Venezuela Is Getting so Bad, Armed Forces Personnel Now Implicated in Violence and Murder

 Around midnight on February 23, Eulalio Bravo, a marine electrician, was dozing in his rack aboard the San Ramon, an oil tanker anchored off the coast of Venezuela.  Suddenly, he heard footsteps pounding along the passageway outside. His captain, Jaime Herrera, cried for help.  “Be still!” an unfamiliar voice ordered.  A gun fired.

By the time Bravo and eight other shipmates emerged to see what had happened, the captain lay dead, a gunshot in the back of his head. Herrera’s stateroom had been pillaged, drawers flung open, his bunk overturned. The killers were gone, as were thousands of dollars the captain kept under lock and key, according to crew members interviewed by Reuters.

The murder, one of a growing number of violent incidents that have roiled Venezuelan waters in recent years, is an extension of a bloody crime wave that has beset the country since its economy collapsed last decade.

But it is also part of a troubling trend in which state agents, from military officers to police to senior government officials, have been accused of complicity in the very crimes they are meant to prevent.  After an investigation of the Herrera killing by forensic police at the nearby port of Puerto La Cruz, a state court in March ordered the arrest of three sailors from the Venezuelan Navy and four soldiers from the National Guard.

Some of those arrested had spent time aboard the tanker in the weeks before the crime, according to six crew members who detailed the episode to Reuters. The accused face charges including murder, aggravated robbery and illegal possession of firearms for their alleged roles in the death of the captain, a 59-year-old Colombian.

Crime, both petty and organized, has been one of the most dire consequences of the social meltdown under President Nicolas Maduro. Gangs and paramilitary groups run much of Venezuela’s black-market economy. Now, the public sector is in on rackets ranging from drug trafficking to bribes and kickbacks that grease the wheels of Venezuela’s crucial oil industry.

Maduro himself has been indicted in the United States for charges that include narcoterrorism. His wife, as Reuters reported in May, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for her alleged role in drug trafficking, an accusation the government called “slanderous.”

Further down the government payroll, police and military officials have grown infamous for theft and violence. Last week, a United Nations report said the country’s security forces have systematically committed extrajudicial killings, torture and other human rights abuses, likely under orders from senior government officials.  “The state is complicit in everything,” said Omar Gonzalez, an opposition lawmaker from Anzoategui, the eastern state where Puerto La Cruz is located.

Piracy off the coast has surged after Venezuela entered recession,  While attacks have tailed off more recently as cargo traffic has dropped off, Venezuelan authorities appear unable or unwilling to manage them.  Incident reports compiled by the International Maritime Bureau, an industry organization, show that the Puerto La Cruz port authority, after two separate tanker heists in 2018, failed to respond to captains’ calls for help.

 

What Exactly Caused the Venezuela Power Outage?

Venezuela's information minister has said that a huge power outage that has left most of the country dark for a week has been completely restored.  The power failure left many homes without running water and caused chaos in hospitals, as well as disrupting places of work and schools. At its worst, 19 of 23 states were affected, and the capital Caracas was blanketed by darkness.  Speaking at a press conference, Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said that school activities remain suspended for another 24 hours.  He urged people to unplug appliances and turn off lights.

According to anecdotal reports, power has been restored in many parts of Caracas, but not everywhere.  A doctor from the non-profit organization Medicos por la Salud said that many hospitals across Venezuela were still experiencing intermittent power outages throughout the day. Hospitals in Valencia, Merida, and Maracaibo all reported hours-long outages, and are either relying on generators or transferring their patients to hospitals in neighboring towns.  The minister said 80% of country and 70% of Caracas now has drinking water.

As the country recovers from the outage, one persistent question looms large: How could a country with the world's largest proven oil reserves go dark?

The answer involves poor decision-making, rampant corruption, and the steady flight of electrical engineers, according to experts, though the government blames sabotage.

Venezuela's power grid relies heavily on the Guri Dam, a giant hydroelectric power station that was inaugurated in the late 1960s. While the engineers who planned Venezuela's current power grid imagined the Guri Dam would supply about 60 percent of the country's electricity, today it is believed to supply a whopping 80 percent. The remaining 20 percent comes predominately from thermoelectric power stations.

