CSI Venezuela

[Savonarola]

CB and I got lunch at a Cuban restaurant today.  The girl at the counter was a recent arrival from Venezuela.  She wished me "Best of luck in your endeavor" after I ordered coffee.

Savonarola:  Thank You   

I've used similarly weird Spanish expressions; but that struck me as a funny stock expression to have picked up right away.

[Iormlund]

Gf's niece came down with diphtheria. Apparently that's a thing again. Hundreds of cases reported all over the country.

[Valmy]

That will show the evil vaxxers whose boss.

[CountDeMoney]

That will show the evil vaxxers whose boss.

YO ANGELER

[Duque de Bragança]

Should Maduro be invited to Languish? 

Venezuelans protest over pork shortage, Maduro blames Portugal

CARACAS (Reuters) - Hundreds of Venezuelans took to the streets in poor parts of Caracas overnight to protest a shortage of pork for traditional Christmas meals in the latest symptom of social discontent during a brutal economic crisis.

President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government had promised to provide subsidized meat to Venezuelans at the end of a fourth year of recession in the OPEC nation - but in many parts it did not materialize and frustration has boiled over.

Local media and Twitter users posted images of hundreds of people standing on streets and burning trash in Caracas late on Wednesday complaining about the failed pork deliveries.

Some pockets of protests continued on Thursday morning, in what some social media users dubbed the "pork revolution".

Maduro, who has been alleging a foreign-led "economic war" against his government, went on state TV to blame Portugal for failing to deliver pork imports in time for Christmas.

"What happened to the pork? They sabotaged us. I can name a country: Portugal," Maduro said.

"We bought the pork, signed the agreements - but they pursued the bank accounts of the boats," he added, without giving further details.

Another senior official said Washington, which has imposed sanctions on the Maduro government, had leant on Lisbon.

"The Portuguese government certainly has no power to sabotage pork (deliveries). We live in a market economy. Companies are in charge of exports," Portugal's Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva told Portuguese radio station TSF.

He added that he would seek information from the Portuguese embassy in Venezuela to clarify the situation.

There was no immediate response from the United States.

Maduro frequently blames the opposition, United States and other foreign powers for the country's economic and social crisis in which millions are suffering shortages of basic products, hyperinflation and a crumbling infrastructure.

The pork protests add to the scattered demonstrations and roadblocks around Venezuela during the Christmas holiday period over the shortages, power-cuts, high prices and fuel rationing. Twenty-eight people were arrested for looting in southern Bolivar state.

Critics blame the government's mishandling of the economy, plus rampant corruption and inefficiency, during nearly two decades of leftist rule in the nation of 30 million people.

"With or without sabotage, no one will take away the happiness of Christmas from the people," Maduro said late on Wednesday.

Critics were scathing. "They'll probably blame Christopher Columbus for hyper-inflation," scoffed one exiled opposition leader Antonio Ledezma.

[Iormlund]

It's getting really bad now. My in-laws are upper-class, but the food shortages have finally caught up even with them.

[Savonarola]

Glorious leader Maduro of the Venezuelans invites you to gaze upon the wonders of cryptocurrency.  Absolutely no scribes or yesterday's fascists will be allowed.

[Valmy]

And, once more, extreme leftist nutjobs and extreme rightist nutjobs meet at the fringes.

[Berkut]

I wonder where the crazy left ever got the idea that they could just blame every fucked up situation on the US?

Which is hopefully something doesn't happen as that likely leads to a situation where militarily powerful nations in the world start carving it up. Decentralized Europe doesn't stand a hope.

Yeah, while there were issues with the Pax Americana based on the post-WWII consensus and a commitment to Western democratic ideals as defined and promoted by the US, all told I was pretty comfortable with it.

The US led the free world based on compelling ideals, mutual benefit, and their position of strength.

If you lived in Central America, South America, Africa, or Asia, you might have a very different opinion of the merits of the Pax Americana and American "commitment" to Western Democratic ideals. 

Indeed. What a nightmare American peace has been for those areas of the world mentioned. If only they had been able to enjoy the peace, prosperity, and justice that was denied them by American interference.

Never change, Berky.

USA! USA! USA!

[Valmy]

I wonder where the crazy left ever got the idea that they could just blame every fucked up situation on the US?

Soviet propaganda.

Though they tend to put the blame more on an ethnicity these days.

