Saturday, March 12, 2016

Birthers Video

Nicolás Maduro does not care about the Venezuelan people and the “humanitarian crisis” they face. The explanation of why this is so is very simple, claims this video, “”Maduro is not Venezuelan.”

Interestingly the video does not begin by claiming that Maduro was actually born in Colombia, but that, according to the Colombian Constitution, he “is Colombian by birth,” given that his mother is of that nationality, and that he supposedly resided for a time in the Colombian city of Cúcuta during his youth.

“Nobody knows for sure the actual birth place of Maduro,” it is claimed in the video, “because he has never provided his birth certificate. What is known for sure is that Maduro lived part of his youth in Cuba, where he was indoctrinated until he was turned into a soldier of Fidel.”


Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Vice-president Istúriz blames a conspiracy policy for low oil prices

Venezuelan Vice-president Aristóbilo Isturiz presented yesterday his annual report (Memoria y Cuenta) to the opposition dominated National Assembly.

Isturiz told the assembly that the recent collapse of oil prices is no accident, but part of a “conspiracy policy” of the United States against oil producing countries.

He also said that last year Venezuela had suffered from an “induced scarcity” of basic products, for which he blamed smuggling, the hoarding of subsidized products, an attack against the Venezuelan currency, and industrial sabotage.  

Venezuelan Birthers active again

Opposition leaders claiming that Nicolás Maduro was really born in Colombia and not in Venezuela, and therefore is unfit for the post of President, have been again active in recent months.

The claims include suggestions that the Venezuelan government has been conspiring to erase the evidence of the president’s alleged real birth place.

In March 2015, the National Assembly deputy Walter Márquez reported the findings of his investigations in Colombia. Márquez said that Maduro’s birth certificate in Venezuela was a forged document, and that the president had also lied about the birth place of his mother, claiming that she was born in Rubio (Venezuela), when she was really born in Cúcuta (Colombia).

This week, opposition leader Pablo Medina declared that the death certificate of Maduro’s mother is also a forgery. He also claimed that registration book, where he claims should be the “real” birth certificate of the president showing that he was born in Colombia, has mysteriously disappeared from its archive in La Candelaria, Caracas. 

Saturday, February 20, 2016

The Ungrateful Victims of Conspiracy Theories

The Agencia Venezolana de Noticias (AVN) has published an opinion piece by Hermán Mena Cifuentes titled “Lilian, la desagradecida.” Lilian Tintori is the wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo López.

According to Mena Cifuentes, Tintori and López are not the victims of a judicial process marred by irregularities, but instead are the conspiring victims of the “demon of ingratitude.” Tintori, says Mena Cifuentes, “has forgotten the favor Nicolas Maduro did to her by saving the life of her husband, and has become the protagonist of a smear campaign, which in the name of the Empire and its lackeys, has been put forth as part of a Fourth Generation War unleashed against the Bolivarian Revolution.”

In August 2015, president Maduro himself first proposed the idea that he had really saved Leopoldo López’s life by imprisoning him, because other opposition leaders such as Maria Corina Machado, Antonio Ledezma, and Henrique Capirles, were plotting with Colombian ex-president Álvaro Uribe to bring into the country “paramilitary operatives” to murder López. The aim of that conspiracy, according to Maduro, was to “stir chaos in the country.”

“Why did they want to kill Leopoldo López? To blame the Bolivarian Revolution,” Maduro said.

Tintori, for her part, recently declared that the government has been using drones to spy on her. “Last night a drone overflew my home and filmed through my windows. Violating my intimacy and my family’s,” wrote Tintori on Twitter on February 8.      

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Zika virus is an imperialist conspiracy

Epidemics are one of the favorite themes of conspiracy theories. Sometimes these theories become dangerous and can even hamper medial relief efforts. Several conspiracy theories about the origin and transmission of the Zika virus can be now found in the internet.

Here is a recent piece published in the web site Apporrea.org titled “Zika: a bomb against the South.” The main argument of the author is that the Zika virus is part of a plot to destroy the south’s coming “demographic bonus,” and thus to keep it as a dependent territory.

Because the link between the Zika virus and microcephalia has not been conclusively proven, and the symptoms from the virus rarely become more serious than those of a normal flu, the author concludes that the emergency around Zika is a scam created by the Empire. The author recommends “patriotic governments and sovereign people to not recognize the Zika humanitarian crisis that the imperialists want to impose.”

