombia during this patch of rocky relations with Venezuela. The two countries have a shared history and their border stretches nearly 1,367-mile (2,200-kilometers).

Carlos Trujillo, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, said it was “totally unacceptable” that Maduro’s “illegitimate government” has threatened the region’s security and peace.

“Colombia’s allies will do everything possible to help one of the best allies we’ve had — not only in the Americas but in the world,” Trujillo added during a conference call with reporters.

The U.S. special envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, was even more direct.

“If there are cross-border attacks from Venezuela to Colombia, we can expect Colombians to react,” Abrams said. “And obviously, we would fully support Colombia in that situation.”

Colombian authorities estimate as many as 1,000 National Liberation Army rebels — or around 40% of that rebel group’s fighting force — operate from Venezuela. The rebels there plan attacks like the January car bombing at a Bogota police academy that killed more than 20 mostly young cadets, Colombia says.

For its part, Venezuela’s socialist government accuses Colombia’s conservative president, Ivan Duque, of allowing training camps to operate inside Colombia for groups that plot violent attacks to undermine Maduro.

This is at least the fourth time so far this year that Maduro has ordered his troops deployed in exercises. In one, Maduro was shown on state TV acting as commander in chief, riding in tanks and jogging in formation with soldiers.

This display was seen as Maduro flexing his military muscle in response to Guaidó, who urged soldiers to abandon Maduro and join the opposition’s movement to start fresh with new presidential elections.

Maduro has maintained support from the military, with the exception of several hundred troops. He’s also backed internationally by allies such as Cuba, China and Russia.

Colombia’s Duque has said Venezuela should spend its money on food, not missiles.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...85dfc6-d415-11e9-8924-1db7dac797fb_story.html
 
Last edited:
Armed conflict between Venezuela and Colombia is now a real, and terrifying, possibility
By Francisco Toro | September 12

OSYLRPWUDQI6TCJEDW35VR4X7M.jpg

Venezuelan soldiers took part in military exercises on the Colombian border on Sept. 10​

BOGOTA, Colombia — Thinking up ways our all-encompassing crisis could get even worse has become a grimly popular parlor game for Venezuelans. For years, the go-to worst-case scenario was civil war between the political factions in our country. These days, an even scarier prospect has begun to displace that in the pantheon of Venezuelan nightmares: armed conflict with Colombia.

The reason? Venezuela’s increasingly tight alliance with the drug-running guerrilla armies waging war on the Colombian state, which has rattled Bogota so hard it’s now seeking a hemispheric response.

On Wednesday, Colombia, the United States and nine other countries invoked the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, which commits the countries of the Western Hemisphere to respond to military aggression against any one of them. The move came after Nicolás Maduro said he would deploy 150,000 troops to the border with Colombia. Invoking TIAR is an extreme measure in the region and an unmistakable sign that armed conflict is now a real possibility.

For some time, security analysts in Bogota have been alarmed by Caracas’s embrace of ELN — the Cuban-backed National Liberation Army that for decades played second fiddle to the Soviet-inspired Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But the recent announcement by top FARC leaders that they are returning to war made a tense situation much worse, creating the prospect of multiple forces within Colombia acting as Venezuelan proxies.

For more than a decade, Venezuela has served as a friendly safe space for Colombia’s various leftist rebel guerrillas. Colombian rebels used Venezuela as a rear-guard, a place where their soldiers could go for R & R, for medical treatment or for training. Gradually, they expanded their operations in the country, using it as a conduit for drugs for export and running extortion rackets in Venezuelan territory.

But the depth of cooperation between Venezuela and Colombian rebels seems to have ballooned this year, as the Venezuelan state shifts from tolerating them to treating them as allies in a common fight.

Venezuelan intelligence documents leaked to Colombian newsweekly Semana recently paint the most troubling picture yet, portraying Venezuela’s relationship to Colombian “red groups” as something close to Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah. Colombia’s rebels aren’t just tolerated in Venezuela; they’re actively trained and armed there, including in the use of enormously dangerous weapons such as high-tech Russian shoulder-mounted antiaircraft missiles.