[Savonarola]

From The Guardian:

Colombia and Brazil clamp down on borders as Venezuela crisis spurs exodus
Venezuela's neighbors plan to dispatch more security personnel while Brazil prepares to relocate thousands of refugees to country's interior

Colombia and Brazil are tightening their borders in response to Venezuela's economic crisis and food shortages that have provoked an exodus of desperate migrants.

Brazil announced on Thursday that it would send more troops to patrol frontier regions and start relocating thousands of Venezuelan refugees, who have overwhelmed social services in frontier areas, to towns and cities in Brazil's interior.

"This is a humanitarian drama. The Venezuelans are being expelled from their country by hunger and the lack of jobs and medicine," Brazil's defence minister, Raul Jungmann, told reporters during a visit to Boa Vista, which lies on Brazil's northern border with Venezuela. "We are here to bring help and to strengthen the border."

During a visit to Cúcuta, which lies on Colombia's eastern border with Venezuela, the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, announced measures to make it more difficult for Venezuelans to cross the frontier illegally or remain in the country as undocumented migrants. He also dispatched 3,000 more security personnel to border regions.

Over the last half of 2017, the number of Venezuelans moving to Colombia jumped by 62% to about 550,000, according to immigration officials. But due to illegal immigration, some officials estimate that more than 1 million have moved to Colombia since Venezuela's economic crisis took hold in 2015.

"Colombia has never before experienced a situation like this," Santos said during a visit to Cúcuta, a border city of 670,000 that is the main receiving center for Venezuelan migrants.

Santos laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela's increasingly authoritarian president, whose socialist policies have provoked food shortages, hyperinflation, and a collapse of the currency. Many Venezuelans now earn the equivalent of just a few British pounds a month and have trouble finding staples such as milk and pasta.

"I want to repeat to President Maduro: this is the result of your policies. It is not the fault of Colombians and it's the result of your refusal to receive humanitarian aid, which has been offered, not just from Colombia but from the international community," Santos said.

As they straggle into Cúcuta, tired and hungry Venezuelans often sell their possessions, including wedding rings and even their hair, in order to buy food. Some hole up in temporary shelters or on park benches and rely on soup kitchens set up by churches.

One of the newcomers, Jesús García, said he quit his job as an industrial mechanic with Venezuela's state oil company in December. Hyperinflation in Venezuela, which the International Monetary Fund forecasts will hit 13,000% this year, meant that he could no longer afford food for his wife and two kids.

García arrived in Cúcuta last month and is looking for work in Colombia's oil patch. Meanwhile, he busks in a Cúcuta park, playing a harp and singing folk songs alongside a a fellow Venezuelan, who strums guitar. Bystanders toss the equivalent of about £8 ($11) per day into an open guitar case – which is more than García earned as an oil worker back in Venezuela.

[KRonn]

What a mess Venezuela has become. And I think they had been a quite prosperous nation about a decade or more ago.

[Valmy]

What a mess Venezuela has become. And I think they had been a quite prosperous nation about a decade or more ago.

Two decades ago. This mess has been going on for awhile now.

[PDH]

When you are in a hole, dig your way out.

[Syt]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/americas/donald-trump-venezuela-military-coup.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Trump Administration Discussed Coup Plans With Rebel Venezuelan Officers

The Trump administration held secret meetings with rebellious military officers from Venezuela over the last year to discuss their plans to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, according to American officials and a former Venezuelan military commander who participated in the talks.

Establishing a clandestine channel with coup plotters in Venezuela was a big gamble for Washington, given its long history of covert intervention across Latin America. Many in the region still deeply resent the United States for backing previous rebellions, coups and plots in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil and Chile, and for turning a blind eye to the abuses military regimes committed during the Cold War.

The White House, which declined to answer detailed questions about the talks, said in a statement that it was important to engage in "dialogue with all Venezuelans who demonstrate a desire for democracy" in order to "bring positive change to a country that has suffered so much under Maduro."

But one of the Venezuelan military commanders involved in the secret talks was hardly an ideal figure to help restore democracy: He is on the American government's own sanctions list of corrupt officials in Venezuela.

He and other members of the Venezuelan security apparatus have been accused by Washington of a wide range of serious crimes, including torturing critics, jailing hundreds of political prisoners, wounding thousands of civilians, trafficking drugs and collaborating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.

