By Adriaan van Ginkel
Yesterday
I had to travel to Caracas. There is one main freeway
entrance, the Valle-Coche, accessed from the so-called Tazón or “cup” which
swoops you down in a vertiginous ride known as one of the steepest and most
dangerous freeways in the world. If the freeway is not clogged with hundreds of
lorries and motorists who have no clue what they are doing (which it usually is)
it shouldn’t take you too much to reach the center of Caracas. If not, make
sure you have a bottle of mineral water handy, a working cell phone and airco,
and lots of patience.
There
are studies – non-official ones, as the Chavist
government lives in an eternal denial of anything negative to its image – that
indicate that the actual infrastructure of the Venezuelan capital is apt for
only one-third of the existing motor park. In other words, there are three
times too many cars and lorries for the existing roads. Apparently the
government has quietly acknowledged, after so many lost years and traffic
disasters, that the seventies-era infrastructure of Caracas needs a serious
overhaul. Big revolutionary works are under way now at several points on the
main freeway, the Francisco Fajardo Ave., which goes through the city from east
to west and cuts it in two. Broadening of the freeway plus new fly-overs and by-passes
have in fact made it easier for the motorist to reach his destination in a city
that still hasn’t lost anything of its chaotic charm. Kudos for the government
of president Maduro, then!
But
yesterday something bad had happened on that section entering
Caracas, smack right in front of the main army HQ at Fuerte Tiuna. The whole access
was shut off by police. A car was attacked and repeatedly riddled with bullets
by motorized criminals, causing the death of one person inside, a 31-year-old
woman who was seven months pregnant, and wounding her husband and her
father-in-law. Apparently the car didn’t heed the warnings to stop for a
funeral cortege that was anarchically blocking the whole freeway, and continued
on its doomed course. The motorized hoodlums took this “sign of disrespect”
seriously and dealt with it using the hapless car for target practice. The
whole incident caused me and scores of others to take the southern alternate
entrance through Baruta, a country road with only two canals and lots of steep
and curvy parts. And from there enter Caracas from the opposite direction. I
was hours and hours late for my appointment. And it was so hot!
If
you happen to be surprised at my story, let me tell you
that this is not unusual at all. Again, non-official numbers indicate that the
weekly death toll through violence in Caracas alone, which normally hovers
around 30, has touched the 70 mark these last weeks. Official numbers are never
released because according to a spokeswoman of the justice ministry years ago,
“they don’t exist”. So we have to rely on the reporting work of independent
journalists who roam around the municipal morgues every Monday and make a body
count. The reported numbers are no fantasy at all, since I had to look at many
lifeless bodies on the streets and the roads, shot for any reason imaginable,
and what to think of a verified report some days ago of a pair of criminals who
stole a motorbike from some hapless guy and then shot that guy in the back
because the bike wouldn’t start? Venezuela is rife with senseless,
disproportionate violence, in which anyone who makes someone else angry – a
look, a word or a gesture is enough - can start fearing for his or her life. Or
just have the bad luck to be at the wrong place in the wrong time. This is one
of the main factors for the growing apathy among Venezuelans, especially the
poor ones, who deliver the major number of corpses to this unholy feast of
daily massacre.
Despite
the Mad Max movie 
mood in the country, Venezuela can
claim to be one of the few Latin
America countries that haven’t shot a bullet in anger for a long time. More
than a century of peaceful coexistence among Latin and Caribbean neighbors has
prompted the Chavist government to repeatedly assert that Venezuela is a
country of peace, and constitutes a threat to no one. Looking at the current
state of the armed forces, and watching fat-bellied officers and scrawny
recruits on guard who do little else but texting, one is inclined to confirm
that. Last weekend, “anti-imperialistic” military maneuvers were held on orders
of Maduro. The toll of that weekend was one tank blown up by accident, another
one drowned in a river, plus one dead and three wounded. The howling laughter
of antichavists could be heard everywhere, of course. And although I am no fan
of laughing at such disasters, the Dad’s Army image of the Venezuelan army
really makes you ask: how can a country like this represent a threat to anyone
else? The mediocre Russian tanks and ordinance, which I suspect are left-overs
of the Soviet Afghanistan campaign, are a bigger threat to the own soldiers
than to anyone else. As it was duly proven last weekend.