How much power Guri can actually supply and the level of Venezuela's current demand are not fully known because officials have not released that data in years.  Some engineers speculate Venezuela has even less supply than it did 20 years ago largely as a result of poor maintenance of existing plants.

Critics say the Guri Dam on the Caroni River basin has long needed updates and become vulnerable during periods of drought.  The late President Hugo Chavez tried to remedy the country's over-reliance on hydroelectric power with what he called an "electricity revolution." Venezuela spent billions of dollars on new thermoelectric plants that in theory should be able to power the nation even without the Guri Dam, but they either were not built or were poorly maintained.

Military generals were put in charge of running Venezuela's power grid and qualified engineers — like many other professionals — began to leave the country.

Chavez's successor, President Nicolas Maduro has responded to shortages by urging Venezuelans to use less power by reducing the work week, and at one point even urged women to ration their use of hair dryers.  Maduro has blamed the blackout on a cyberattack on the plant's all-important electronic monitoring system, though engineers who have worked on the dam say they don't believe that.

One theory is that a fire knocked down one of the three huge 765-kilovolt lines that connect the Guri Dam to Caracas. The regional electrical company that operated the dam decades ago had a fleet of helicopters that monitored the region for fires, but current workers say that quick-response system is no longer in place. One worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said there has been a lack of routine maintenance, such as cutting down brush to keep it at a distance from the lines.  Though the three lines are spaced a considerable distance apart, Jose Aguilar, a Venezuelan energy expert who now resides in the United States, said a fire at just one of those could cause an outage affecting all of them.

Other theories include a breakdown in the electronic monitoring system that controls power distribution, a turbine going offline or a failure elsewhere.  "We don't know yet what happened because they're hiding it," Aguilar said.

Three engineers consulted by The Associated Press with direct knowledge of the Guri's operating systems say it is almost impossible that it could have been the victim of a cyberattack. They explain that the computers that operate the monitoring system are not connected to the internet and can only communicate with each other, making them immune to an outside attack.  Anurag Srivastava, an engineering professor at Washington State University, said the only way to carry out a cyberattack in a closed system would be through physical access to the substation where the system is located.

Venezuelan authorities haven't provided proof of a cyberattack, but have pointed fingers at those they say are involved.  On the night of the outage, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted about the outage minutes after it began, and Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez suggested he may have known about it in advance.

Miguel Lara, a former general manager for the independent Venezuelan agency that collected data on electricity usage, said that problems restoring full power could drag on for weeks. The worst-case scenario, he said, is an extended phase of restoration where power is restored in one place but then goes off hours later, or is restored in one city while another stays dark.

In the process of restoring the system, there have been multiple fires, including one at what was previously the country's largest transformer. Srivastava said fires at substations and transformers indicate engineers are using electrical loads higher than the equipment's rated capacity. Some engineers like Aguilar say that could point to a lack of expertise in how to put the system back together.

The country's heavy reliance on the Guri Dam could also complicate efforts, Srivastava said, because restoration depends on having access to multiple power sources. Dependence on one major power source is likely to slow down the recovery.  Soldiers are continuing to block access to the Guri Dam and adjacent power stations.

Venezuela Power Outage Drags On

Venezuela's government has ordered schools and businesses to remain closed as a power outage goes into its fifth day. The opposition says at least 17 people have reportedly died as a result of the blackout.   Each hour that passes without power in Venezuela brings more havoc and stress to a country already on edge.

Pro-government motorcycle gangs, known here as "colectivos", roam the dark streets enforcing order at gunpoint while there were sporadic episodes of looting amid the desperation.

Many parts of the country are still cut off and even when the electricity returns, it is often patchy and only lasts for a few hours before dropping out once again.

Without internet, mobile phones, banks, credit-card machines, electric cookers or air-conditioning, ordinary life is bordering on the unbearable for many people, especially in low income communities.

Little wonder some are ready to snap. "I have a two-year-old son. Yesterday evening there was nothing to eat," a visibly angry woman named Majorie told the BBC.  A shop near her home was looted, she says, and a neighbor gave her some boiled rice.  When he asks me for food, what am I going to give him? I can put up with the hunger. As adults, all we need is a glass of water. But what's a child supposed to do?"