American officials eventually decided not to help the plotters, and the coup plans stalled. But the Trump administration's willingness to meet several times with mutinous officers intent on toppling a president in the hemisphere could backfire politically.

Most Latin American leaders agree that Venezuela's president, Mr. Maduro, is an increasingly authoritarian ruler who has effectively ruined his country's economy, leading to extreme shortages of food and medicine. The collapse has set off an exodus of desperate Venezuelans who are spilling over borders, overwhelming their neighbors.

Even so, Mr. Maduro has long justified his grip on Venezuela by claiming that Washington imperialists are actively trying to depose him, and the secret talks could provide him with ammunition to chip away at the region's nearly united stance against him.

"This is going to land like a bomb" in the region, said Mari Carmen Aponte, who served as the top diplomat overseeing Latin American affairs in the final months of the Obama administration.
Beyond the coup plot, Mr. Maduro's government has already fended off several small-scale attacks, including salvos from a helicopter last year and exploding drones as he gave a speech in August. The attacks have added to the sense that the president is vulnerable.

Venezuelan military officials sought direct access to the American government during Barack Obama's presidency, only to be rebuffed, officials said.

Then in August of last year, President Trump declared that the United States had a "military option" for Venezuela — a declaration that drew condemnation from American allies in the region but encouraged rebellious Venezuelan military officers to reach out to Washington once again.

"It was the commander in chief saying this now," the former Venezuelan commander on the sanctions list said in an interview, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals by the Venezuelan government. "I'm not going to doubt it when this was the messenger."

In a series of covert meetings abroad, which began last fall and continued this year, the military officers told the American government that they represented a few hundred members of the armed forces who had soured on Mr. Maduro's authoritarianism.

The officers asked the United States to supply them with encrypted radios, citing the need to communicate securely, as they developed a plan to install a transitional government to run the country until elections could be held.

American officials did not provide material support, and the plans unraveled after a recent crackdown that led to the arrest of dozens of the plotters.

Relations between the United States and Venezuela have been strained for years. The two have not exchanged ambassadors since 2010. After Mr. Trump took office, his administration increased sanctions against top Venezuelan officials, including Mr. Maduro himself, his vice president and other top officials in the government.

The account of the clandestine meetings and the policy debates preceding them is drawn from interviews with 11 current and former American officials, as well as the former Venezuelan commander. He said at least three distinct groups within the Venezuelan military had been plotting against the Maduro government.

One established contact with the American government by approaching the United States Embassy in a European capital. When this was reported back to Washington, officials at the White House were intrigued but apprehensive. They worried that the meeting request could be a ploy to surreptitiously record an American official appearing to conspire against the Venezuelan government, officials said.

But as the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela worsened last year, American officials felt that having a clearer picture of the plans and the men who aspired to oust Mr. Maduro was worth the risk.

"After a lot of discussion, we agreed we should listen to what they had to say," said a senior administration official who was not authorized to speak about the secret talks.

The administration initially considered dispatching Juan Cruz, a veteran Central Intelligence Agency official who recently stepped down as the White House's top Latin America policymaker. But White House lawyers said it would be more prudent to send a career diplomat instead.

The American envoy was instructed to attend the meetings "purely on listening mode," and was not authorized to negotiate anything of substance on the spot, according to the senior administration official.

After the first meeting, which took place in the fall of 2017, the diplomat reported that the Venezuelans didn't appear to have a detailed plan and had showed up at the encounter hoping the Americans would offer guidance or ideas, officials said.

The former Venezuelan commander said that the rebellious officers never asked for an American military intervention. "I never agreed, nor did they propose, to do a joint operation," he said.

He claimed that he and his comrades considered striking last summer, when the government suspended the powers of the legislature and installed a new national assembly loyal to Mr. Maduro. But he said they aborted the plan, fearing it would lead to bloodshed.

They later planned to take power in March, the former officer said, but that plan leaked. Finally, the dissidents looked to the May 20 election, during which Mr. Maduro was re-elected, as a new target date. But again, word got out and the plotters held their fire.

It is unclear how many of these details the coup planners shared with the Americans. But there is no indication that Mr. Maduro knew the mutinous officers were talking to the Americans at all.

For any of the plots to have worked, the former commander said, he and his comrades believed they needed to detain Mr. Maduro and other top government figures simultaneously. To do that, he added, the rebel officers needed a way to communicate securely. They made their request during their second meeting with the American diplomat, which took place last year.

