Caracas Chronicles

• Wednesday was a historical day for Venezuelans: the ICC decided to advance and open the investigation phase for crimes against humanity perpetrated by Maduro’s regime. Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan notified Maduro while they were at the meeting in Miraflores Palace. “My office will always work under the Rome Statute. I’m fully aware of the failures that exist in Venezuela and the political divisions. We aren’t political. We are guided by the principles of the law and the rule of law and I’ll ask all of you, now we’re advancing into this new phase, to provide my office with the necessary space to do its job,” he said after they signed a memo of agreement with the regime. This point is important because the ICC must request cooperation from the country that’s being investigated. Nobody expected this outcome and the looks on the audience’s faces in Miraflores made it evident. Maduro assured that “Venezuela guarantees justice with institutions that are willing to improve.” After they signed the agreement, Maduro ratified that there are different points of view on the matter of the preliminary examination and said that the State was “blind” during the preliminary phase, because they didn’t have access to the files, which was done to protect victims. He said he respected the decision to advance into a new phase and invited Khan and his team to come back to the country during the investigation. The investigation has started because the ICC Office of the Prosecutor knows that crimes against humanity have been committed since 2017, at least, and the ICC thinks that there’s been no justice. It’s the first ICC investigation in Latin America. 

Read more about Karim Khan visit to Venezuela: What to Expect From the Visit of the ICC Chief Prosecutor

• Mexicanos contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad (MCCI) revealed there’s a network of irregular companies that send food from Mexico to Venezuela and their ties with the Maduro regime: eight companies have taken advantage of a network of 13 importers created in Hong Kong, Panama and Uruguay to send food to Venezuela for 64 million dollars. The report says that the network stopped operating when “the U.S. intervened to stop the money laundering scheme where Mexican businessmen were in business with Alex Saab.” The network replaced the one owned by Saab and Samark López Bello, who is accused of drug trafficking in the U.S. The new network used importers accused of “being the middlemen” for Maduro and Delcy Rodríguez, assured the MCCI.
• COVAX hopes to send 2.5 million doses of Sinopharm to Venezuela, announced PAHO. 
• The president of the Venezuelan Association of Exporters, Ramón Goyo, reported a 30% increase in exports compared to 2020. He estimates that exports could reach 1,800 million dollars by the end of the year. 
• The basic food basket cost 400 dollars in October, according to Cendas-FVM. 

Economist Asdrúbal Oliveros assured that the inflation rate could be 1000% by the end of the year, one-third of what it was last year. 

• Over 800 families in the southern Maracaibo Lake region are affected by the floods of Chama River. 
• Miguel Rodríguez, governor of Amazonas, and the mayor of Atures (Colombia) officially opened the border. 
• “We are still supporting, alongside our European allies, the democratic Venezuelan forces in their efforts to have free and fair elections, without which we’ll never reach the end of the crisis,” said French President Emmanuel Macron to his Colombian counterpart Iván Duque.
• Spain appointed Ramón Santos Martínez as the new charge d’affaires for Venezuela. 
• The National Electoral Council annulled four candidacies from the Partido Comunista de Venezuela (PCV) and Alternativa Popular Revolucionaria (APR), barring Guillermo Bernaez, José Noguera, Carmen Saravia and Wilfredo Rivero, after a late measure imposed by the Comptrollership’s Office during the campaign.