During the interview, a group of mothers, equally desperate and distressed, start to bang on the doors of the shuttered supermarket, demanding to be let in.  Inside, the cash registers and card machines were not working and the staff were only accepting U.S. dollars in payment.

"We don't use dollars in this country, we don't earn in dollars, we earn in Bolivars", said Majorie, her voice rising once more. "We don't want to loot stores, we don't want to cause problems. What we want is food. We're hungry."

For others, the issue is even more grave than a chronic lack of food. A lab technician at a children's hospital talked about the impact of the blackout on patients.

"On Thursday, no-one had any information as to why the emergency generators didn't start, what was happening or why everything was still dark in the intensive care unit." A colleague told her that the children in that ward were being kept alive by manual respiration.

"As we walked through the ward, we saw a mother crying and we found out that one of the babies in intermediate care had died", according to the technician.  Despite the best efforts of the medical staff, one of the newborns in the neonatal ward died later that first night, too.  A generator was eventually delivered to the hospital, but in a sign of the chaos reigning during the blackout, it was delivered not by health or government officials but by the feared colectivos.

And it is not just food security and healthcare which are falling apart, even laying someone to rest has become almost impossible.

María Errazo's son was killed in the poor neighborhood where she lives on Thursday, when the power outage first hit. Since then, his body has been held at the Bello Monte morgue.

With most government offices closed since Thursday, Maria has not been able to get hold of the required paperwork to view her son's body or to have it released for burial.  But even if Maria could bring her slain son home, she could not afford the funeral. Venezuela's rampant hyperinflation has wiped out the value of the little savings in Bolivars that she has.

"We don't have the money," she says stoically of not being able to lay her son to rest. Banks are closed and there is hardly any mobile phone coverage. "I can't even make calls to try to find a solution," she says.

Venezuela Has a New President to Join the Shadow Supreme Court

"I swear to formally assume the national executive powers as acting president," Juan Guaidó told cheering crowds of protesters in Venezuela this week.  Juan Guaidó's election as leader of the opposition-held National Assembly has re-energized opposition to Nicolás Maduro in a country crippled by a severe economic crisis.

Guaidó was relatively unknown until picked as the head of the legislative body just three weeks ago.   He was born one of seven children in the port city of La Guaira in the state of Vargas.  Guaidó was 15 years old when Nicolás Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chávez, came to power in 1999.

That same year heavy rains caused flash floods which swept through La Guaira, killing tens of thousands of people and destroying large swathes of the city.  Guaidó and his family survived the Vargas tragedy, although people close to him reportedly say the government's ineffective response to the tragedy drove him into politics.

As a student, Guaidó protested against what he saw as Chavez's efforts to control the media when he did not renew the license of independent broadcaster Radio Caracas Television.  Guaidó was a founding member of centrist political party Popular Will in 2009, along with former opposition leader Leopoldo López.

López, now under house arrest, reportedly has acted as a mentor to him.  Opposition parties picked Guaidó to lead the National Assembly as a compromise candidate, and he took up his post on January 5th.

State security forces arrested Guaidó just days after his election-- but he was released from detention hours later.  Since then, Guaidó's youth and background from one of Venezuela's poorest states has made it difficult for the government to paint him as a member of the country's elite.

In his first major speech to protesters, Guaidó dismissed Maduro as a "usurper" but  gave little indication of his vision for Venezuela.  Reports however suggest he supports the Popular Will party's policies of a market economy and greater powers for regional governments.  Guaidó has called on the army to withdraw their support for Maduro, promising an amnesty for those soldiers who do so.   The U.S. and most of Latin American has now recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, while Russian and China still back Maduro. 

In the meantime, the Maduro-installed Supreme Court of Venezuela froze Guaidó's bank accounts and revoked his passport.  The Supreme Tribunal of Justice of Venezuela in exile (the legitimate Supreme Court operating out of Panama) has declared Guaidó the interim president of Venezuela, after Maduro was sentenced to 18 years in prison for corruption.    Keep your eyes on Venezuela-- things are finally starting to happen.

Safety, Retirement, Families Long Gone in Caracas

Every time you think living in Venezuela can't get worse, there comes another heartbreaking story like this one from the BBC. 

