From Economic war to Economic Coup

This week several government officials have insisted on blaming the opposition and the Empire for Venezuela’s economic troubles.

The Vice-president, Jorge Arreaza, announced yesterday that a food warehouse in Anzoátegui had been raided by the government because it contained tons of hoarded goods. He linked the owners of the deposit to members of the opposition party Voluntad Popular and said this was evidence that the opposition is pushing for “an economic coup d’état” which would “reedit the political violence that caused 43 deaths last year.”

The President of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, backed Arreaza’s version. He said that the warehouse raided by the government is “directly linked to the company Diamante Trading Investment LTD, represented by Peggy Carolina Ordaz Quijada, militant of the party Voluntad Popular.”

Cabello also accused the Venezuelan Catholic Church of “having engaged the parties of the right to try to topple the government,” the student leaders of having “received orders to agitate in the street,” the opposition of bringing into the country “reporters with experience in war conflicts,” opposition leader María Corina Machado of stablishing “a laboratory to send text messages to militaries inciting them to take over public institutions, and “the right” of “hiring mercenaries to bring them into Venezuela.” All this in the context of a “non-conventional war against our people,” which Cabello has denominated the “La Salida 2 plan.”

Addressing a crowd of followers in Plaza Venezuela, Cabello also explained that the scarcity of basic goods is the responsibility of business owners that refuse to produce. “The right” is to blame, according to Cabello, for the current scarcity levels: “do you know why you have to suffer long lines [to buy food]? Because of the right!”

Cabello also said that the opposition is planning more protests: “you can be sure that everything is ready for a social explosion [incited by the oppositions], (…) but it won’t happen, because the only one that has the right to take to the streets is the socialist people.”

Continuing his extended tour of several countries this week, President Maduro has repeatedly claimed that capitalism, the United States, or the Empire, are conspiring to bring down oil prices in an attempt to destroy the OPEC and specially hurt Venezuela.

As to events back home, Maduro has declared that “the Venezuelan people have been ambushed with this issue of affecting supply, [this is related to] rumor we have dealt with peacefully. There [in Venezuela] what we have is our people being taken care of by our government, coming out of this ambush, while I am in this middle of this tour, for the benefit of the people.”

He has asked the people however to be patient in the face of the effects of this “ambush by the parasitic bourgeoisie,” and to work for an “economic renaissance in 2015.”

This has also been a week of intense conspiracy rumors: social media has been active with information about plans from inside chavismo for a coup d’état against Maduro.

(A curious tweet by Communication and Information Minister Jaqueline Faria)         

If you really believe in the “economic war”, attack your enemies

This piece published yesterday by Aporrea is useful to understand the consequences of really believing that Venezuela is the victim of an “economic war” waged by its enemies.

The author argues that if the government is serious about the war, then it should act as if it is really fighting a war. The logic of war is not the logic of pluralist politics: in a war the enemies (the opposition) are to be destroyed.

“When there is a situation of conflict, one of the parts declares war on the other, at that moment they cease to be adversaries and become enemies, the rules of the game change. In the Venezuelan case, one of the parts has declared war on the other, [but] each part does not dare to recognize that the other is its enemy that must be destroyed. This is a very atypical war because the enemies (government and opposition) are not suffering casualties, instead it is the poor people who are dying,” explains the author.

What should the government be doing in this war scenario?

“I believe that time has come to put things in black and white and to recognize that we are really at war, with victims of battles fought by two antagonistic enemies that will not stop [until] the other is defeated.”

“The government cannot go around accusing its enemies of the existence of and ‘economic war’ against it and not take the measures to face them and defeat them in the battle field of the national economy. The first thing to do is to suspend the legal and economic guarantees that allow the enemy to keep on fighting the war.”  

Maduro: Union in the face of threats and sabotage

As president Maduro continues his visit to China and OPEC countries in a bid to reverse the fall of prices and secure credit, scarcity of basic products and long lines in supermarkets are becoming serious issues for many Venezuelans.

Maduro has sent a communique via the Ministry of Comunication and Information (MPPCI) in which he asks the Venezuelan people for union in the face of what he called “threats and sabotage by the right –which obeys imperial interests.”

“From China I reiterate my call for work, productivity, [and] union. The crazy, the fascists: let’s isolate them. Let us not get caught up in the agenda of desperation, of craziness, of psychological warfare,” said the president.

