Economic, psychological, and political wars explained yesterday by Maduro

No real new economic measures were announced yesterday by President Maduro, and it is unlikely any real measures will be taken by the government before the December 8 municipal elections.

Instead Maduro devoted his national cadena yesterday to lecture on his conspiracy interpretation the economic crisis: Venezuela is in the process of transition to socialism and if this transition is not working perfectly it is because it is being attacked by wreakers and saboteurs. The economic problems Venezuela is facing are not imputable to the government, but according to Maduro to “external factors that disturb the economy.”

In order to protect the Venezuelan People from “speculation by the parasitic bourgeoisie and the mechanisms they have created to loot the People,” Maduro will initiate an economic offensive which he characterized as “a great military civic operation that will extend all over the Fatherland, because we are going to reach the deepest levels of the productive, distributive, and commercial chains of the country.” He added that the government needed to more closely monitor the “system of price fixing that is being fed by disturbing and conspiratorial speculative mechanisms.” The fixed exchange rate for the Bolivar will also continue, but Maduro announced yet another bureaucratic agency, the National Center of Foreign Commerce, to better control the other agencies in charge of currency exchange controls (CADIVI, SICAD, BANCOEX).

Maduro also gave specific as to who are the agents that are sabotaging the transition to socialism. Roughly, the conspirators can be grouped according to the role they play in the total war that is being waged against the Fatherland:

The Economic War: Those responsible for this aspect of the war have been mentioned before by the government, they are the business owner's unions FEDECAMARAS and VENANCHAM: “they act under cover, (the strategy) is not to show their faces, (…) so that the people, and this is how they have planned it, will blame the government and the State, so they can produce breakdowns, chaos, and insurrections,” explained the President. As important economic saboteurs Maduro also mentioned web pages that report the price of the parallel dollar, which he claims are controlled from Miami and “make up” a fictitious exchange rate, and web pages devoted to product sales in Venezuela, which he claims are fueling speculation.

The Political War: Maduro referred to what he calls “the trilogy of evil”, opposition leaders Maria Corina Machado, Leopoldo López, and Herique Capriles Radonski, as the main agents the war aimed at “generating crisis situation in the streets.” They are under the direct orders of the United States government, but receive their instructions via Colombia from ex-president Uribe Velez.

The Psychologic War: Basically the private media (both local and international) is behind this aspect of the war. Maduro specifically mentioned three local newspapers: 2001, El Nuevo País, and El Universal, and accused them of reporting false scarcity levels and shortages of goods.

As evidence of this wide ranging grand conspiracy against the Venezuelan transition to socialism, Maduro quoted from a document reportedly uncovered by pro-government analyst Eva Golinger (author of “The Chávez Code”) called the “The Venezuelan Strategic Plan”. The plan is said to have been signed by representatives of several groups linked to Álvaro Uribe Velez and to US agencies, such as USAID. Maduro read from the plan the following supposed tasks the conspirators had to accomplish in a period of 185 days:

To Stir up Venezuelans with a “fresh” confrontationist discourse.

To maintain and increase the sabotage actions that affect basic services, especially those related to electricity.

ToGenerate a crisis situation on the streets so as to facilitate North American intervention.

To extend and image of a crisis among international media.

To Increase the financial funds of the Venezuelan opposition so it can win at least 55% of the municipalities in the (December 8) elections.

To contact active and retired generals of the Armed Forces so as to affect the prestige of the government.

After reading the document Maduro ended his address with a rally call to the Venezuelan People: “Alert! compañeros, everyone on the maximum state of alert! Maximum moral and spiritual force! Maximum discipline, subordination and union of the People in the fundamental tasks of peace! Maximum Union!”

December 8 to be the official “Day of Loyalty and Love to Chávez”

As announced last week by President Maduro, The Day of Love and Loyalty to the Supreme Comandante Hugo Chávez and to the Fatherland, December 8, has been officially decreed by the government.

On December 8 last year, Chávez announced on national cadena, that he would be again traveling to Cuba for further treatment of his cancer. He also anointed Maduro as his successor if “any situation should arise that forces a new electoral process.”