87-year-old isabel Dubuc used to sing in a choir, but she doesn't feel safe going out now.  "Every day we are more and more like prisoners," she says.  With the economic crisis, crime has soared. Caracas is now considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

While the government has stopped publishing crime statistics, the Venezuelan Violence Observatory put the number of violent deaths in the country in 2016 at 28,479. That's 92 per 100,000 people.  Big highways that in other capitals would be buzzing at 8pm or 9pm are deserted. Street lighting is intermittent.  People finish work and want to get home.  "We don't go anywhere," says Caris, the eldest of Isabel's four children.   "We only go out to shop, to go to the doctor or to go to work, but there's nothing fun to do," she says.

Caris herself is 66 years old. For 31 years, she worked as an air-traffic controller. She retired a decade ago but realised she had to keep earning money. She studied to become an English teacher and now she works 52 hours a week.  Even with a pension, the money didn't stretch. She enjoys teaching but it's not the retirement she had hoped for.

Two of Caris's children have gone to live in Argentina and Chile. She has one son here in Venezuela who lives at home. Caris's siblings also live abroad - the last one left just a few months ago. They are in the UK and the US.

"We used to have everything - a united family, that has slowly disintegrated."

Dictator Maduro Engineers Takeover of Venezuelan Congress

Dictator Nicholas Maduro tightened his grip even further on Venezuela by engineering a Supreme Court takeover of the functions of Congress.

The Maduro-controlled Supreme Court had already annulled most National Assembly decisions since the opposition won a legislative majority in late 2015 due to voter fury over an unprecedented economic crisis.  But late on Wednesday, the court issued a new ruling declaring that it was assuming complete control of the legislature’s role in the Venezuelan government.

“As long as the situation of contempt in the National Assembly continues, this constitutional chamber guarantees congressional functions will be exercised by this chamber or another chosen organ,” the court said in its decision.

The contempt charge stems from vote-buying accusations against three lawmakers from southern Amazonas state.  Although the three legislators are no longer members of congress, the supreme court continues to use their case as an excuse to usurp the powers of congress, saying that parliamentary leaders did not handle their case properly.

The Venezuelan supreme court has been stacked over the years with political allies and supporters of Maduro.  Critics of Maduro called the "contempt" charge an excuse for the president to consolidate unchecked power over the country and muzzle the opposition-- as his popularity plummets amid widespread disgust over a severe recession, hyperinflation and acute shortages of food and medicine.

The controversial Supreme Court ruling was instigated by Maduro's desire to obtain approval for oil joint ventures without the constitutionally-required vote by congress.  Maduro is now desperately attempting to raise funds for bond payments and a reeling economy, by selling stakes in its oil fields to foreign countries.  Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA recently offered Russia’s Rosneft a stake in the Petrolia oil joint venture.

Spooked by the opposition’s warning that investment deals bypassing Congress would not be valid, foreign oil companies are closely following the developments and refusing to comment on the political situation.

The opposition promised new street protests-- but that tactic has failed in the past despite marches that have drawn hundreds of thousands of protesters.

Last year, the opposition pushed for a referendum to recall Maduro and force a new presidential election, but Maduro officials thwarted those efforts.  In addition, the Maduro government also postponed local electoral races that were supposed to have been held in 2016.

The Dictator Who Stole Christmas

As staggering inflation ate away at Venezuelan salaries at the height of the Christmas season, Venezuela's president-for-life Nicholas Maduro enforced a government-mandated Black Friday, where store owners were ordered to reduce prices by up to 50% under the threat of being sent to jail if they didn’t.

This sort of December crackdown on businesses has become customary since a few years ago when the Venezuelan dictator ordered appliance chain stores to lower their prices so Venezuelans could shop at discounts-- which forced many businesses into bankruptcy.

But Maduro's Scrooge patrol really grabbed headlines on December 10, when Willia Contreras (head of Maduro's price control authority) and a band of National Guards seized 3.8 million toys from the Kreisel toy distributing company. A family-run business that has been selling toys in Venezuela for well over 20 years. Contreras’s toy police confiscated dolls, board games, robots and the like, now to be distributed and sold at “fair prices” by the government distribution network.

Following the crackdown on toys, Maduro turned his attention EPK, one of the country's leading purveyor of children’s clothing.  That firm was forced to subject its inventory to discounts of up to 70 percent.