Aporrea however is an independent chavista web portal and not an official media of the Venezuelan government. No Venezuelan government official is known to have publically subscribed to this theory. 

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Naomi Campbell or Sean Penn behind Chávez’s death

Theories about Chávez’s death, usually claiming that he was murdered, have been common in Venezuela since his passing in 2013. Government officials have repeatedly claimed that the president was murdered by his enemies, possibly by “The Empire” through an unspecified form of “inoculated cancer.” Anti-government theorists prefer to blame Cuban secret services for the alleged murder.

Yesterday journalist Miguel Salazar, author of the popular column Las Verdades de Miguel, proposed a theory which rapidly became viral in social media: Salazar is suspicious of the motives actor Sean Penn and model Naomi Campbell might have had for their contacts with president Chávez.

Salazar suggests there is a need to look into “the ease with which potential ‘infiltrators’ (infiltrados) could get close to Chávez.” He has no evidence that Penn or Campbell could have poisoned Chavez, but reminds his readers that the actor recently made headlines by “handing over” Mexican drug capo El Chapo to the authorities. Whereas the Campbell becomes a suspect for Salazar because “she is not known to have had any other political public appearances different form her meeting with Chávez in 2007.” Salazar finishes his note with a comparison between Campbell and the WWI famous spy Mata Hari.

Here is the text in Spanish of part of Salazar’s column:

¿Quién mató a Chávez? Los detalles del veneno elegido eran fieles, así como los síntomas que provocaba una sobredosis, la facilidad para conseguirlos en el mercado, la dificultad para ser detectados y la eficacia de los antídotos. Los venenos de Agatha Christie. Cada día que pasa, son más confusos los pormenores que rodearon tanto la agonía como el deceso de Chávez. No en vano cobra fuerza que el controversia! líder venezolano fue asesinado a “cuenta gotas“. El caso se torna más complejo por la comparecencia no sólo de los dirigentes cubanos, sino también de los venezolanos que estuvieron cerca de su lecho de enfermo. Todavía no están claras las intenciones de presentar a Chávez vivito y coleando cuando estaba moribundo, a menos que los autores de esa estrategia anhelaran un milagro. Sólo así se explica la publicación de la foto de Chávez acostado leyendo el Granma, o la afirmación de que leía y rubricaba documentos y cantaba joropos. Habría que llegar al fondo del silencio de algunos funcionarios que tras su muerte (aunque no eran de sus afectos) terminaron ocupando otros importantes espacios.
¿Qué saben? ¿Quién te mató Chávez? Es una interrogante que toma fuerza en la conciencia popular no resignada a las explicaciones que hasta ahora se han dado. Como dato importante no se conoce el contenido de la autopsia, por lo que no se puede decir a ciencia exacta cuáles fueron las causas de su muerte. El destino seguido por el exjefe de Estado se ha convertido en un verdadero acertijo, a quien nadie en las altas esferas quiere referirse. Los detalles relacionados con su fallecimiento no pueden obviarse cuando se indaga sobre la facilidad que tenían los potenciales “infiltrados” de acercarse al hoy extinto exjefe de Estado. Por ejemplo, en esta larga historia que puede seducir a los lectores, resaltan los nombres de Sean Penn y Naomi Campbell, entre otros.
Sean Penn vio recientemente su nombre en los cintillos de prensa tras la captura del Chapo Guzmán. Los “malintencionados” repiten que el productor de cine entregó al capo de la droga mexicana. Mientras Campbell, por su volátil e iracundo carácter es conocida como el facsímil de Mike Tyson en el mundo del modelaje. Ambos estuvieron muy cercanos a Chávez antes de conocerse su “enfermedad“. Además de los reiterados escándalos judiciales en que se vio envuelta, a Naomi Campbell no se le conoce otra aparición política distinta a su encuentro con Chávez en 2007, que no sea el episodio cuando en agosto de 2011 declaró como testigo en la Corte Penal Internacional de La Haya en el proceso contra el expresidente de Liberia, Charles Taylor, por el comercio ilícito de Diamantes de Sangre durante la guerra civil de Sierra Leona. Si Arthur Conan Doyle, a través de Sherlock Holmes hubiera conocido a Naomi Campbell, seguramente habría dicho de ella: Es siempre la mujer… a sus ojos, ella eclipsa y domina a todo su sexo. Y no es que sintiera nada parecido al amor. El era la máquina de observar y razonar más perfecta que ha conocido el mundo; pero como amante no habría sabido qué hacer.
Ahora, ¿además de Sean Penn, cuál fue el interés que motivó a Naomi Campbell a acercarse a Chávez?, vale la interrogante porque no en vano la historia a menudo no es ajena a figuras como Margaretha Geertruida Zelle (Mata Hari), aquella famosa bailarina, actriz y espía, condenada a muerte por espionaje y ejecutada por fusilamiento en 1917, durante la 1 Guerra Mundial. Amo a los militares. Los he amado siempre y prefiero ser la amante de un oficial pobre que de un banquero rico, llegó a decir en el proceso donde fue condenada a muerte. En cuanto a Chávez, su deceso se va convirtiendo en un misterio con el paso de los años. El rumor popular indica que el crimen perfecto es aquel que nunca se descubre pero, según los criminólogos (fieles a sus principios de sabuesos): El crimen perfecto no existe, lo que existen son las investigaciones imperfectas. Por cierto, no olvidemos que el ex Presidente fue una esponja para atraer infiltrados.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Memoria y cuenta by government media

