generalspeaking

Fascist Coup D'Etat, Venezuela-Style

"Every man for himself is the situation. No one knows what is going to happen, so we have to prepare for the worst."
Jose Bolivar, 52-year-old Caracas construction worker

"Far right [opponents are working] to bring us to a dog fight, set our people at war, one against another. 
"There will be no coup d'etat in Venezuela, you can rest assured"
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

Venezuelans are not happy with their president. He lacks the folk charisma of his predecessor, whom he swore he would emulate to the last gasp in his body, for he was groomed to replace the redoubtable Hugo Chavez, beloved of the poor, whom dread fate felled by granting a dread disease to creep bit by bit throughout his body, finally rendering him destructible, after all. President Maduro doggedly continues to do his utmost to follow in his hero's doorsteps.

Not much has changed in Venezuela; despite having the world's most impressive fossil fuel resources, the economy has been faltering for years. Surely it is not simply mismanagement of those resources and their worldwide sales; corruption on an industrial scale, benefiting friends of the court has stalled any kind of social and infrastructure progress possible in the country to bring it into the kind of first-world status its people long for. Hoping that Maduro would deliver where Chavez did not.

People are disgusted and fed up with the dire insecurity, the defeating crime rate, murder, corruption, rampant inflation and, in a country that has such immense resources, shortages of basic consumer goods. It is quite simply confounding. It is, quite simply, a symptom of a corrupt government at every level, the lack of will to reform, and the complacent self-assurance that the vast Venezuelan landscape of the dependent-poor will never desert the nostalgia of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Troops made good use of tear gas to disperse vast numbers of protesters who proceeded to vandalize government buildings and torch vehicles. Opposition protesters were inspired to throw rocks at the police and to burn tires on the street. Meeting up against pro-government demonstrators dressed in revolutionary red, all the constituents were present for a significant flare-up of unrestrained violence from both sides.

The past several weeks has seen protests over the miserable conditions the country is labouring under, inspired by "The Exit" slogan, in the hope that reality will at some juncture surface where Nicolas Maduro steps down, as in 'over his dead body'. The opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, faces an arrest warrant, charged with homicide and conspiracy, against his claims that the government had instigated the bloodshed of which he stands accused.

President Maduro is raging against the Venezuelan traitors buying into an economic war driven by the "parasitic bourgeoisie". As a solution of sorts he tasked regulators supported by military troops to oversee over a thousand electronics, furniture and toy stores, to cut prices. A tactic tried much earlier in time by Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe to divert attention from criminal incompetence and raging corruption in that sad civil-political backwater.

For his part, Mr. Lopez is dedicated to the opposition continuing to remain in the streets, and protesting. "We won't retreat and we can't retreat because this is about our future, about our children, about millions of people."

	A demonstrator walks over shields of Policemen during an opposition demo against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas on February 12, 2014. Unidentified assailants on a motorcycle fired into a crowd of anti-government protesters, wounding at least two people. AFP PHOTO / JUAN BARRETO Getty Images)

Labels: Crisis Politics, Economy, Energy, Poverty, Venezuela

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, February 15, 2014