The decree exhorts the Venezuelan People to “honor with their thoughts and actions” the work of Hugo Chávez. It also states that “Chávez achieved the transformation of Venezuela, which was covered by the shadows of Capitalism 20 years ago, and gave birth to a Fatherland full of hope.”

Significantly, the municipal elections will also be held on December 8. Last week Maduro had declared that the People should express their loyalty and love for Chávez by voting against the enemies the Fatherland who are sabotaging the Revolution.

Electoral propaganda is prohibited by law during elections day. However, according to El Universal, the decree states that on December 8 commemorations “exalting Chavez´s Bolivarian thought and to express the infinite love of the Venezuelan People for him” can be held.

The National Electric System is Bulletproof

Minister of Electric Energy Jesse Chacón assured that the National Electric System is bulletproof (blindado) for the upcoming municipal elections of December 8. President has recently mentioned the possibility that the Venezuelan opposition could try to sabotage the elections by “producing” blackouts.

The Agencia Venezolana de Notocias frames the report on the declarations by Chacón squarely within the context of the existence of “sabotage by the right,” which it considers as proven fact and the cause of the blackout that hit the country on September 3, 2013. This is how AVN reports:

…after the sabotage of the electric system by the Venezuelan right, this past September 3, the protection and defense of the National Electric System has been strengthened in order to guarantee the [electric] service to the Venezuelan People.

After detailing several security measures taken by the government, Minister Chacón added that “against sabotage, [the only guarantee] is a society united and committed to the defense of the National Electric System.” 

To frame regional elections as a plebiscite is also part of a conspiracy

The Venezuelan government has been very explicit in its desire not to have the December 8 municipal elections framed as a plebiscite on Maduro’s presidency.

Yesterday Maduro insisted that the opposition will try to use the elections to overthrow him. He claims that the December elections are only regional in character and that to remove him the opposition will have to wait until 2016 to ask for a recall referendum: “Collect the signatures you need, but at the middle point of the presidential period [2016], and the National Electoral Council will review those signatures, will certify them, and if you can accomplish this, we will have a recall referendum in 2016, because the country needs that any electoral functionary be given time to develop his project,” Maduro told the opposition.

But he also implied that in the case the opposition came to power, presumably trough a coup, it would not be given time to develop any project at all: “If one day [in the future] there is a government of the bourgeoisie here, it would not last 47 hours. Therefore I ask them [the opposition] to respect the rules of the democratic game, of coexistence, and of peace. Venezuela still has ahead 2013, 1014, and 2015. Let those be peaceful years. Only in the minds of the trilogy of evil [opposition leaders Machado, Capriles, and López] can we find such perverse thoughts [of a coup]”

The President also ratified his belief that the opposition is trying to “produce a series of events of great magnitude and of negative impact against the economic and social life, and the peace of the country, so that the December 8 elections have to be suspended. They [the opposition] are a fraud, hypocrites, they are Pharisees.”

We will have elections, even without electricity

In a public meeting yesterday with chavista candidates, President Maduro declared that the opposition is planning to prevent the December 8 municipal elections from happening by sabotaging the electric grid. However he assured that “We will have elections, even without electricity, let the People decide!”

Maduro also emphasized that his party, the PSUV, should cease in its “internal war” in the face of the “economic war” he claims the country is facing, and mentioned those he believes are behind for the plot: “Those directly responsible for the economic war plan are the owners and directives of FEDECAMARAS, CONSECOMERCIO, and VENANCHAMP. They are the faces of the economic war against the people, they are directly responsible,” he insisted.

What the “internal war” of the PSUV is about was not explained, but Maduro could be referring to internal struggles within chavismo for the candidacies to the upcoming municipal elections, and to criticism the party has received from its basis for the selections process of the candidates.

The Trilogy of Evil

During the announcement of the creation of the new “Vice-ministry for the Supreme Social Happiness of the Venezuelan People,” President Maduro again mentioned “the trilogy of evil,” conformed by opposition leaders María Corina Machado, Henrique Capriles Radonski, and Leopoldo López.

Maduro called them “fascist parasites and enemies of the Fatherland,” and argued that they are behind the economic war he claims is being waged against the country.