As has been commented during his annual report to the National Assembly President Maduro delivered a speech that departed little from the government’s conspiracy arguments about an “economic war” waged by the Empire and its local lackeys are responsible for Venezuela’s economic collapse.

During the President’s speech Telesur supported the arguments by repeatedly publishing via Twitter these three “infographics.”

In the first, Telesur informs about the “four main factors that have affected Venezuela” in 2015. These, mentioned by Maduro in his speech, are: 1, the collapse of oil prices and Venezuela’s source of income; 2, the absence of a productive apparatus capable of substituting the “incomes of oil income;” 3, “the absence of a national spirit of cooperation for the economic development of social peace by important sector of private business;” and 4, “the monstrous attack on the currency and the exchange system, and the imposition of mechanisms which damage (vulneración) the monetary life of the country.”






























The second infographic is about a term that is gaining ascendency in the government’s discourse: the “Non-Conventional War” (NCW), which includes the Economic war. “This type of war,” explains Telesur, “is an attempt to blame the government of President Maduro for an unbearable and degraded (level of) life as never seen before.”


Behind this non-conventional war are: 1, the international corporations, including multilateral capitalist agencies and governments of the international right-wing; 2, the government of the United States, as the head of an hegemonic world domination plan; 3, the imperial geopolitics of coercion (a directive of the NCW), materialized in the military commands of the USA; and 4, border countries that lend their territory and international political actions to the NCW against Venezuela.”

The third infographic is taken from the Venezuelan Central Bank’s (BCV) report published hours before the President’s speech. The BCV explains the causes of the economic crisis thus: “Apart from the collapse of the oil prices, Venezuela is suffering from a new generation Economic War which is promoted by web pages. These pages show an open political will for economic destabilization, together with external meddling [injerencista] in the national political activity. An attempt is made to impose a dynamic that destroys prices and stablishes savage rules typical of speculative capitalism.”


Sunday, December 27, 2015

The Venezuelan People hypnotized by a fascist plot

Venezuelans were tricked by a fascist plot into voting for the opposition in the December 6, 2015 legislative elections. This, according to an opinion article by Hernán Mena Cifuentes published by the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias, explains the recent counter-revolutionary electoral behavior of the people.

Mena Cifuentes summarizes the chavista argument of the people suffering by a media induced mass delusion: “hypnotized and confused by the most brutal plot,” and thus “abandoning the most luminous avenue constructed by Socialism, and following the dark an thorny path of fascism, which will throw the people, if it does not awake up soon from this imposed lethargic hypnosis, into the abyss of submission and domination suffered in the past (la Cuarta República.)” 


El pueblo venezolano cayó en la trampa tendida por el fascismo
  Hipnotizado y confundido por la más brutal de las conjuras de que haya sido víctima en toda su historia, la mayoría del pueblo venezolano abandonó el domingo las iluminadas alamedas construidas por el Socialismo para seguir por los atajos oscuros y escabrosos del fascismo, que lo arrojará, de no despertar a tiempo, del hipnótico letargo impuesto, a los abismos de sumisión y dominación que vivió durante la Cuarta República.

