Briefing

Destabilizing Actions

ANC-appointed Prosecutor General offered his balance of the year. AN will monitor public services closer and link solutions with their Plan País. 96% of Venezuelan companies shut down or decreased their production in the first quarter of 2019, according to Conindustria.

Naky Soto
Photo: Efecto Cocuyo

Tarek William Saab, the prosecutor general appointed by the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), offered a balance of the Prosecutor’s Office’s actions during 2019 and did it with absolute politicization, mentioning “destabilizing actions and attempted coups that have set the judicial agenda.” Amazingly, he said that the Prosecutor’s Office has processed 135,556 cases, that they’ve witnessed over 1,500 autopsies and have investigated 3,600 cases of drug trafficking, like he didn’t have a care in the world. But he also said that they’ve acted against human rights violations. He launched an extended explanation on the investigations about the “attempted presidential assassination” (August 2018) which has resulted in the indictment of 38 people (31 in prison and seven with substitutive measures) and added that the this case’s preliminary hearings have developed over nine sessions. He hopes that Colombia and the United States will hand over the people they’re prosecuting in their countries. 34 are being investigated and 17 have been arrested and indicted for the attempted coup on April 30th.

In the National Assembly

The agreement of the National Assembly’s Public Services Monitor was unanimously approved this Tuesday, to record the supply of electricity, water, gas and gasoline and incorporate proposals in these Plan País areas: “The monitor will be made up of NGOs, universities and deputies,” said Nora Bracho. The deputies approved the appointment of Isaac Salama as Venezuelan representative for the Netherlands to replace Gloria Notario, who had been appointed in February, without explaining the reasons for the change. They also approved the appointment of Julián Cárdenas García as member of PDVSA’s Ad-Hoc Administrative Board.

Lots of propaganda

“The opposition wants to carry out a coup in Venezuela and they won’t return whatever they do, we’ll have a revolution for years,” said Nicolás while he… celebrated?… the second anniversary of Movimiento Somos Venezuela (MSV, allegedly created to guarantee social protection for the population) and approved resources that he won’t report or compare to results. Thus, the National Missions Fund will be fully managed by the movement, which will now regulate missions and create social volunteering cards. Nicolás signed a decree to incorporate 25,000 people as pensioners, claiming that he reached 100% of pensions. If he said that, we shouldn’t be surprised that he added, despite our serious maternal mortality rates: “We can’t have a single pregnant woman in the country without assistance, without love, without her pension,” asking to prioritize the Humanized Childbirth Plan and the Maternal Breastfeeding Plan. I’d swear he enjoys these excesses of cynicism.

The borders of our migrants

Yesterday, the Chilean government expelled 35 Colombian citizens and seven Venezuelans who have committed crimes in that country. After the plane lands in Caracas, they’ll transport 120 Chilean citizens who decided to return to their country due to the complex humanitarian emergency. In Falcon State, there were protests to denounce the disappearance of a boat carrying 32 people that sailed past Saturday to Curaçao. The regional government’s indifference inspired the protest, because four days later, there’s no operation to reveal their whereabouts. This would be the third capsized boat in less than two months, with Venezuelans who choose this option to flee the country.

Cucuta Metropolitan Police destroyed the paths opened in illegal crossings beside the Simón Bolívar International Bridge. Atop the bridge, Venezuelans keep crossing en masse. Caretaker President Juan Guaidó criticized Nicolás’s new border measures: “The regime has no capacity to issue passports, because there are delays, because of bribes, there’s an exacerbated bureaucracy, they lack resources. How can they issue a border pass?” and he questioned the results of this instrument.

The non-country

  • Ten tons of avocado and mango were exported to Spain and since they’re part of the “Exporter Miranda Plan,” the governor of Miranda Héctor Rodríguez held an event at Maiquetía customs, isn’t he cute?
  • The ANC will open an investigation about alleged irregularities in the execution of works during the administration of Anzoategui governor Antonio Barreto Sira, member of Acción Democrática. The Comptrollership Committee of Anzoategui’s Legislative Council accuses him of embezzlement, works that were never built and of concealing information.
  • Bus drivers covering the route Vargas-La Hoyada-Coche kept their buses parked in protest for the “extortion from the National Police ” and in support of the Cementerio-Carmelita bus line. They’re charging Bs. 500 for the fare and some routes are charging Bs. 1,000, but the PNB lowers that amount to Bs. 300, arresting them and seizing their car plates. They threatened to extend the strike to routes covering the Cota 905.

The thing about production

96% of Venezuelan companies either shut down or decreased their production in the first quarter of 2019, due to blackouts, gasoline shortages and credit restrictions, according to a survey presented by Juan Pablo Olalquiaga, head of Conindustria. 14% completely stopped working, joining the four fifths of the companies that have shut down since chavismo rose to power. Active companies are operating at 18% of their installed capacity and 84% had to lay off workers. While Amsterdam announced that they’ll ban the circulation of combustion vehicles starting 2040, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said that Venezuela’s production keeps dropping and that, compared with 21 cases in history where oil production dropped by 20% or more during at least three years, Venezuela’s collapse is much worse, standing out as “one of the deepest in history,” adding that “the lack of investment and human capital will erode extraction capacity further. Sharply lower production will lead to further import compression.”

Movements on the board

  • Without offering details, Donald Trump said yesterday that he’s seriously evaluating the Act being discussed in Congress to grant TPS (Temporary Protection Status) to Venezuelans in the United States.

  • Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza summed up in a tweet a doctorate in “How to name the rope in the hangman’s house?” because in order to reject the statements of the presidents of Argentina and Colombia, he wrote that America demands “the end of drug production and trafficking, human rights violations, the end of war, paramilitarism, fake news and narco-politics (…) And the Argentine people demand the end of Macri’s infamous and failed wild neoliberal package.”

  • Aristóbulo Istúriz traveled to Nigeria to attend the inauguration of Muhammadu Buhari, who started his second term. I wish the money of his official trips was used to pay teachers and professors.
  • Arreaza kept betting on Twitter and from there he criticized the statements of U.S. Security Advisor John Bolton about Venezuela, saying that he ignores our reality and is living in the Cold War. But he said something much more serious, claiming that Bolton “is looking for terrorists and paramilitaries on the wrong side of the border with Colombia.”

…

“Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I feel like writing,” Anna Frank, she would’ve turned 90 years old yesterday.

Naky Soto

Naky gets called Naibet at home and at the bank. She coordinates training programs for an NGO. She collects moments and turns them into words. She has more stories than freckles.

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