The state media network came up with a clever way to wish Venezuelans a happy holiday, and replace Christmas with something else-- proclaiming, “¡Feliz Chavidad!”

The Scoop on Poop in Venezeula

First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities – toilet paper.  Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the government says it will import 50 million rolls to boost supplies.

That was little comfort to consumers struggling to find toilet paper.  "This is the last straw," said Manuel Fagundes, a shopper hunting for tissue in Caracas. "I'm 71 years old and this is the first time I've seen this."

One supermarket visited by reporters in the capital was out of toilet paper. Another had just received a fresh batch, and it quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.  "I've been looking for it for two weeks," said Cristina Ramos. "I was told that they had some here and now I'm in line."

Economists say Venezuela's shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government's controls on foreign currency.  "State-controlled prices – prices that are set below market-clearing price – always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union," said Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University.

Nicolas Maduro who was selected by the dying Hugo Chávez to carry on his "Bolivarian revolution", claims that anti-government forces, including the private sector, are causing the shortages in an effort to destabilise the country.  The government this week announced it also would import 760,000 tonnes of food in addition to the 50 million rolls of toilet paper.

Commerce minister Alejandro Fleming blamed the shortage of toilet tissue on "excessive demand" built up as a result of "a media campaign that has been generated to disrupt the country".  "The revolution will bring the country the equivalent of 50 million rolls of toilet paper," he said. "We are going to saturate the market so that our people calm down."

 

What's Next In Venezuela?

In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez leaves behind a political movement firmly in control of a badly deteriorated state where institutions such as the police, courts and prosecutor's offices have been converted into tools of political persecution and where most media are firmly controlled by the government.

Chavez rose to fame by launching a failed 1992 coup, but over the years, his ego led to a failure to groom a successor.  Within 24 hours of Chavez's death, there were signs of an emerging split within the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela. While Foreign Minister Elías Jaua said Mr. Maduro would become interim president, some members of the National Assembly called for legislative head Diosdado Cabello to assume the post, citing Venezuelan law.

Supreme Court chief Luisa Estella Morales did little to clear up matters, telling Venezuelans to "have faith in your institutions" but not specifying how officials would move forward with the transition of power.  Analysts reported a fierce power struggle was under way this week  between Maduro, a one-time bus driver and union organizer, and Cabello, seen as well-connected and ruthless.

Maduro

Many have longed believe that power will swing to Chavez-annointed Maduro, since he has also spent the last several months courting the loyalty of army commanders.  (In true Chavez fashion, the constitution is no matter when it comes to getting grabbing power in this country-- it was announced late yesterday that Maduro will be sworn in as interim leader.)  It now seems clear that the government candidate in a snap election will be Maduro, who was the country's foreign minister for seven years and helped cultivate closer relations with nations opposed to U.S. interests.

There is a widely held belief that Maduro lacks the political heft to follow in Chavez's footsteps.  Because of this, political analysts believe that he is more inclined to go on the attack as the presidential campaign begins in earnest.  A sign of such aggressive tactics by Maduro was his move last week to haul into court last week a leading opposition politician, Leopoldo Lopez, to face charges of influence peddling in a 15-year-old case that his lawyers say has passed the statute of limitations.

Lopez, who calls the charges ludicrous, ran campaign logistics for opposition leader Henrique Capriles in the October election after the government barred Lopez from running for office.  Lopez expects to be burdened by considerable legal distractions as he helps try to dislodge the Chavistas from power in upcoming elections to pick Chavez's successor.

Opposition leader Capriles

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential election is widely expected to be the opposition's candidate to oppose Maduro.  Capriles, a lean and sports-loving lawyer who is a regular at Caracas half-marathons, won a creditable 44 percent of the vote last year, the opposition's best showing against Chavez in a presidential vote.

Aware of his single status, women screamed at him like a pop star at every campaign stop, many shouting "marry me!" Polls at the time showed him more popular than any of the president's allies.  During the October election campaign, government supporters threw racist and homophobic taunts at Capriles, who has Jewish roots and lost great-grandparents in the Treblinka concentration camp in German-occupied Poland during World War Two.

Though he has cultivated a man-on-the-street image, dressing and talking simply, Capriles does come from a wealthy family, and class prejudices are sure to figure in the campaign.