La victoria  fascista en las elecciones parlamentarias, “no fue un triunfo  de la oposición, sino una victoria de la contrarrevolución”, afirmó el Presidente Nicolás Maduro tras reconocer los resultados de los comicios, con la gallardía etica y moral que jamás tuvieron los enemigos de la Revolución Bolivariana para admitir las 18 victorias alcanzadas por el Chavismo en poco más de 16 años.

El triunfo fascista solo fue posible gracias al golpe de Estado continuado, acompañado de una implacable guerra psicológica, mediática, económica, financiera, política y diplomática desatada por EEUU, el imperio más poderos de la historia contra un proceso inédito y pacífico, magna obra de Chávez, que fue ejemplo para que otros países de la Patria Grande siguieran el mismo camino.

Pero, viendo cómo  escapaban de sus garras aquellas naciones a las que había sojuzgado y saqueado sus ingentes recursos naturales durante un siglo, EEUU, desencadenó esa conspiración, utilizando como peones a una caterva de apátridas que por una tajada del botín robado se prestan para traicionar la libertad que tanto sudor, lágrimas y sangre ha costado al pueblo hijo de Bolívar.

En complicidad con la oligarquía, políticos, prensa mercenaria, presidentes, ex presidentes y parlamentarios europeos y latinoamericanos, el Imperio, volcó todo su odio e ira contra Venezuela continuando con su obra predadora, lo que El Libertador pronosticó hace 186 años: “EEUU parecen destinados por la Providencia para plagar la América de miserias en nombre de la libertad.”

En el marco de esa aventura belicista desplegada contra Venezuela, el Imperio aplica el mismo guión, la misma y repetida agenda desestabilizadora que adopta contra aquellos países y sus gobernantes negados a convertirse en sus vasallos, ya sea enviando a sus marines a invadirlos o imponiendo sanguinarias dictaduras y  sumisas y obedientes pseudo democracias.

Lo hizo en Argentina, Chile,  El Salvador, Haití, República Dominicana, El Guatemala, El Salvador, Brasil, Bolivia y en otros países como las patrias de Martí, Sandino y Bolívar, hasta que en 1959 Fidel con la Revolución cubana dio el primer grito libertario, seguido en 1979 por el de Daniel Ortega con la Revolución Sandinista y el  lanzado por Chávez con su victoria electoral en 1998, punto de partida de la Revolución Bolivariana.

Fue esa gesta liderada por el comandante la que abrió nuevos  caminos a otros gobernantes progresistas y revolucionarios que siguiendo su ejemplo reconquistaron la dignidad y soberanía perdidas sus pueblos y se sumaran a la marcha de libertades que avanzó por la Patria Grande donde, bajo la inspiración de Chávez renació el sueño integrador de Bolívar.

Pero el Imperio no estaba dispuesto a tolerar semejante amenaza a sus sueños de conquista planetaria, aquella “piedra en el zapato” que era Chávez, que lo  desalojó de su feudo, liberando junto con sus hermanos mandatarios, a los pueblos que sojuzgó durante décadas y robó sus ingentes recursos naturales, base del progreso y desarrolló que alcanzó gracias a ese monumental saqueo.

Para impedirlo, los “think tanks” imperiales recomendaron  destruir la Revolución Bolivariana, responsable de esa situación que amenaza su mundial hegemonía  y fue así como comenzó la más brutal, salvaje e implacable conjura desencadenada contra la Revolución Bolivariana, solo comparable a la desatada contra sus hermanas, la Revolución Cubana y  nicaragüense

Un sabotaje petrolero que paralizó al país y robó la Navidad a los niños venezolanos; un boicot terrestre, marítimo y aéreo; el fugaz derrocamiento de Chávez por un golpe de Estado; invasión e infiltración de paramilitares, acciones golpistas como La Salida  con sus guarimbas y barricadas, que segó las vidas de 43 personas, fueron algunos de los actos desestabilizadores con que se pretendió destruir el inédito y pacífico proyecto revolucionario.

Y como fracasó toda la violencia, destrucción y muerte que  generaron durante más de 3 lustros, los agentes del Imperio, por instrucciones de su amo montaron la trampa desestabilizadora de la guerra económica que habría de dar por fin sus podridos frutos, y  colocándose  la máscara de la legalidad, participaron en los comicios del domingo en los que vencieron.

