Caracas Chronicles

The blackout turned off the last cells operating at Venalum and Alcasa, and with them, an entire aluminium factory. The sad new chapter on the rise and fall of an industry that gave Venezuela valuable non-oil exports tells a cautionary tale: if you build an entire cluster on electric power, don’t let that resource disappear.

The damage from the huge blackout that just attacked Venezuelans is such, that even now, a week later, we can’t quite grasp it in full. This is what we do know: it’s a lot, and we’re falling short.

These are the stories of the people hit hardest by looting in Venezuela’s second city: small business owners who have no chance of surviving an event like that, helpless against the anarchy unleashed in Zulia due to the national blackout.

After more than 80 hours without power, groups of people at the normally dangerous Venezuelan capital city began to protest and some incidents of looting took place. Security forces managed to avoid the violence from spiraling, and just then the power came back.

Nearly 30 hours after his enforced disappearance, journalist and human rights activist Luis Carlos Díaz was released from SEBIN headquarters in El Helicoide with precautionary measures. A safety net of people was all that stood between him and a prison cell.

At Caracas hospitals, every one of the innumerable problems is getting worse, while colectivos and security forces threaten everyone who is trying to help or even get some answers about the extent of the crisis.

Six days after the beginning of the largest blackout ever experienced in Venezuela, it’s time to take a look at the health disaster unfolding in front of us, because the Maduro regime won’t do it.

Although he didn’t prepare for this exactly, he knew something could come up that would require him to hole up and resist. Our own Victor Drax is a prepper and this is how he faced the massive blackout that attacked Venezuelans.

Venezuela’s second city spent the first 50 hours of blackout trying to survive under the intense heat. But once food and water began to run out, the looting started. All kinds of businesses are being destroyed by a mob made of desperate people and common thugs.

After the humanitarian aid debacle at the border on February 23rd, and amid the ongoing national blackout, pressure has been building on caretaker President Juan Guaidó to come up with a definitive solution to the crisis in the form of military intervention, undermining critical unity.

Once a pleasant, clear-water creek, in our times the Guaire is no more than Caracas’ open air sewer. Amid power cuts that took down the water pumping stations that feed Caracas, the people from the slums of San Agustin had to climb down to its embankment to collect water of unknown origin and very dubious safety.

As Nicolás Maduro forced all TV and radio stations to broadcast his accusation that the U.S. caused the collapse of Venezuela’s power grid, the secret police was arresting Luis Carlos Diaz, the journalist and occasional Caracas Chronicles contributor, that state media is framing for “sabotage”.

While caretaker President Juan Guaidó decrees the emergency and installs a situational room, the Maduro regime stays silent about the precise diagnose and forecast of the crisis, besides the propaganda trope of sabotage. This is what we can assess on the fifth day of the nationwide blackout.

Following the old Roman custom of bread and circus, the Maduro regime has been menacing the country’s baseball and soccer football teams to support the illusion of normality. But as we just saw in a protest in Maracaibo, the players are refusing to follow orders and are standing with the common people.

One night without electricity in one of the most dangerous cities in the world is stressful. Two, three, four nights in a row, amidst a nationwide blackout, is absolutely terrifying. Priorities, customs, expectations are subjected to all kinds of changes. But one old British novel on a screen can provide shelter.

This is Caracas before Night 4 of the blackout: a ghost town where behavior is increasingly similar to those of apocalyptic novels and movies. Ordinary citizens feel completely abandoned by the State and have no clue of what to expect. The US dollar takes over the survival economy, cash only.

On the afternoon of March 7th, the power went off in all states. In many parts of the country, there has not been a minute of electricity since then to the noon of March 10th. Here is what we know of what could happen in a country that used to export electricity and still has the largest oil reserves on Earth.

As with most things in life, men and women experience the process of migration differently. They also face different challenges. While the reasons for migrating are “gender neutral,” women experience additional vulnerabilities that migrant men do not.

Imagine you were forced to live far from most of your family and friends. Imagine now that they live in one of the most dangerous countries on Earth. And now picture this: you can’t contact them because there’s no power in the whole country, for almost 24 hours.

Venezuela has been under a nationwide power outage for over 15 hours. There's little information coming out of the country right now.

Freelance reporter Cody Weddle, who covered Venezuela for several media outlets, spent half a day under arrest by Military Intelligence and was then deported out of the country. Ten foreign correspondents have been expelled from Venezuela during 2019, and 36 journalists have been arrested doing their job.

On Friday, February 22nd, when the Venezuelan Armed Forces sent a convoy toward the Brazilian border to block the entry of humanitarian aid, indigenous people in the village of Kumarakapay tried to stop them. In response, the Armed Forces opened fire, killing seven. Caracas Chronicles spoke to a UK-based Venezuelan sociologist who has worked in the community for decades.

Three Venezuelan scholars abroad, all of them specialists on the mechanics of Latin American authoritarian political systems, offer their different perspectives on the complexities, risks, and possibilities of the dictatorship’s disintegration.

After Venezuela and Colombia closed the border, hundreds were left stranded on either side and their only way to work, get medicine or return home was crossing illegally through paths controlled by armed gangs. This, the last of the Cucuta Chronicles, is what crossing that treacherous path is really like.