Either way the election goes, the eventual winner will inherit an economy that has grown quickly over the past decade thanks largely to high oil prices and ramped up government spending.

A recent currency devaluation of the Bolivar to 6.3 per dollar from 4.3 sent shock waves through the economy., putting renewed pressure on prices in a country where inflation is running at about 20%.  The devaluation also did little to stop growing shortages of basics like flour and meat, which are scarce due to a lack of dollars.

Venezuela's industrial base has largely been hollowed out by widespread nationalizations under Chavez, leaving the country increasingly dependent on imports. It also has a growing foreign debt load, at about $90 billion.

Hugo Chavez, In So Many Words

On Halloween: "What they have implanted here, which is really a 'gringo' custom, is terrorism. They disguise children as witches and wizards, that is contrary to our culture,"

"I have always said that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet."

“Mr. Obama ... You are a clown, a clown. Leave us in peace … Go after your votes by fulfilling that which you promised your people."

On Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice:  “Remember, little girl, I’m like the thorn tree that flowers on the plain.  Don’t mess with me, Condoleezza. Don’t mess with me, girl.”

On cancer in Latin America:  "Would it be so strange that they've invented technology to spread cancer and we won't know about it for 50 years?"

On nuclear power in Iran:  "That hill will open up and a big atomic bomb will come out. The imperialist spokesmen say Ahmadinejad and I are going into the basement now to set our sights on Washington and launch cannons and missiles… It’s laughable.”

"Let's save the human race, let's finish off the U.S. empire."

On the Jewish people:  "The world is for all of us, then, but it so happens that a minority, the descendants of the same ones that crucified Christ, has taken possession of  all of the wealth of the world."

Chavez Checks Out

Lefty left

Venezuelan President-for-life Hugo Chavez is dead at the age of 58 after a two-year bout with cancer.   Vice President Nicolas Maduro, surrounded by other government officials, announced the death in a national television broadcast this afternoon. He said Chavez died at 4:25 p.m. local time.  The Venezuelan constitution specifies that the speaker of the National Assembly, currently Diosdado Cabello, should assume the interim presidency-- but Maduro appears to be usurping the position of acting president, as wished by Chavez himself.

Chavez used his country's vast oil wealth to launch social programs that included state-run food markets, new public housing, free health clinics and education programs. Poverty declined during Chavez's presidency amid a historic boom in oil earnings, but he failed to use the windfall of hundreds of billions of dollars to develop the country's economy and help the poor raise their standard of living in real terms.  Inflation soared and the homicide rate rose to among the highest in the world. 

Chavez ruled through force of personality and showed disdain for democratic rules. He concentrated power in his hands through the use of allies who dominated the congress and loyal judges who controlled the Supreme Court.  Hugo insisted that Venezuela remained a vibrant democracy and denied trying to restrict free speech-- but one by one, outspoken opponents faced criminal charges,  were driven bankrupt or forced into exile.  Dissenting media outlets were either taken over by the government or run out of business.  Chavez also presided over a sustained attack on private ownership, implementing government seizures of companies and farmland,

Over time, Chavez also engaged in constitutional shenanigans which resulted in him being able to run for office multiple times beyond the originally-mandated two-term limit.  Two months after his re-election last October (in yet another sham election), Chavez returned to Cuba again for cancer surgery, blowing a kiss to his country as he boarded the plane. He was never seen again in public.

Hugo's Hidden Homecoming Harbinger of Hardship Ahead

Hugo Chavez’s return to Venezuela after a 10-week absence while undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba may may only service to contribute to pressure that an election be called to choose his successor.  As a result of the devaluation ordered by Chavez's stand-in, Venezuelans' real income may decline by 20% and inflation could rise 30% this year -- economic fallout that will especially hurt the poor, since they spend a higher portion of their income on imported food.

And Chavez's health may not necessarily be on a positive trend-- Hugo arrived in the middle of the night and was immediately admitted to a military hospital in the poor San Martin barrio in west Caracas. There were no photos of his arrival-- insiders say that the manner of his arrival (as opposed to a celebratory welcome at the airport) was especially revealing.

Chavez's return, despite the appearance that he has not fully recovered from surgery, may have been a response to increasing pressure from opposition groups. On Monday, students spent a fifth day at the Cuban Embassy in Caracas in protests originally called over Chavez’s absence.

