Caracas Chronicles

• On Wednesday, an ICC document was declassified and it indicated inaction by the Venezuelan State in processing and sanctioning potential crimes against humanity committed in the country, so The Hague’s complementarity is justified and there could be an investigation on the situation. 
  • The ICC prosecutor hasn’t made statements at the start of the process, but the case is passing every step for the preliminary exam. 
  • Prosecutor General Tarek William Saab rejected the accusations and said he was offended because the ICC didn’t take into consideration the documents he provided and that the conclusions of said document “lack any true value.” 

Maduro said during his variety show on VTV that “Venezuela has reactivated 16 engines, and we’re finding the way to true economic growth.” Maduro retook the same messages that he’s been using since 2013 and claimed that the third currency denomination is proof of economic stability. He thinks it’s time “for credit in dollars and Petros to help increase production”.

• A new negotiation process between Maduro’s regime and the opposition will begin on Friday. Political scientist Enderson Sequera said that “Norway has made an important effort to prevent this process from being aborted.” Maduro said his son will be in chavismo’s delegation and said that they’d be negotiating with “the pitiyanqui opposition, slaves of the U.S. government.” 

Read more about the history of negotiations between the Venezuelan government and the opposition: Time After Time: 20 Years of Negotiations in Venezuela

• The U.S. government reiterated its disposition to revise its sanctions policy if there are significant advances in the process. COPEI president Roberto Enríquez, who was at the Chilean Embassy in Venezuela, traveled to Mexico. Chavismo said that they want sanctions relief and the opposition wants a clear path to free and fair elections. Sequera considers the elections would be in 2024. 
• Maduro said that students should go back to classrooms and said that the vaccination process advances at a good pace, but there’s no way to prove that. He said the delta variant was found in Valles del Tuy and La Guaira. 
• Even though he didn’t explain where he got the data, Maracaibo mayor said that “25% of the population has been vaccinated.” 
• During the third “Las víctimas le hablan al fiscal de la CPI Karim Khan” forum, family members of victims of human rights violations demanded justice, assuring they can’t get it in the country. The testimonies of Beatriz Marino, Hugo Marino’s mother; Franklin Caldera, the father of a lieutenant who was kidnapped in Colombia and brought to DGCIM, and Ghina Rodríguez, Guillermo Sánchez’s wife, were horrible. 

Human rights activists and organizations protested in Caracas to denounced the murder of at least eight people of the LGBTQAI+ community in 2021. 

• Ciudadanía en Acción presented its balance and emphasized that the CLAP program keeps losing reach and doesn’t even benefit 30% of the 6 million families registered to obtain it. 

Read more about the dependence between political rights and food insecurity in Venezuela: Freedom of Choice Starts at the Stomach

• Américo De Grazia presented his candidacy for Bolívar governor with Ecológico party. 
• The prêt-à-porter opposition coalition announced they’ll nominate Laidy Gómez for reelection as Táchira governor.

• Mayor David Uzcátegui holds surveys once a week to prove he’s scoring higher than Carlos Ocariz, but who’s paying for that? 
• The Nuvipa party reported that they’re not backing Antonio Ecarri anymore, but  Leocenis García, two of the many candidates to the Libertador municipality. 
• Lucas Gómez, Colombian border manager, assured that deporting Venezuelans who commit crimes isn’t the solution and said that criminals should be taken to court in Colombia. 
• Yekuana people denounced before the Ombudsman Office that at least 400 illegal miners from Brazil have taken their territory and operate at least 30 machines to extract minerals. Gumersindo Castro said that Venezuelan Indigenous tribes are being subjected to slavery. 

Read more about how the guerrillas are behind the conflict between indigenous people that need to work for the miners, and those who want to defend their ancestral land: Mining is Igniting an Indigenous Conflict in the Venezuelan Amazon

• Colombian President Iván Duque celebrated the ICC document and Maduro’s foreign minister Jorge Arreaza accused Duque of committing “the worst crimes against humanity in the history of Latin America.” 
• U.S. Ambassador James Story demanded the release of deputy Freddy Guevara. 
• Russia made a statement on the case of Alex Saab and said that his situation was “atrocious” and that his extradition would have a boomerang effect.