The documents leaked to Semana imply Venezuela is mainstreaming ELN and the resurgent FARC into its intelligence systems, relying on the groups to help identify high-value military targets inside Colombia. Pointedly, Colombia said FARC’s video announcing a return to violence was shot inside Venezuela.

For a Venezuelan leadership that’s increasingly paranoid about outside threats, this alliance with Colombia’s rebels offers obvious benefits, strengthening its negotiating hand by enabling it to make credible threats to destabilize Colombia. For the rebel groups themselves, the benefits are just as obvious. Venezuela provides everything they need to become impossible for Colombia to defeat: territory, extortion opportunities, drug routes, training, weapons.

For Colombia, this state of affairs threatens to become simply intolerable. Some of the grimmest scenarios hardly stretch the imagination. Say, for instance, Colombia’s intelligence learns of a guerrilla cell in Venezuela training for a major attack in Bogota: The case for a preemptive strike could quickly prove overwhelming. To be sure, it wouldn’t be the first time Colombia has struck guerrillas in a neighbor’s territory.

For years, Venezuela watchers have been muttering that the country’s collapse was bound to destabilize the region one way or another. Now, the shape that destabilization is likely to take is beginning to come into focus.

To be sure, no sane Venezuelan leader could want an armed conflict that pits Venezuela’s shambolic, underfed recruits against Colombia’s much-better-armed, trained and battle-hardened fighters. It’s not a winnable proposition.

But the presence of the guerrillas complicate any calculation: Venezuela wouldn’t have to launch an invasion to get its forces into Colombia — its guerrilla allies are already there. Those same guerrillas multiply the potential for mistakes, miscalculations and accidents that could easily set off an escalation none of the players can bring under control.

Latin America isn’t prepared for the dynamic taking shape along the Venezuela-Colombia border. The region hasn’t witnessed serious interstate conflict since the 1930s. Venezuela’s wholehearted embrace of Colombia’s narco-revolutionaries is creating conditions for a kind of clash the region has no memory of.

With luck, it’s a scenario that will remain confined to the nightmares of reality-scarred Venezuelans. Except if there’s one thing the past few years have made clear, it’s that reality-scarred Venezuelans can’t rely on luck.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...-colombia-is-now-real-terrifying-possibility/
 
Last edited:
Colombia's President seeks international sanctions on Venezuela to protect region
By Julia Symmes Cobb, Luis Jaime Acosta | September 21, 2019

r

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian President Ivan Duque called on Saturday for coordinated international sanctions targeting Venezuela to help stop President Nicolas Maduro’s support for Colombian rebels and drug traffickers from destabilizing Latin America.

Duque, who accuses Maduro of providing a safe haven for Colombian rebel fighters from the now-demobilized FARC guerrilla group and the still-active ELN rebels, compared the Venezuelan leader to former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was put on trial for alleged war crimes in conflicts that destabilized the Balkans.

“We should look at communal sanctions and actions so that the threat of (Venezuela) protecting terrorism in its territory ends,” Duque told Reuters before traveling to the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.

“The international community must understand that the dictatorship has to come to an end soon because the humanitarian tragedy, in addition to the consolidation of a dictatorial regime that is coexisting with drug cartels and with terrorism, is a threat for the whole Western hemisphere and for the stability of the world.”

Maduro accuses Colombia of preparing to attack Venezuela, and has repeatedly warned of an invasion coordinated with the U.S. government.

Latin American countries could invoke the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, known by its Spanish initials TIAR, against Maduro, Duque said. The treaty considers an attack on any of the signatories to be an attack on them all.

“The TIAR has been invoked many times and many times with success, but the invocation of it doesn’t necessarily have to refer in an explicit way to military actions,” Duque said. “What’s important first is coordinated action.”

Washington, which has levied several rounds of sanctions against Maduro’s government, has expressed hope that European nations will also impose sanctions in the coming months.

