Caracas Chronicles

“País mío, quisiera llevarte una flor sorprendente” 

Rafael Cadenas

Spanish culture minister Miquel Iceta announced on Thursday that Venezuelan poet Rafael Cadenas has won the Premio Cervantes, the most prestigious Spanish language arts award. 

“His body of work is one of the most important and proves the transformative power of the written word when it’s elevated and taken to the limit of its creative possibility,” said Iceta. Cadenas was born in Barquisimeto in 1930 and is a fundamental author of Hispanic poetry, he’s received multiple awards for his work. Venezuelan social media has been honoring him all day. Cadenas said that he feels honored and thankful since he received the call letting him know he had won. The ceremony will take place on April 23rd, 2023, the day we commemorate the death of Miguel de Cervantes. 

• UCAB’s Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (IIES) presented the new Encuesta de Condiciones de Vida (Encovi), measuring Venezuelans’ conditions. It shows that poverty in Venezuela has decreased for the first time in seven years, but inequality has increased. Half the population lives in multidimensional poverty (covering income, level of education, housing, services and employment) and even though the figures are better than those from Encovi 2021, the improvement is only tied to income, since determining factors like housing condition, access to utilities and education aren’t covered. Professor Luis Pedro España warned that, in 2023, “the economy can still be doing great, but not the families” and that Venezuela has become the most unequal country in the world, the difference between the lowest decile and the 70 times less, except that the average of that 10% is $553.2. España warned that Venezuela’s inequality rates are comparable to those in Namibia, Mozambique and Angola.
• The Armed Forces found another mass grave in an illegal mine in  Bolívar, the second one in three days, tweeted Commander Domingo Hernández Lárez. This is serious because these areas are allegedly protected by the State. 
• The IACHR announced that they’re monitoring the case of human rights activist Javier Tarazona, imprisoned in El Helicoide. They asked the State to investigate the torture and cruel treatment he could have endured. 

One and a half million children and teenagers are not part of the school system, according to Encovi: the rate dropped two points between 2021 and 2021, to 7,051,074 students. 

• Rain:
  • Over 20 homes collapsed on the Caracas – La Guaira highway because of the heavy rains.
  • The regime said they’d evacuated people in risk areas.
  • The mayor of Arzobispo Chacón municipality in Mérida, Omar Fernández, declared a state of high alert after the rains.
  • Chevron donated $50,000 to Cáritas to help Venezuelans who have lost their homes, including the people of  Las Tejerías.
• Juan Pablo Guanipa launched his campaign to run in the primaries and then against Maduro in 2024 and “start a process of national transformation.” 

The price of the dollar keeps climbing: the black market dollar closed at 10.42 bolivars and the BCV dollar increased to 8.9308 bolivars.

• Citgo reported earnings of 477 million dollars in the third quarter. 
• Primero Justicia’s Fracción de Economistas denounced the scam orchestrated by Nicolás’s regime when they presented before his National Assembly a “simulation” of what should be the 2023 budget law. They say that, on October 14th, Ricardo Menéndez presented “blank pages lacking content (…) where there isn’t one single figue.” 
•  French president Emmanuel Macron asked the government and the opposition to restart the dialogue as soon as possible. “We’re seeing a favorable dynamic that must be seized and on that foundation, we’ll see how we can move our position,” said Macron.
• Macron met with President Alberto Fernández, who’s now pretending to be a great mediator despite his complicity with the Venezuelan regime. He also met with President Gustavo Petro.