Caracas Chronicles

• On Wednesday, while a large-scale gunfight took place by the Cota 905, Maduro helmed an act to celebrate promotions in the Armed Forces. 
  • Gangs decided to expand their turf and fired from El Cementerio, El Helicoide (SEBIN headquarters), and Madariaga square in El Paraíso, collapsing several areas simultaneously. 
  • Maduro gave an ideological speech and violated the Constitution again when he talked to the cadets as if they were UBCH members in a campaign. He also renovated his High Command, renewed high-ranking officers of the Army, Navy GNG and CEOFANB, to which he appointed General Domingo Hernández Lárez), but ratified his Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López.

• Police officers weren’t able to defeat the criminal gang that runs the Cota 905, and turned three neighborhoods into war zones, reminding caraqueños they’re helpless before an absent State. 
  • Two deaths have been reported so far: a woman in the street and a man were killed while criminals were stealing his car. 

• “There are no guarantees for a free election in Venezuela, we’re still fighting for conditions,” said Juan Guaidó on Wednesday. He expects the EU technical mission will gather all the necessary information to reflect that there’s still a long way to go: “This evaluation by the EU must reflect technical and also political conditions: candidates, parties, ballots if there’s a schedule with guarantees, we hope this will build towards that.” 
  • Despite time’s ticking for the regional elections, Guaidó is insisting that the decision to participate or not will be made in unity. He said that elections without guarantees are worth nothing. 

• The number of deaths from the pandemic just surpassed the 4 million mark, said WHO director Tedros Adhanom. 
• The Civil Forum and the National Academy of Medicine demanded the technical vaccination roundtable be reactivated to agree on a vaccination plan. They demanded the Health Ministry publish a vaccination plan and make it official with a resolution and a massive campaign for the public. 
  • The president of the National Academy of Medicine Enrique López-Loyo exhorted the State to accept the help of scholars and scientific societies and reinterested their only interest in a successful vaccination plan and recommended they accept the proposal of the private sector to vaccinate workers and their families. 

• Provea presented their annual human rights report and highlighted that in December 2020, with the “elections” of Maduro’s Assembly, “the last bastion of independence of powers in Venezuela was demolished.” 
  • Rafael Uzcátegui said that the “dictatorial arch” implemented by Maduro and his team “was completed  with the slow extinction of democratic freedoms.” Chavismo found in the pandemic an excuse to increase control mechanisms on society. 

• Lupa por la Vida counted 2,853 extrajudicial executions in 2020. Most of the victims were young men from popular sectors between 18 to 30 years old. 
• The World Food Program started handing out food for children younger than six years old in Coro, Falcón state.
• Workers of Caracas hospitals protested outside the Health Ministry demanding that minister Carlos Alvarado paid their benefits in full. 
• The president of the Venezuelan Teachers’ Union Edgar Machado said that eight out of ten students wouldn’t be able to obtain a passing grade on the contents they learned remotely, which means they aren’t prepared to move to the next grade. 
• Alex Saab’s defense presented on Wednesday a document to a U.S. appeals court where they emphasized Saab’s diplomatic status. 
• The Russian Defense Minister, General Serguéi Shoigu, said that Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, require “now more than ever” the support of Moscow to face “threats”. 

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The U.S. demanded the regime to lift the bans on all opposition politicians, said a spokesperson of the Biden administration to AFP. Washington views the November election as an opportunity for the CNE to guarantee a credible election, up to international standards, and that includes the release of all political prisoners, independence of all political parties, freedom of speech and members of the press and the end of human rights abuses.