“I call on the People to recognize these enemies of the People and the Fatherland, enemies of the future, who do not want to show their faces. They are untouchable princes and princesses. There is no one in the media that dares to criticize them. The parasite of Miranda [Capriles] abandoned his post as Governor, and there are constitutional mechanisms to strip him of the post …ah but he is a bourgeois prince. They are the ones sabotaging ¡People recognize them! They are the trilogy of evil, they have Washington’s blessing,” explained Maduro.

He also made a warning against the “trilogy of evil”: “we will have no remorse, we will not be moved by tears [lloriqueo que valga], you have to pay for what you have done to the People. (…) We are preparing an effective offensive. We are going to take them down from their posts through constitutional means.”

Love Chávez and hate the enemies of the Fatherland

Yesterday President Maduro gave a preview of his campaign rhetoric for the coming municipal elections of December 8: Government followers are to express their “love and loyalty” to the memory of Chávez, by voting against the enemies of the Fatherland who have been sabotaging the Revolution.

In a session of his “Gobierno de Calle” in the city of Maturín, Maduro declared: “December 8 will be from now on the Day of Love and Loyalty to Hugo Chávez, because on that day he came to say farewell to his People, even when he was suffering from his illness, he came with strength and calmness to say farewell to his Fatherland. (…) The Venezuelan People cannot betray this memory, this legacy, and the dreams of the Leader of the Bolivarian Revolution. We cannot betray history and our roots. That day Chávez showed all his courage.”

But he also clearly stated the dangers posed by the conspiratorial opposition: “The only enemies of the Fatherland are the ‘trilogy of evil’ (Opposition leaders Henrique, Capriles, Leopoldo López, and María Corina Machado) who are in charge of sabotaging electricity, food supplies, and of waging an economic war. Let the People be aware of this and who they are: they are the ones sabotaging the peace of the country.”

Later during the day, Maduro visited a thermoelectric plant and explained the need to conform a “vanguard for the defense of the Fatherland against destabilizing attempts by the Venezuelan right. I invoke the construction of a profound offensive by the Revolution as an answer to the plans of economic sabotage,” he emphasized. 

For Maduro to speak of the possibility of a new government is conspiratorial

President Maduro declared yesterday (October 19) that he would give 24 hours to Lara state Governor Henri Falcon to explain why he mentioned the possibility of a new government.

Falcón had declared in a press conference that: “In view of the deterioration of State institutions and the wrongful administration of justice, the urgent priority of a new government would be the re-institutionalization of the country. (…) To persecute dissidence, limit critiques, and to politicize in the extreme the administration of justice generates deep unbalances in a State.”

President Maduro considered these declarations “reckless” (temerarias), and gave Falcon a 24 hour ultimatum to deny them, after which Maduro said will ask the Attorney General to press charges against Falcon for “reckless declarations against the Constitution and the legitimate mandate given to me [Maduro] by the Venezuelan People.”

“Governor Henry Falcón said yesterday: ‘the new coming government should begin be re-institutionalizing the country.’ But from what I know, here the Presidential elections are scheduled for December 2018. (…) From what I know, I have no plans to betray the People and quit the presidency Mr.  Henri Falcón, or is it that you know something I don’t know about? What new government are you referring to?” asked Maduro.

According to the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias, President Maduro added that he will not tolerate conspiracies and that Falcon’s declarations are very similar to those issued by “the right” in 2001 and 2002 before the coup against Chávez

Venezuela’s Municipal Elections

David Smilde and I wrote a series of three post on the coming Municipal Elections of December 8 for the blog Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights:

Spinning Venezuela's Municipal Elections.

Selecting PSUV Candidates for Venezuela's Municipal Elections.

Selecting Opposition Candidates for Venezuela's Municipal Elections.

Maduro: dirty electoral campaign for municipal elections financed by the CIA

President Maduro warned yesterday (August 24) that the “Venezuelan right” has begun a dirty war campaign for the municipal elections of December 8.