Most western nations consider Maduro illegitimate - saying he secured a second term last year via a fraudulent vote. Colombia is among the countries which back opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s rightful leader.

Maduro says Guaido is a U.S. puppet seeking a coup.

Colombia stands ready to confront any attack by former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)rebels, a group of whom recently rearmed, Duque said.

“When they decide to enter Colombian territory we’ll be here waiting with all of the strength of the armed forces,” Duque said. “You can never minimize an effort to defeat terrorism.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-on-venezuela-to-protect-region-idUSKBN1W700B
 
Last edited:
Any US candidate going to offer asylum to Moduro in exchange for boatloads of aide?
 
War might actually be a good thing for Venezuela at this point. I'm surprised they haven't already tried to have a revolution of sorts and to be honest it's pathetic. Hopefully war can atleast shake things up a bit.
 
Any US candidate going to offer asylum to Moduro in exchange for boatloads of aide?

Im pretty sure ol bern would not only give the guy money he’d bail out his social paradise no questions asked....with taxes of course
 
I remember Sherdoggers asking "Where's the U.N in all of this?"

Well, here's your answer.

Venezuela wins seat on UN Human Rights Council
By Richard Roth, CNN | October 17, 2019​

190930211250-pba-maduro-super-169.jpg

It's like a defendant on trial getting to sit on the jury too.

Venezuela has become the latest accused human rights abuser to win a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. It defeated Costa Rica 105 to 96 in a secret ballot vote inside the UN General Assembly.

In Caracas, Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza called it a "historic decision," declaring the election a victory despite "a fierce and brutal campaign led by the United States and its subordinated allied countries."

However, the election was controversial, with human rights groups reacting fiercely and US Ambassador Kelly Craft describing it as "an embarrassment to the United Nations and a tragedy for the people of Venezuela."

In July, an in-depth report presented by UN Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet blamed the government of embattled president Nicolas Maduro for allowing disease to re-emerge and using public food aid for political purposes. It also presented evidence of human rights violations including torture and extrajudicial killings by Venezuelan security forces. Maduro has rejected the report as inaccurate and one-sided.

Libya and Sudan, two other countries accused of human rights violations, won uncontested seats on the council. The newly elected countries serve three-year terms.

The UN Human Rights Council

The UN's 47-nation human rights group gets to point the finger at countries for their human rights violations. Its seats are reserved for different regions around the world, and countries from those regions must compete to occupy them every three years.

Venezuela had originally run unopposed for a seat in the Latin American and Caribbean States group -- until Costa Rica, citing Venezuela's poor human rights record, jumped into the contest.

The election of Venezuela could add even more ammunition to critics of the United Nations, who doubt the global organization's relevance.

And Human Rights Watch, deputy director for global advocacy, Philippe Bolopion said that Venezuela's election "betrays the fundamental principles (the UN) set out when it created the Human Rights Council."

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a non-government watchdog based in Geneva, compared it to "making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief,"

The human rights council has previously been accused of only singling out Israel or other countries without political clout. In 2018, the United States withdrew from the council in protest of what it described as an anti-Israel stance and a lack of reform.

On Thursday, US Ambassador Craft said the Venezuela's ascent to the council "provides ironclad proof that the Human Rights Council is broken and reinforces why the United States withdrew."

Nevertheless, cheers followed the announcement of Venezuela's victory in the Assembly Hall. The vote marked an international jab at the United States, which had lobbied against Venezuela, as did numerous international human rights organizations.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/10/17/...-nations-human-rights-council-intl/index.html
 
Last edited:
Stop. This cannot be real.
 
The Hungry Generation
Malnutrition curses the children of Venezuela
Photography by CARLOS GARCÍA RAWLINS. Story by BRIAN ELLSWORTH and KEREN TORRES | December 18, 2019

DSF5523a.jpg

A generation of children is growing up hungry and stunted in Venezuela, where the economic crisis and a lack of public resources have led to widespread shortages of food and a public health system unable to care for the malnourished.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/venezuela-malnutrition/
 
Back
Top