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Tag: venezuela protests
Venezuela Factions Agree To ‘Exploratory Meeting’ Aimed At Ending Crisis

Venezuela Factions Agree To ‘Exploratory Meeting’ Aimed At Ending Crisis

By Jim Wyss, The Miami Herald

BOGOTA, Colombia — Venezuela’s coalition of opposition parties on Tuesday said it had agreed to an “exploratory meeting” with the government that might lead to formal talks aimed at ending the country’s two-month-long political crisis.

In a statement, Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, the executive director of the coalition known as the MUD, said his group had been informed that the government was willing to discuss their agenda and had agreed to mediation by a third party.

“In that context, we agree to … an exploratory meeting with the aim of establishing the conditions for a public dialogue with a date and hour to be determined,” Aveledo said.

The statement comes as foreign ministers of the Union of South American Nations, or Unasur, have been trying to bring both parties to the table. If the meeting does take place, it might help bring an end to anti-government protests that have left at least 39 dead on both sides of the political divide and paralyzed parts of the country.

On Monday, President Nicolas Maduro announced that he would be meeting with the MUD on Tuesday. But the opposition said that, while it favored dialogue, it needed guarantees to negotiate, including a fixed agenda, and that the meeting be mediated and televised. In prior days, the opposition had also called for the release of all “political prisoners” before sitting down at the table. It’s unclear if that condition still stands.

Since the protests began in earnest Feb. 12, the government has arrested three opposition mayors and Leopoldo Lopez, the head of the Voluntad Popular political party. More than 2,285 protesters have also been temporarily detained and 192 are still in jail, according to government figures.

While the MUD does represent an important portion of the opposition, it doesn’t speak for all of it. And it’s likely that some factions will not join the talks.

Antonio Ledezma, the mayor of metropolitan Caracas, told Union radio Tuesday that he was skeptical of the government’s intentions.

“For me, it’s one thing to engage in dialogue, and it’s another to surrender,” he said. “What does the government want? The surrender of the democratic alternative, or to open a path toward living in harmony?”

What began as student-led protests in early February to decry soaring crime and a failing economy evolved into a nationwide demonstration that has rattled the year-old Maduro administration. Maduro has accused the United States and other governments of using the protests in hopes of toppling his socialist government.

AFP Photo/Leo Ramirez

Venezuela Introduces Food ID In Face Of Shortages, Black Markets

Venezuela Introduces Food ID In Face Of Shortages, Black Markets

By Mery Mogollon and Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times

CARACAS, Venezuela — Grappling with scarcities of sugar, milk, cornmeal and other basic foods, the Venezuelan government Tuesday unveiled a new electronic identification system for shoppers that critics say is a modern version of a ration card. President Nicolas Maduro described it as a means of “safeguarding food sovereignty.”

The system will employ electronic fingerprint IDs similar to those used to identify Venezuelan voters to register shoppers who purchase goods at the state-run grocery chains Mercal, Bicentenario and PDVAL. Announcing the system last month, Maduro said it will assure food supplies for 84 percent of Venezuelans. He did not speak to the impact on the other 16 percent.

The purpose of the system, Maduro said, is to guard against the purchase of large quantities of food at cut-rate government prices to be marked up and resold on the black market, where some experts have estimated 40 percent of all subsidized food ends up.

It remains to be seen whether the system will halt the large volumes of low-priced food destined for Mercal markets that end up being sold in Colombian border cities, including Maicao and Cucuta. Venezuelan contraband food reportedly also is sold in Brazil and Cuba.

Although the government has made efforts in recent months to seal the border with Colombia to restrict food contraband from leaving Venezuela, the diversion of subsidized food by hoarders and black marketers is partly responsible for 26 percent of basic food items having been officially classified as scarce by Venezuela’s central bank.

Other reasons cited by analysts for food scarcities include the decline in recent years in farm production they say is caused by price controls that wipe out farmers’ profits. Another factor is the government’s cash shortage, caused in part by diminished oil revenues, which has restricted its ability to finance the imports on which Venezuelans depend for many basic food items, as well as toilet paper and disposable diapers.

Also Tuesday, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado called for a rally to protest her being ousted last month as a member of the National Assembly. The move by fellow legislators was upheld Monday night by the country’s supreme court.

The court found that Machado deserved disqualification for having appeared before the Organization of American States last month as a temporary member of the Panamanian delegation to protest alleged human rights violations against demonstrators in Venezuela.

Machado stepped in to lead widespread protests against scarcities, inflation and the high crime rate after the Feb. 18 arrest of former Caracas borough Mayor Leopoldo Lopez.

On Monday, the government officially raised the death toll from nearly two months of protests to 39, with hundreds more people injured. More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested in disturbances in several cities. Two mayors also have been jailed for their alleged failure to keep streets free of blockades erected by protesters.

Last week the government introduced a new “parallel” foreign exchange system that severely devalues the bolivar, the national currency. While the official exchange rate is still 6.3 bolivars to the dollar, the new system enabled those holding dollars to change them at nearly 52 bolivars to the dollar.

AFP Photo/Leo Ramirez

Marchers, Mayors Defy Venezuelan Government

Marchers, Mayors Defy Venezuelan Government

By Mery Mogollon and Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s government and opposition marchers were headed for a showdown Wednesday while several Caracas borough mayors defied a supreme court order that they clear barricades in parts of the capital where demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro have now entered a second month.

Opponents to Maduro have organized a march in downtown Caracas in observance of the Flag Day national holiday, even as the government has vowed to stop marchers because they have no permit. National guard members in riot gear were seen posted in several points along the proposed march route Wednesday.

Maria Corina Machado, an opposition deputy in the National Assembly and a leader of protests against high crime, inflation and scarcities, had called for students and other Maduro opponents to march from Plaza Venezuela to the Public Defender’s office to demand the release of students and others detained over the last month.

Meanwhile, supporters of the government have called for a competing march that also will end up in the same area as the protesters.

Police in riot gear blocked a march Monday by doctors and other health workers to protest the lack of medical supplies in city hospitals. On Tuesday, opposition groups in Valencia reported 12 were injured in clashes with police and in Merida at least 16 people were injured.

Also on Tuesday, the official death toll since protests began Feb 12 rose to 23 with the death of 24-year old Daniel Tinoco, a student in San Cristobal, the capital of Tachira state, the scene of some of the most violent protests.

Residents in the Chacao area of eastern Caracas reported a four-hour confrontation Tuesday night between protesters and national guardsmen, who fired several tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds. Chacao is an affluent neighborhood once governed by former mayor Leopoldo Lopez, who remains jailed after his arrest Feb. 18 on incitement to violence charges.

The supreme court order that local mayors clear streets of barricades came after the mayors issued a joint statement over the weekend vowing that although they disagreed with the closures, they would defy any government effort to “intervene” in their local governments because it wasn’t local police duty to “deal with public order problems.”

“We support and accompany the massive and peaceful protest that has been expressed overwhelmingly in the streets of the principal cities of the country,” said the statement signed by Carlos Ocariz, David Smolansky, Gerardo Blyde and Ramon Muchacho, all mayors of Caracas suburbs. “We are not going to attack human rights of those who demonstrate in this manner.”

In a related matter, Chrysler announced it was shuttering for 60 days its car assembly plant in central Carabobo state for lack of auto components, although it will continue to pay 1,150 employees. The announcement comes one month after Toyota announced it was scaling back in Venezuela for similar reasons.

AFP Photo/Leo Ramirez