He declared: “Let us be ready to face all the psychological wars, the dirty wars, let us prepare the consciousness of the people so that we can win.” He mentioned as an example of a “dirty war in order to generate chaos,” the recent news that young women were assaulted in Maracaibo and had their hair forcefully cut in order to be resold as hair extensions. According to Maduro, those claims are only rumors: “Who created that dirty war of young girls having their hair stolen? It was J.J. Rendón [opposition electoral campaign consultant], he was the one that created that rumor. One day he will face Venezuelan justice. He is part of a psychological campaign to affect our youth with the elections in view.” 

Maduro added that “There are proofs that some of these groups that are now part of the apátrida right have been trained in the United States and in some countries of Europe and that they are directly financed by the CIA.”

Maduro: Amuay refinery explosion was sabotage by the right

Yesterday (August 24) President Maduro repeated the claim that the explosion a year ago at the Amuay oil refinery was the result of sabotage by the right: “Sabotage has been proven, I want to announce it. It was sabotage by desperate sectors because they believed that by burning down a refinery they could win the elections against Chávez, but not only did they not win, they were swept [coleteados] by the people.”

Maduro also announced that the evidence of sabotage will be made public in the next days: “The fire at Amuai was the product of sabotage, the proofs uncovered by an international technical investigation will be shown in the next few days. The right has no scruples when it comes to harming the fatherland.”

No internal democracy for PSUV because of conspiracies

President Maduro explained yesterday why the ruling PSUV party has decided to pick its candidates for the upcoming Municipal Elections of December 18^th by a “unitary method of evaluation, consultation, and decision,” and not through primaries.

For Maduro, primaries risk a “permanent threat from individualist passions of some people that aspire to public office with suspicious powers (…), suspicious in today’s juncture, with an ongoing imperialist offensive, with plans to assassinate leaders of the revolution, including me, with a psychological war unleashed as never before.”

He also advances the argument that opposition party Primero Justicia (PJ) could, in the case of internal PSUV primaries, finance parallel counterrevolutionary candidates with money from “the Empire”: “The north American elites have been building up force (…), it is a decadent but dangerous elite, and they have been building a force here. What is the yellow bourgeoisie [PJ]? (…) The yellow bourgeoisie has been expanding its tentacles, it is a neo-fascist project, and its advance is financed with money from the American embassy, we have proofs of illicit money for the conformation of a concrete political project.”

Primaries, according to Maduro, will not be held again in the PSUV until “the culture of carnival democracy of the bourgeois culture” is overcome by a “socialist ethics.”

Maduro: José Vicente Rangel warns us of threats to the Fatherland

Some hours ago via twitter President Nicolas Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) urged his followers to “read and reproduce” an article by José Vicente Rangel published in Últimas Nocicias.

In his article JVR repeats many of the claims he has made many times before and that I have posted here. He compares the opposition strategy with “the fascist coup of Antonio Tejero in Spain,” the coup against Allende in Chile, and the recent coup in Egypt. (However his claims of 18 war planes purchased by the opposition and stationed in Colombia have been dropped from his most recent articles and declarations.)

He also repeats his argument of an “ongoing electoral coup”. According to him, this is exactly what the Venezuelan opposition attempted when it failed to recognize Maduro as the winner of the April 14 elections. In JVR’s narrative of the events following that day, Capriles sent his followers a “subversive message” which “unleashed violence.” Maduro was able however, a few hours later, to “abort the developing coup.” But, JVR warns: this is all part of an “ongoing coup”, and the scheme used by the opposition in April will be repeated during the Municipal elections scheduled for December this year.

Eduardo Samán and the electoral-economic sabotage theory

Yesterday (June 24) the recently appointed President of the Instituto para la Defensa de las Personas en el Acceso a los Bienes y Servicios (Indepabis, the ombudsman for the defense of consumers), declared that it is important that the people become fully involved in the struggle against speculation and basic goods shortages.

According to the AVN press note, Samán declared that people have to understand the real origins of scarcity. According to him the “rise in shortages and the economic sabotage generally increase in the days before and after electoral campaigns and voting events, [which is a] ploy generally used by the right.”

He further explained the solution to this electoral-shortages correlation problem: “As we come to understand that this issue of goods shortages has an electoral component, we can force the high bourgeoisie to stop using it as a form of blackmail. When it ceases to be effective, they [the high bourgeoisie] will stop using it.”