Diplomat's Daughter Shot Dead In Venezuela

The 19-year-old daughter of a Chilean diplomat in Venezuela has been killed by police at an unmarked road checkpoint.  Chilean Consul Fernando Berendique, speaking from the western city of Maracaibo, said his daughter Karen was shot early Saturday while riding with her brother and another young man to see some friends.

The trio ignored a command to stop at the checkpoint, fearing the officers might be robbers. Venezuelans have long been distrustful of the police--  violent crime is widespread in Venezuela,  which has one of the highest murder rates in Latin America.  Government officials have estimated that police are complicit in 20 percent of all kidnappings and murders.

The Prosecutor General's Office says in a statement that eleven police officers are under investigation for their roles in the death.  According to that statement, the victim after suffering three bullet wounds, including one to the head.  Judicial police chief Jose Humberto Ramirez condemns the shooting and what he calls "bad police practices."

Chavez Now Seizing Private Homes

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced that his government will expropriate homes on the Caribbean resort islands of Los Roques, saying the structures were built on plots bought in shadowy business deals.

Chavez has nationalized hundreds of privately owned companies since taking office in 1999, but this is the first time he has targeted private homes for expropriation. Chavez offered no details regarding the planned seizures of private homes and quaint inns, known in Spanish as "posadas."

The president said the government would build state-run inns on Los Roques, which is an archipelago of tiny islands offering snorkeling and scuba diving along numerous coral reefs and deserted white-sand beaches.

Chavez's government has nationalized hundreds of businesses including cement makers, retail stores and steel mills as part of his drive to establish a socialist economic model in Venezuela. Authorities have also seized large swaths of agricultural land deemed idle by officials, turning parcels over to poor peasants.

Chavez Is Watching Too Much Fox News

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered the central bank to repatriate $11 billion of gold reserves held in developed nations’ institutions such as the Bank of England as prices for the metal rise to a record.

Venezuela, which holds 211 tons of its 365 tons of gold reserves in U.S., European, Canadian and Swiss banks, will progressively return the bars to its central bank’s vault. “We’ve held 99 tons of gold at the Bank of England since 1980. I agree with bringing that home,” Chavez said yesterday on state television. “It’s a healthy decision.”

Many feel that this latest move to repatriate reserves is timed to occur before arbitration case rulings are handed down, in order to avoid a so-called attachment risk that could freeze international assets, according to Boris Segura, a New York-based strategist at Nomura Securities. The repatriation and diversification of reserves may also cloud transparency of government holdings, which would be a negative for the country’s credit, he said.

Of 17 arbitration cases pending against Venezuela in the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, at least three of them are over mining ventures, including Crystallex International Corp. (KRY), a Canadian gold producer whose Las Cristinas mine was taken over by the government in February. “Today’s announcement is not surprising,” Doug Belander, Gold Reserve president, said yesterday in an interview. “We believe that their objective all along was to take over the entire industry.”

Tomb Raider: Venezuela Edition

Venezuela has exhumed the remains of 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar and will test them to see if he was poisoned by enemies in Colombia.  President Hugo Chavez rejects the traditional account that Bolivar, a brilliant Venezuelan military tactician who freed much of South America from centuries of Spanish rule, died of tuberculosis in Colombia in 1830.

He insists Bolivar was murdered by Colombian general Francisco de Paula Santander and Venezuela's newly inaugurated state forensics laboratory is taking as its first case the death of the hero some call Latin America's George Washington.  Analysts have warned that revisiting the case could put more pressure on strained ties between the neighbors.

Seized By Fear And Foolishness

Venezuela will nationalize a fleet of oil rigs belonging to U.S. company Helmerich and Payne, the latest takeover in a push to socialism as President Hugo Chavez  struggles with lower oil output and a recession.  In recent years, Chavez has also taken over assets in telecommunications, power, steel and banking.