Here is the original communique as published by the MPPCI:

Maduro: «Frente al sabotaje y amenazas llamo al pueblo al trabajo»

Publicado: 09/01/2015

República Popular China.- «Ante las amenazas y el sabotaje de la derecha —que obedece a intereses imperiales— les hago un llamado todo el pueblo venezolano, a la clase obrera venezolana, los estudiantes, le hago un llamado a las mujeres patriotas, a la Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana, vamos a continuar el rumbo del buen inicio del año 2015. Frente a los sabotajes, amenazas, trabajo y más trabajo, paz y más paz, unión, revolución y más revolución», aseguró el Presidente Nicolás Maduro desde la República Popular China.

El Presidente resaltó que está en contacto permanente con el equipo de Gobierno Bolivariano que está activado en Venezuela, trabajando de manera permanente.

«He estado en contacto permanente, pendiente como siempre, cada segundo, en comunicación con el vicepresidente ejecutivo, Jorge Arreaza, vicepresidentes del Gobierno, con el presidente la Asamblea Nacional, Diosdado Cabello, con los jefes de los Componentes Militares. Hemos estado atentos a todas esas locuras que han intentado hacer y que le hemos abortado a la extrema derecha venezolana, que es instrumento directo de las políticas imperiales. 

El imperio que no acepta que nosotros estemos aquí de pie y nos relacionamos con China, como un pueblo soberano, para entendernos, integrarnos, en términos de  igualdad, en términos de desarrollo compartido, ellos [la derecha] se vuelven locos. Afortunadamente nuestro pueblo quiere Paz, va a seguir teniendo Paz».

El presidente Maduro resaltó que Venezuela será una potencia media: «Ya somos una potencia de felicidad en lo moral. El mundo entero nos admira, los pueblos del mundo ven con simpatía y admiración a nuestro pueblo, todo ese cariño lo construyó nuestro Comandante Chávez».

Reiteró el llamado al pueblo al trabajo: «Desde China reiteró el llamado al trabajo, a la productividad, a la unión. A los locos, a los fascistas, a los violentos, vamos a aislarlos. No nos enganchamos con la agenda de desesperación, de la locura, de guerra psicológica. Es la hora de trabajar y de seguir adelante, y de confiar en nuestro pueblo, bastante dificultad hemos enfrentado, superado con serenidad, con confianza en la patria y con mucho trabajo, una nueva cultura el trabajo. No nos enganchamos con agendas que ya han fracasado y que van a seguir fracasando».

(Image MPPCI)

Preemptive conspiracy theory

Before any protest breaks out in the following months, Diosdado Cabello is proposing a preemptive conspiracy explanation for future unrest.

According to the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias, Cabello warned yesterday that “the Venezuelan rightists will insist on propitiating actions of destabilization in 2015, with the help of economic resources from the government of the United States.”

The masterminds of the conspiracy denounced by Cabello are located in the city of Miami: “The most radical exiles, fugitives from justice, and business owners,” met in Florida in order to create the Fundación Uno, a cover for “raising funds for an eventual support of coupist actions in Venezuela. The fund would be administered by Iván Carratú.” (Retired military chief of staff of ex-president Carlos Andrés Pérez).

The conspirators will use destabilization techniques via social network web sites specially focusing on supermarkets. With this Cabello is probably referring in future tense to the already popular trending topic in Twitter of publishing pictures of empty supermarket shelves.

The conspirators will also use students to try to infiltrate them into the supermarket lines in order to cause unrest and “force the intervention of the security forces.”

Cabello also linked this conspiracy to possible guarimbas (barricade protests) in Barquisimeto, Lara state, for which he blamed opposition leader Pablo Medina. For more generalized protests in the future he also preemptively blamed Leopoldo López (currently in prison) and Maria Corina Machado.

Here is the complete article from AVN reporting on Cabello’s comments:

Cabello alerta sobre nuevos actos desestabilizadores orquestados por la derecha venezolana

Caracas, 08 Ene. AVN.- El presidente de la Asamblea Nacional (AN), Diosdado Cabello, alertó que la derecha venezolano insistirá en propiciar acciones desestabilizadoras en 2015, con la ayuda de recursos económicos provenientes del gobierno de los Estados Unidos.

En su programa Con el Mazo Dando, transmitido por Venezolana de Televisión, Cabello indicó que a finales de 2014 se realizó una reunión en Florida, Miami, donde participaron "autoexiliados más radicales y los prófugos de la justicia venezolana" y empresarios, para crear la Fundación Uno, con el fin de "recaudar fondos de ayuda para un eventual apoyo (a acciones golpistas) en Venezuela, el cual será administrado por Iván Carratú".

Carratú Molina fue jefe de la casa militar del expresidente Carlos Andrés Pérez y ha estado involucrado en acciones terroristas en el país.

Asimismo, Cabello indicó que sectores antichavistas impulsarán campañas desestabilizadoras en las redes sociales usando como escenarios redes de supermercados, encabezados por María Corina Machado y Pablo Medina.

