What Happened Last Week In Venezuela? ⛓ Rocío San Miguel Was Detained
Rocío San Miguel and her family were detained, the Iranian-Venezuelan plane was finally sent to the U.S. and P&G closes its last production line in Venezuela.
We are back from carnival!
Chavismo's new prisoner
Rocío San Miguel –an activist and military affairs specialist who directs the military watchdog Control Ciudadano– was arrested at Maiquetía airport when she was leaving the country. Attorney General Tarek W. Saab confirmed the arrest, accusing San Miguel of being part of the “White Bracelet” operation – an alleged assassination plan against Nicolás Maduro from sectors of the Armed Forces. The Prosecutor's Office charged San Miguel with charges of terrorism, conspiracy, treason, and association in a hearing without her lawyers. Human rights groups denounced San Miguel's arrest as a “forced disappearance” because her whereabouts were unknown for days. Her lawyers also denounced the forced disappearance of five relatives from San Miguel: her daughter, her daughter's father, her two brothers and another relative. Subsequently, San Miguel was sent to the Helicoide prison, but four of her relatives were released on parole.
The Minister of Communication took advantage of San Miguel's arrest to accuse Provea and Amnesty International of being NGOs of the U.S. State Department. The arrest of San Miguel occurs on new wave of repression against organized civil society. Days before, members of the Vente Venezuela party were attacked by pro-government groups in Charallave during an activity with opposition candidate María Corina Machado. A human rights lawyer was also threatened by a man outside the Palace of Justice. Carlos Salazar, a PDVSA retiree, was also arrested in Nueva Esparta for allegedly recording Alex Saab –a Colombian businessman close to the government, recently released by the United States– in a store.
The saga of the Iranian-Venezuelan plane ends
The plane of the Venezuelan state airline Emtrasur held by the Argentine authorities since 2022, and originally owned by Iranian Mahan Air, finally left for the United States. It landed on the Dade-Collier airfield, which was closed for “military purposes.”
Paper elections
Pre-candidates and politicians from the “loyal oppositions” – such as Antonio Ecarri, José Brito, Javier Bertucci , Luis Eduardo Martínez, Gustavo Duque, Luis Ratti , Gloria Pinho , Claudio Fermín, Timoteo Zambrano, Daniel Ceballos and Leocenis García– went to the National Assembly to define together with Chavismo the electoral calendar. Business representatives such as Alberto Vollmer, from Ron Santa Teresa, and the president of Fedecámaras Adán Celis also attended. The Unitary Platform, and its candidate María Corina Machado, denounced the meeting as a violation of the Barbados Agreements. The candidates and politicians present in the meeting proposed dates for the presidential eletions ranging from April to November. A rector of the National Electoral Council (CNE), an institution that had said that the opposition primaries should be postponed for two months if their technical assistance was required, said that they could organize the presidential elections in 35 days.
Meanwhile, Machado dismissed the idea of a “substitute” candidate and said that the governor of Barinas –a substitute candidate who said the opposition should not wait for Machado– is close to the government. The candidate participated, through a video call, in a round table with Republican and Democratic congressmen from the United States. There she said that Venezuela is the fourth global producer of cocaine, a debatable statement.
Colombia and the United States also "reaffirmed [in a meeting] the importance of implementing all elements of the Barbados Agreement and of working together with all parties to comply with the agreed electoral roadmap," according to a joint statement.
Brazil, through a statement from the special advisor to President Lula da Silva, said that it "continues to support the implementation of the Barbados agreements." However, neither of the two statements mentioned the disqualification of María Corina Machado and other opponents of maduro. Uruguay, on the other hand, called its ambassador in Venezuela for consultations in the face of “worrying events” that threaten free elections.
Chavismo, as it did in the 2018 presidential elections that followed the collapse of the negotiations in the Dominican Republic, is once again promoting a co-opted and harmless “opposition” to the detriment of the Unitary Platform.
The oil industry at stake
Venezuelan oil production in January 2024 was 22% higher than in January 2023. According to Argus, it rose to 840 thousand barrels per day.
However, local firms and executives fear that the government is not taking a sanctions reimposition seriously: it would knock down production by 30% in just months. Pedro Tellechea, the Oil Minister, has been talking about PDVSA alliances with Chevron, China and even Curaçao: many of which would be affected by the return of sanctions on April 18. Without the sanctions, the country's income would grow by between $6 and 8 billion. With their return, the income would be only between $2 and $3 billion.