The 11 drilling rigs have been idled for months following a dispute over $49 million already owed by Venezuela to the Oklahoma-based company.  Venezuelan oil minister Rafael Ramirez said the rigs were being nationalized to bring them back into production.  He added that companies who refused to put their rigs into production were part of a plan to weaken Chavez's government,

Chavez has kept pressure up on the private sector in recent months, blaming a "parasitic bourgeoisie" for Venezuela's recession and 30% inflation rate.  He has also threatened to nationalize Polar, the nation's top brewer and food processor. The government has also seized a bank belonging to an owner of the leading opposition TV station and issued an arrest warrant for his partner, who is now on the run.

Chavez Feeds Off Power; Starves His Country In The Process

Mountains of rotting food found at a government warehouse, soaring prices and soldiers raiding wholesalers accused of hoarding: Food supply is the latest battle in President Hugo Chavez's socialist revolution.

Venezuelan army soldiers swept through the working class, pro-Chavez neighborhood of Catia in Caracas last week, seizing 120 tons of rice along with coffee and powdered milk that officials said was to be sold above regulated prices.  "The battle for food is a matter of national security," said a red-shirted official from the Food Ministry, resting his arm on a pallet laden with bags of coffee.

Chavez supporters are grateful for a network of cheap state-run supermarkets and they say the raids will slow massive inflation.  Critics accuse him of steering the country toward a communist dictatorship and say he is destroying the private sector. They point to 80,000 tons of rotting food found in warehouses belonging to the government as evidence the state is a poor and corrupt administrator.

Much of the wasted food, including powdered milk and meat, was found last month in the buildup to legislative elections in September. The scandal is humiliating for Chavez, who accuses wealthy elites of fueling inflation and causing shortages of products  such as meat, sugar and milk by hoarding food.

A string of expropriations and buyouts of companies during the last couple of years has left the Chavez government now controlling between 20 percent and 30 percent of the distribution of staple foods.  Chavez  rushed to give public support to Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, who as the boss of PDVSA  is also responsible for food unit PDVAL, over the case of the rotting food.  To further fight off criticism over the food scandal, Chavez revived threats to take over the country's largest private food processor, miller and brewer, Polar.

Chavez All A-Twitter

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president well known for his marathon TV addresses to the nation, has now taken to Twitter to share his thoughts.

With his popularity dented by a recession and soaring inflation, the Venezuelan leader has often been outmaneuvered by opponents more active on the web than his supporters. Public Works Minister Diosdado Cabello, announced on Monday that Chavez supporters planned to "storm" social networking sites.

After he promised to "let loose" on Tuesday, a Spanish-language tweet duly appeared on his new chavezcandanga account 14 minutes after midnight:

Hey how's it going? I appeared like I said I would: at midnight. I'm off to Brazil. And very happy to work for Venezuela. We will be victorious!!

"The opposition thinks it owns the social networking sites - they think Twitter and Facebook belong to them," Minister Cabello said. "We're fighting and there are seven million of us who will have Twitter," he declared, referring to the membership claimed by Chavez's United Socialist Party.

By the next day, the leftist leader had only 29,000 followers on Twitter.

Twitter has seen an explosive rise in usage in Venezuela to more than 200,000 active accounts. With growth of more than 1,000% in 2009, Venezuela now has one of the highest rates per capita of users of Twitter in Latin America.

Ofensa A La Prensa

The owner of Venezuela's only remaining TV channel that takes a critical line against President Hugo Chavez was recently arrested, raising concerns the government is carrying out a widening crackdown aimed at silencing opponents.

Guillermo Zuloaga, owner of Globovision, was arrested on a warrant for remarks that were deemed "offensive" to the president, Attorney General Luisa Ortega said.

Zuloaga was detained by military intelligence agents as he was preparing to fly on his private plane with his wife to the Caribbean island of Bonaire, where they planned to vacation.

The arrest was seen by many as the culmination of a long campaign to rein in a channel that Chavez believes has been undermining his government. Globovision has been the only stridently anti-Chavez channel left on the air since another opposition-aligned channel, RCTV, was forced off cable and satellite TV in January. RCTV was booted off free TV in 2007.

Ortega said prosecutors are investigating Zuloaga for remarks he made during a recent Inter American Press Association meeting on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, where he joined other media executives in criticizing Chavez's government for limiting free speech and cracking down on critics.

Zuloaga is alleged to have said that Venezuela's government is cracking down on its critics and commenting that it was a shame that a short-lived 2002 coup against Chavez failed. Zuloaga has not yet publicly responded to the accusations.