Ha sido una batalla más de la guerra que Washington encargó  a sus lacayos del eje Miami-Bogotá-Madrid-Caracas, que llenos los bolsillos con los miles de millones de dólares que les ha dado,  desataron una ofensiva de acaparamiento, desabastecimiento, ataque a la moneda, contrabando de extracción, infiltración de mercenarios que sembró el caos en la economía venezolana.

Largas e interminables “colas” frente a las gasolineras para llevar el combustible  a Colombia,  y frente  a los supermercados, donde escasean los alimentos de la cesta básica y cuanto  producto se coloca en los estantes, ya que desaparecen apenas llegan, adquiridos por hordas de “bachaqueros” que se los llevan al país vecino donde  los revenden obteniendo grandes ganancias.

De nada sirvieron las acciones del gobierno revolucionario para reducir la escasez provocada por el saqueo y el descomunal aumento de los precios,  como los significativos aumentos  salariales, los subsidios a los productos de primera necesidad y otras medidas, pues la guerra económica ha sido tan implacable que afectó la confianza y credibilidad del pueblo, que cayó en la trampa que tendió  el fascismo.

Apenas transcurrido las primeras horas de su “circunstancial victoria”, anuncian el desmantelamiento de todo el andamiaje jurídico, político y social levantado por la Revolución Bolivariana, derogar la Ley del Trabajo, de Precios justos, destituir al presidente, a ministros, despedir trabajadores y entregar de nuevo el petróleo, incluyendo la Faja Petrolífera del Orinoco a la voracidad de las transnacionales de EEUU, su amo.

Y no fueron más allá en sus demoníacas pretensiones, apenas se hicieron del poder, como ha sido su costumbre, de lanzar a las calles sus hordas de violentos para descargar contra los dirigentes revolucionarios y el pueblo todo el odio y la ira que alimenta su miseria humana, porque están conscientes de que no pueden hacerlo, porque hay una barrera impenetrable que se lo impide.

Es la Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana, que ha resistido desde hace años, imperturbable y firme, desde sus máximos jefes comandantes generales, demás oficiales y hasta el último soldado, todos los intentos de traición a su misión histórica de resguardar los valores de lealtad y libertad que han jurado defender como  herederos  legítimos del espiritu libertario que les imprimio Bolívar.

Un Ejército Forjador de Libertades, dispuesto a enfrentar cual intento, venga de donde venga, de destruir la Revolución Bolivariana, así sea del Imperio más poderoso de la historia, como lo hizo tras el golpe de Estado del 11-A, cuando, de la mano del pueblo rescató y devolvió a la presidencia a Chávez el eterno y supremo comandante.

Porque esos valientes militares son hijos del pueblo venezolano, poseedor de ese don magnifico  que lo hace resistente a todas las dificultades, como las miles que superaron Bolívar y Chávez cuando el  enemigo los creyó vencidos, y  se levantaron  y lucharon con mayor vigor que antes y vencieron finalmente, así lo hará ese pueblo indoblegable, téngalo el mundo por seguro que así será, mas temprano que tarde.
 
Hernán Mena Cifuentes 09/12/2015 12:22

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Mega conspiracy against Latin American progressive governments

End of the year infographics by Venezuelan funded TV channel Telesur. This new collection offers details of a broad conspiracy against the Latin American left. “In 2015 progressive governments of Latin America have suffered economic and political internal attacks which they have denounced as part of a regional destabilization strategy to put an end to the great social advances of the last 15 years,” explains Telesur.








Thursday, December 10, 2015

Chavismo explains defeat

(This is a re-post of my piece for the WOLA blog Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights)