mood in the country, Venezuela can
claim to be one of the few Latin
America countries that haven’t shot a bullet in anger for a long time. More
than a century of peaceful coexistence among Latin and Caribbean neighbors has
prompted the Chavist government to repeatedly assert that Venezuela is a
country of peace, and constitutes a threat to no one. Looking at the current
state of the armed forces, and watching fat-bellied officers and scrawny
recruits on guard who do little else but texting, one is inclined to confirm
that. Last weekend, “anti-imperialistic” military maneuvers were held on orders
of Maduro. The toll of that weekend was one tank blown up by accident, another
one drowned in a river, plus one dead and three wounded. The howling laughter
of antichavists could be heard everywhere, of course. And although I am no fan
of laughing at such disasters, the Dad’s Army image of the Venezuelan army
really makes you ask: how can a country like this represent a threat to anyone
else? The mediocre Russian tanks and ordinance, which I suspect are left-overs
of the Soviet Afghanistan campaign, are a bigger threat to the own soldiers
than to anyone else. As it was duly proven last weekend.
Remember what I wrote
in
my last blog about U.S. president Obama stating that Venezuela IS a threat?
Well, apart from the furious gringo-go-home campaign fired up by the Maduro
regime, anti-imperialistic maneuvers that I think shouldn’t ever have taken
place (read above why) and shows of solidarity from client countries in the
Caribbean and Latin America, plus a notable middle-finger from Raúl Castro
directed at the Evil Empire Up North, strange friendly sounds emerged from
Caracas. Summed up: Let’s be friends, Obama. Insults and accusations are packed
together with olive branches of peace and sent in a very strange-sounding
message to Washington D.C.. Remembering what really happened some weeks ago
will probably give an explanation for this strange, almost bi-polar attitude of
Maduro. The whole argument between
Venezuela and the U.S., which was simmering for years, exploded when the U.S.
government decided to block the visa and freeze the bank accounts of a number
of Venezuelan generals and other functionaries. And that hurt! This measure was
taken by Maduro c.s. as an aggression directed not at shady generals with
unaccounted dollars on a U.S. bank, but against the whole nation. And Obama’s
remark about the national threat was a welcome trigger for an all-out anti-U.S.
campaign that still goes on.
What
to make of Maduro’s strange forward, backward
barn dance? First of all, Maduro is
doing everything to stay in power. Never mind the fact that the country is rapidly
sinking into an economic and social swamp. His approval rates are abysmal – no
more than one in five Venezuelans still approve of him, and numbers are still
going down. Then, he needs the army to keep the restless population in check,
and for that he needs happy generals. These generals are not happy now because
their main source of income, the dollars from abroad, has dried up. The
pressure from the army HQ and barracks on the mustached president is growing to
solve this mess with Obama or else, bad things may happen to his regime. The
dispute with Guyana over oil drilling in disputed territory is another sign
that Maduro is adopting stances to keep the nationalistic factions within the army
happy. Under Chávez, Venezuela had de facto renounced its century-old claim on
the Essequibo, which it had lost four centuries ago at the hand of roving Dutch
seafarers and constitutes approx. 70% of that impoverished country. Interesting
fact: the Essequibo and its bordering sea are full of oil and natural gas. The
screaming of dismembering Guyana by grabbing that territory has come mainly
from the radical Venezuelan opposition, while Chávez just wanted a happy
neighbor in the east and ignored that claim. This Falklands-like dispute has
now taken a new turn as the Guyanese government has apparently decided to stop
living in poverty and finally exploit the oil in that territory. The expected
howling from the opposition at this “infringement of sovereignty” has
unexpectedly been joined by Maduro who half-heartedly sort of warned Guyana to
stop the drilling – or else?
Apart
from going against Chávez’ policy to leave Guyana alone
– a remarkable step - Maduro’s change of heart points in a very troubling
direction. If the Bolivarian government is joining the radical opposition’s
stance on the Essequibo (I personally find the claim as absurd as that of the
Falklands), then things are looking very bad for Maduro. It seems like he needs
friends and allies to ward off the gathering storm clouds above his head. The
queues in front of supermarkets and stores are multiplying and growing.
Scarcity is everywhere, and the normally noisy Venezuelans have grown silent.
Too silent, really. It’s like the calm before the storm.
And
I don’t think that giving children weapons to defend the
Revolution, as it has been suggested by a Chavist member of parliament last
week (see picture at the top), will make any difference to the outcome. I
foresee big trouble for Maduro and his team. If his barn dance to lift the
sanctions – in other words, unfreeze the generals’ assets in the U.S. – doesn’t
have the desired effects, then it might be a matter of time for the population,
tired of so much hardship and violence on the streets, to raise its voice. And
then, what will the army, the only factor that might keep Maduro in power, do?
© Adriaan van Ginkel 2015
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