Sanctions could also worsen the fuel crisis: in January, Venezuela imported 84,000 bpd of refined oil – including gasoline and diesel: the largest amount since October 2020. The gasoline, which alleviated the shortage, is being supplied by Western oil companies such as Repsol, Maurel & Prom and Chevron.
The crisis in the education sector
The Network of School Observers of the Civil Association Con La Escuela monitored 79 schools in six states of Venezuela: it found 30.37% of the schools need to suspend activities due to failures in the water service. 54.43% do not have electrical service or it is in poor condition. 55.70% of schools do not have a library or it is in poor condition. The internet is not a replacement: 50.63% of the schools do not have an internet connection (another 22.78% report it as a service in poor condition) 56.96% of the teachers surveyed report not having teaching material, or have it, but in poor condition. The monthly income of teachers ranges between $7.49 and $17.
Also, between 2017 and 2024, Venezuela went from having 5,100 private schools to only 3,900, according to estimates by the National Association of Private Educational Institutes. The number of students in private schools went from 3.2M to 1.4M due to crisis and migration.
Postcards from the crisis
A group of armed groups, part of the paramilitary branch of Chavismo, blocked the Petare highway to demand that municipal police department Polisucre (also controlled by Chavismo) release 20 detained members.
The Pan American Health Organization delivered 63 tons of antiretroviral and anti-tuberculosis medications to the Venezuelan Ministry of Health: around 60,000 people with HIV and 10,000 with tuberculosis will be able to continue their treatments.
The Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict counted 6,956 protests in 2023: 1% less than in 2022 (7,032). That is, an average of 19 protests a day. 80% of the protests were for economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights.
New crisis with Guyana?
The United States is increasing its “urgent military aid” to Guyana, helping it purchase new aircraft, helicopters, military drones and, for the first time, radar technology to “enhance defense capabilities.”
ExxonMobil Guyana Chairman Alistair Routledge said Guyana's "collaboration" with other countries "on the military and diplomatic front" is "a healthy thing" for the Western Hemisphere in the face of tensions with Venezuela.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez rejected Routledge's comments and said ExxonMobil “governs the high authorities” of Guyana. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said the Southern Command is the “private security company” of Exxon, which has “a small branch” in the Guyana government. He said that “they will receive a proportional, forceful and lawful response” in the disputed maritime space.
Although Venezuela has focused on ExxonMobil, it shares the Stabroek block in disputed waters with China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), which owns 25% of it. Recently, CNOOC's president said that Stabroek was its “highest quality foreign asset” and that its development is “in a location without any disputes.”
A satellite analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) also showed the construction of a military station in Anacoco and the positioning of Peykaap missile boats in Güiria. From Puerto Barima, they could fire at targets in the Esequibo and its waters in less than an hour. General Domingo Hernández Lárez accused CNN, which replicated CSIS images, of “cognitive warfare” to create “false realities.”
The new economy
Procter & Gamble closed its last production line in Venezuela in Barquisimeto. “The economic reality in Venezuela encourages imports and makes it difficult to produce,” said economist Asdrúbal Oliveros, “Venezuela points to a small economy, where trade and services abound and imports grow. If the model does not change, we will continue there.”
Meanwhile, Cashea –an application that allows you to pay for products and services by installments in Venezuela– is today the most downloaded application in the country: it has 2 million users, 1,050 affiliated businesses (a growth of 425% since June) and processed 440,000 operations in December. It hopes to expand to five more cities in the first half of 2024.
Recommendations
“Every time there is a more or less important show, like Luis Miguel's, it is the same story on social media: among the complaints and positive comments from the public, the propagandists of bitterness sneak in,” writes Oscar Medina in a brilliant article, “The most curious thing is that at that same point supposed Chavistas and supposed opositores converge. The former aspire to support the idea that if there are 40 thousand people singing ‘Hasta que me olvides’ it is because here there are freedoms and money in everyone's pockets (...) The latter, almost drowning in rage, are even happy that Maigualida was not greeted by Luismi, that they had to spend four hours to enter and 400 to leave, that he didn’t sing the ranchera “Sin sangre en las venas”, because here in this country with a minimum wage of 3 dollars, with political prisoners, with forced disappearances and with so much poverty, there is no right to enjoy –or suffer– a show like that, or like any other: those of us who are here, little brother, can only suffer.”
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