Government and pro-government forces have been reacting to Sunday’s adverse elections results. Comments have ranged from the self-critical to the blaming of an “economic war” waged by the opposition.
The first reaction came from President Maduro himself. Right after the electoral authority’s announcement that the opposition had secured at least 99 elected deputies, Maduro appeared on television from the Miraflores palace recognizing defeat. He refrained however from directly congratulating the winners and instead accused his opponents of stepping up the “economic war” against the country in the weeks before the election. He also called for a “rebirth” of the Revolution and told his followers they needed to “go from the current state of difficulties caused by the economic war, to a renovation of hope.”
On Monday, the president met with his cabinet and said that the government was declaring itself in a state of “permanent dialogue with the people, with criticism and self-criticism and constructive action.” But he also suggested that the Revolution should go into a defensive/offensive phase. The defense should be for the safeguarding the social accomplishments of the Revolution against the attacks form the right. He explained, “they feel they have power and are already showing their fangs and threatening to persecute the people. The bourgeoisie is coming to impose a neo-liberal restoration.”  The offensive phase, on the other hand, should aim at the final defeat of the “economic war promoted by rightist sectors seeking to generate chaos and destabilization.”
In his televised address on Tuesday night, Maduro said he would block any amnesty law for political prisoners coming from the new parliament. He also asked for the resignation of all his cabinet ministers, as he announced the government will be going into a deep “restructuring.”  
Other government officials also reacted to the results. The PSUV governor of Falcón State, Stella Lugo, declared on Monday that “the government is going into a full state of revision.” She said however, that the revision should focus not in the government itself, but on how it had failed to clearly explain the effects of the economic war and who was behind it: “The opposition won those spaces because of the economic crisis. But we failed to explain to our people that the crisis had been planned by the right-wing. The people yesterday drained in the ballots their discontent as a result of the economic crisis.”
The head of the PSUV’s electoral campaign, Jorge Rodríguez, also accepted defeat in a press conference on Monday. He asked for an internal revision of the government, but also blamed the defeat on what he called an “atypical campaign.” “While we were in the street with ideas and proposals, the opposition side didn’t even put any candidates in the field. Instead they waged an economic and psychological war. As president Maduro said yesterday, the right-wing didn’t win; the economic and psychological war and all aggressions suffered by the Venezuelan people won the elections.” Rodríguez also turned to the accusation made in the past by the opposition againstChavismo and told the “right” not to take this electoral win as a blank check. “If the opposition uses this electoral result as an instrument to attack the institution, well, it will have to face us,” he warned.
The international campaign coordinator of the pro-government coalition, Roy Chaderton, said in a press conference in Caracas that the defeat could be explained because “a part of our people, seriously disgruntled by the sufferings progressively caused by the economic war waged by rightist sectors, succumbed to the promises of a false change, which is really a step backwards.”
One of the reelected Chavista deputies, Earle Herrera, said that the results were “an incentive to consolidate and defend the achievements of the first 17 years of the Bolivarian Revolution.” He also said that his reelection had not been an essay task because “the Venezuelan people have been the victims of sabotages of the oil industry, guarimbas, economic war, kidnaping attempts, and many more destabilization plots, which we have been fighting against alongside the people.”
The current president of the National Assembly and PSUV leader Diosdado Cabello said that the results were only a slight misstep for the revolution. But he also sent a message to thoseChavistas who had switch political loyalties and voted for the opposition: “if you claim to be aChavista, but you voted for the opposition, the facts will prove you wrong.” On Tuesday Cabello declared that the current AN will speed through the appointment of 12 judges of the Supreme Justice Tribunal, before the new opposition dominated assembly takes over in January 2016.
Independent Chavismo also quickly reacted to the elections results. The popular web forumAporrea.org, carried many articles which backed the government’s line of blaming the economic war for the defeat (read examples here and here). Some also blamed a lack of patriotism and loyalty by the people, asking the Lord to forgive the traitors, or claiming that the “the bonds of servitude are still stronger that those of patriotism.”
Many more pieces however expressed doubts about the government’s explanations of an economic war as the main culprit for the defeat and instead squarely blamed corruption and incompetence within the government (read examples here and here.)
The need for self-criticism and doubts about the conspiratorial explanations given by the government were the main points of several reactions from the independent left. Franklin González, a well-known social sciences professor of the Universidad Central de Venezuela and former ambassador to Poland, Uruguay, and Greece during the Chávez administration, wrote in a piece for Aporrea that the government needed to learn from the defeat and deal with the everyday problems of the people instead of blaming everything on a conspiracy. “If a person phones a government bank and spends an infinite time on hold, without ever reaching anyone to answer, this has little to do with imperialism and the CIA.”

Nicmer Evans, leader of the independent Chavista party Marea Socialista, said that the government should fully face its responsibility for the results. “I have heard some government officials blaming the people; instead I think the government has no one to blame but itself. To say that the economic war is completely responsible for this is quite frankly to be totally disconnected from reality.”