The American diplomat relayed the request to Washington, where senior officials turned it down, American officials said.

"We were frustrated," said the former Venezuelan commander. "There was a lack of follow-through. They left me waiting."

The American diplomat then met the coup plotters a third time early this year, but the discussions did not result in a promise of material aid or even a clear signal that Washington endorsed the rebels' plans, according to the Venezuelan commander and several American officials.

Still, the Venezuelan plotters could view the meetings as tacit approval of their plans, argued Peter Kornbluh, a historian at the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

"The United States always has an interest in gathering intelligence on potential changes of leadership in governments," Mr. Kornbluh said. "But the mere presence of a U.S. official at such a meeting would likely be perceived as encouragement."

In its statement, the White House called the situation in Venezuela "a threat to regional security and democracy" and said that the Trump administration would continue to strengthen a coalition of "like-minded, and right-minded, partners from Europe to Asia to the Americas to pressure the Maduro regime to restore democracy in Venezuela."

American officials have openly discussed the possibility that Venezuela's military could take action.

On Feb. 1, Rex W. Tillerson, who was secretary of state at the time, delivered a speech in which he said the United States had not "advocated for regime change or removal of President Maduro." Yet, responding to a question afterward, Mr. Tillerson raised the potential for a military coup.

"When things are so bad that the military leadership realizes that it just can't serve the citizens anymore, they will manage a peaceful transition," he said.

Days later, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has sought to shape the Trump administration's approach toward Latin America, wrote a series of Twitter posts that encouraged dissident members of the Venezuelan armed forces to topple their commander in chief.

"Soldiers eat out of garbage cans & their families go hungry in Venezuela while Maduro & friends live like kings & block humanitarian aid," Mr. Rubio wrote. He then added: "The world would support the Armed Forces in #Venezuela if they decide to protect the people & restore democracy by removing a dictator."

In a speech in April, when he was still White House policy chief for Latin America, Mr. Cruz issued a message to the Venezuelan military. Referring to Mr. Maduro as a "madman," Mr. Cruz said all Venezuelans should "urge the military to respect the oath they took to perform their functions. Honor your oath."

As the crisis in Venezuela worsened in recent years, American officials debated the pros and cons of opening lines of dialogue with rebellious factions of the military.

"There were differences of opinion," said Ms. Aponte, the former top Latin America diplomat under Mr. Obama. "There were people who had a lot of faith in the idea that they could bring about stability, help distribute food, work on practical stuff."

But others — including Ms. Aponte — saw considerable risk in building bridges with leaders of a military that, in Washington's assessment, has become a pillar of the cocaine trade and human rights abuses.

Roberta Jacobson, a former ambassador to Mexico who preceded Ms. Aponte as the top State Department official for Latin America policy, said that while Washington has long regarded the Venezuelan military as "widely corrupt, deeply involved in narcotics trafficking and very unsavory," she saw merit in establishing a back channel with some of them.

"Given the broader breakdown in institutions in Venezuela, there was a feeling that — while they were not necessarily the answer — any kind of democratic resolution would have had to have the military on board," said Ms. Jacobson, who retired from the State Department this year. "The idea of hearing from actors in those places, no matter how unsavory they may be, is integral to diplomacy."

But whatever the rationale, holding discussions with coup plotters could set off alarms in a region with a list of infamous interventions: the Central Intelligence Agency's failed Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro as leader of Cuba in 1961; the American-supported coup in Chile in 1973, which led to the long military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet; and the Reagan administration's covert support of right-wing rebels known as the contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

In Venezuela, a coup in 2002 briefly deposed Mr. Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chávez. The United States knew a plot was being hatched but warned against it, according to a classified document that was later made public. The coup took place anyway and the George W. Bush administration opened a channel to the new leader. Officials then backed away from the new government after popular anger rose against the coup and countries in the region loudly denounced it. Mr. Chávez was reinstated as president.

In the latest coup plot, the number of military figures connected to the plan dwindled from a high of about 300 to 400 last year to about half that after a crackdown this year by Mr. Maduro's government.

The former Venezuelan military officer worries that the 150 or so comrades who have been detained are probably being tortured. He lamented that the United States did not supply the mutineers with radios, which he believes could have changed the country's history.

"I'm disappointed," he said. "But I'm the least affected. I'm not a prisoner."