"Utilizarán a estudiantes distribuidos en varios sectores de la capital y principales estados del país. Tienen como estrategia asistir a los locales comerciales de mayor afluencia de personas", para generar caos y "conseguir la intervención de los cuerpos de seguridad", dijo.

Durante su alocución, Cabello alertó que se tiene previsto para este mes de enero activar guarimbas en Barquisimeto, estado Lara, dirigidos por Pablo Medina, así como acciones de calle para el próximo 23 de enero.

Estas acciones van en la misma línea del plan desestabilizador llamado La Salida, ejecutado en 2014, que pretendía derrocar al gobierno constitucional del presidente de la República, Nicolás Maduro. Como resultado, ocasionó daños patrimoniales en diferentes estados, más de 800 heridos y un total de 43 personas asesinadas.

Entre estas acciones violentas, promovidas por Leopoldo López y María Corina Machado, se encuentran: el impedimento del libre tránsito, incendios fachadas y sedes de instituciones públicas y privadas, así como la quema de universidades, atentados contra de niños de un preescolar, envenenamiento del servicio de agua en Mérida, la colocación de guayas en vías principales y tiros de gracia a quienes se atrevieran a despejar las vías.

 AVN 08/01/2015 01:07

Unconventional warfare to win the economic war

Government officials have proposed the theory that the price in bolívares of the black market dollar is arbitrarily set by operators of web pages, such as dolartoday, controlled by agents of the “economic war” allegedly being waged against the Venezuelan government by its enemies.

This interesting piece published yesterday by the independent pro-government web page Aporrea proposes and unorthodox fix for Venezuela’s economic problems.

The author argues that unconventional warfare is using ever more sophisticated “technological methods with hostile purposes.” A good example of this is dolartoday, controlled and operated, according to the author, from Miami by banker Eligio Cedeño, Federico Ravell, and Orlando Urdaneta, among other prominent opposition exiled figures who are engaged in “seditious operations against our economic stability.”

The solution to this problem proposed by the author is to use dolartoday to push the price of the dollar down by cloning the web page:

“What I mean is that some [Venezuelan] center of counter intelligence should plan and execute a maneuver for the creation of multiple sources of information, communication and online digital positioning (web pages, facebook, twitter accounts, blogs, [etc.]). These [sources] would use the logos, images and diagrams of dolartoday, and would daily publish data which would contradict the “official” dolartoday version. For some days [the clones of dolartoday] would raise the price of the black dollar a little bit, then let it slide slowly, and then drop in free fall. […] This is a defensive informatic guerilla war! Counterattack!”

The article ends with the hope that with these “non-traditional counter-intelligence methods of deception and chaos creation [caotización] of information,” the government will achieve an elusive victory in the “economic war which we are still losing.”

Here some are some relevant paragraphs of the original article in Spanish:

Industriales, fabricantes, distribuidores, agricultores y vendedores de toda especie rigen sus costos por un dólar paralelo impuesto por la mano visible de dolartoday, que ya algunos han ubicado su centro de operación en Miami Florida, han señalado como su padre financiero al empresario-banquero Eligio Cedeño y a sus operadores técnicos Federico Ravell, Orlando Urdaneta y "jóvenes venezolanos", pero lamentablemente no han podido detenerlos en ya más de un año de operaciones sediciosas contra nuestra estabilidad económica.

Entonces generemos que el dolartoday actúe a la baja clonando al dolartoday!!! Es decir, que se planifique y ejecute desde algún centro de contrainteligencia una maniobra de creación de múltiples fuentes de información, comunicación y posicionamiento digital on line (páginas web, facebook, cuentas twiter, blog, mensajes de texto y correos electrónicos masivos, manejo de banner, videos youtube y herramientas SEO o SEM) que utilizando los logos, imágenes, diagramación y nombre de dolartoday coloque en la opinión pública diariamente datos que contradigan a la versión "oficial del dolartoday". Que unos días suba un poco el dólar negro y días después baje paulatinamente y luego entre en picada. Que después suba un poco y vuelva a descender en espiral. En fin que se anarquice la información del dólar paralelo jugando a la baja y a la pérdida de quienes especulan con la propia imagen de la referida fuente de conspiración. Es guerrilla informática de defensa, contraataque!!.

En fin, atacar el dólar paralelo mediante tácticas no tradicionales, métodos de contrainteligencia, engaño y caotización de la información relacionada con la fijación de valor del dólar paralelo, empleando sus propias armas tecnológicas, podría ser una estrategia útil, frente a ésta sociedad de la información y la comunicación, y en el campo de ésta guerra económica que aún perdemos.