Samán’s electoral-sabotage-shortages correlation theory is difficult to demonstrate. The electoral calendar has been intense in recent years and to an outside observer it may seem that Venezuela is in a permanent electoral campaign. Indeed in the case of the October 7, 2012 presidential elections, the relation may have been negative, as an increase in public spending in the months leading up to the elections produced a mini boom of imports and consumption and a decrease in shortages.

March and April 2013. Inoculated Cancer and Foreign Mercenaries

(Shorter versions of this chronology were previously published in the blog Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights  here)

These first couple of posts will bring the chronology up to date. Here I start from March 2013, right after Chávez´s passing, and close in mid-April (Presidential elections were held on April 14). The main theme of this period was the famous “inoculated cancer” theory by Maduro, according to which Chávez would have been a victim of poisoning. But also notable was the revelation by the Government of a “mercenaries plot” of central American assassins that would attempt to murder Maduro, Capriles, Cabello, and also sabotage the economy, wreck the electric grid, create food shortages , increase homicide rates, and commit random crimes against the population. 

March 5, Maduro expels two US attachés for “searching for active military personal in order to propose conspiratorial plans to them” (Aporrea)

March 5, Maduro, in the last public announcement before the passing of the President, suggests that Chávez was “inoculated” with cancer by foreign enemies. He afterwards insisted many times on this theory, originally proposed by Chávez himself when he was first diagnosed of cancer. On March 21 Maduro promised that after winning the elections, he would name a scientific commission in charge of investigating the issue.He also declares that “there are already a lot of articles on the internet on this. You only have to look them up. The Empire has created these types of experimental viruses since the 40s. They are methods of biological, bacteriological warfare.”

March 6, Maduro assures that there is a conspiracy led by Otto Reich and Roger Noriega to assassinate, not him, but the opposition candidate Capriles, with the purpose of destabilizing the government. On March 17, on a TV interview with José Vicente Rangel, Maduro insists on the existence of the plot. He announces that he has proofs of this plot and that he will make them public, but those proofs have never surfaced. Otto Reich denies the accusations.

March 20, Maduro Claims that the United States government has “ordered” the Venezuelan opposition to withdraw from the elections, generate “situations of violence”, and cry foul once the electoral results are public.

April 6, in an interview with Telesur, Foreign Minister Elias Jaua declares that “we have filtered, through our intelligence agencies, conversations from groups of the right referring to the inclusion of mercenaries from Central America in the destabilization activities in the country.”

April 5, in a meeting with supporters in Cojedes Maduro declares that the opposition “took down the electricity of all the poor areas of Aragua on Wednesday night. There is no technical justification for this, so we have dismissed the Corpoelec [State electricity company] of Aragua and he is under investigation, and all the public officials that plot against the people will go to prison.” Maduro also accuses the opposition of planning a total energy black out in the country.

April 7, during a public meeting in Guayana, Maduro denounces a plot of to kill him “generate chaos, and sabotage the electric grid”. He directly accused Armando Briquet, a top manager of the opposition campaign, of being the link between Capriles and “mercenaries sent by the right from El Salvador” that, according to Maduro, are already in Venezuela to carry out the plot. In these new plot denunciations, Maduro assures that at first he though Capriles was not directly responsible for the wide ranging conspiracies, and that he was only being duped by “sectors of the right” (indeed in the previous version of the “mercenaries plot” Capriles was considered the potential victim of assassination attempts). Now he claims to have been forced by his sources to realize that Capriles, through Briquet, is directly behind the plots.

April 8, Minister of Penitentiary Services, Iris Valera, denounces “a destabilization plan by a well-known NGO lead by someone called Humberto Prado.”  This NGO would promote violence in Venezuela´s prisons in order to “rarefy” the electoral environment of the next days.

April 8, an opposition group of students protesting for “clean elections” in Chacao is violently attacked by motorbikes wearing pro-government paraphernalia. Six students are injured. Maduro immediately orders an investigation but offers his own theory of the events: “I have been informed of violent events in the Chacao Municipality, strange violent events involving a small violent group, financed by the government of the United States.”