Venezuela. / Chavez / Moduro

That is why Venezuelans must insist on full nationalisation of the means of production - ie a Socialist economy where there is state control of the distribution of food, medicines etc. Secondly they must have democratic control of these, not a dictatorship. And especially not a cruel and vindictive dictatorship on any side.

grannypauline

"Hopefully the masses will insist on democratisation of the ruling party rather than a coup. "
---

What do you think this all about?

The Venezuelans are living under a dictatorship feted by the far left who defend Moduro and what with, American sanctions .

Have sanctions caused the dictator Moduro to torture/kill his people . Have sanctions caused Moduro to carry on with the corruption of Chavez ?

At least Chavez started out being a good person Moduro is another kettle of fish and from the start he made his aims loud and clear.

Yesterday did thankfully not see more bloodshed but using live ammunition against those trying to get aid into Venezuela will no doubt be a case of ' give it time '.

I don't defend any corruption or torture or murder, but I think the US and UK stances are disingenuous. They support Saudi thugs (and sell them arms) but condemn (rightly of course) intimidation and murder elsewhere. In Chile it was the copper firms they wanted to control and in Venezuela it's the oil.

Hopefully the masses will insist on democratisation of the ruling party rather than a coup. If the latter, I am predicting a savage reprisal, which will be in no-one's interests except the transnationals.

Grannypauline

'The middle class engineered a shortage of many goods -'

Meanwhile here and now in 2019 in Venezuela it is the corrupt Socialist Dictator Moduro that has caused a mass Exodus of reportedly 3 million Venezuelans because the country has suffered economic incompetence and corruption by Moduro and his Party.

Now in 2019 we know the government of Venezuela under the Dictator Moduro have committed torture, murder, corruption and cannot or will not provide basic food and health to his people.

Yesterday it is being reported 2 Venezuelans were shot dead and several injured on the border with Brazil in the eastern town of Kumarakapay after Moduro troops fired rubber bullets on the indigenous population because they are pro Juan Guido.

Moduro has closed the borders with Columbia and Brazil because they are happy to allow aid into Venezuela.

Today hopefully there will be no bloodshed in Venezuela but the aid is reportedly heading for the Brazil/Venezuela border and the ' people' are hoping to get aid through.

There are No excuses, nowhere to hide for those who lionised and feted Chavez and Moduro and make any excuse to defend especially Moduro.

Just seen the excellent film "Nae Pasaran" about Chile in 1973. The middle class engineered a shortage of many goods - bread, salt etc with long queues. The self employed lorry drivers struck too.

The CIA and the generals mounted a coup, during which the elected president, Allende, died. The day after the coup the shops were all full again. ONLY ....... a vicious repressive and vindictive program began which saw many people tortured, at least 3,00 killed and 1,000 still missing. Included in the death toll were around 300 children.

This is starting to look horribly like history repeating itself. I hold no brief for Maduro but let us not see the same outcome in Venezuela! US intervention and an army coup would be a disaster!

trisher

To get me to agree that US sanctions , not the corrupt dictaor Moduro, is the cause of Venezuelas problems can you provide details of when the US sanctions were against the Venezuelan Government not Venezuelan individuals who are considered corrupt ?

I do not mean links to 'threadreadercrap' , 'counterpunch', 'venezuelanalysis' or Alfred de Zayas whom the UN has not wholeheartedly got behind as he himself says.

I asked you :-

Then provide the dates / facts for us to debate but so far you have offered no links that give anything other than just say sanctions have caused the hardships in Venezuela by Moduro apologists .

When do you think the reports of shortages, human rights abuses started?

When do you believe the US Sanctions started stopping the import of Venezuelan oil?

If it was US sanctions that caused shortages how did the sanctions cause Moduro to kill his people, imprison his people, not use the resources of oil and Russian /Chinese financial help to buy food and medicines for his people etc. etc.

Agreed Monica no point at all ,as a what couple of posters want to do is blame the US for all ills.
If they don’t condemn Maduro then they try and deflect from a socialist regime being so awful.
Those of us who do condemn Madhuro and his corrupt friends don’t give two hoots whether he is a socialist or right wing, so your theory trisher (lots of posters promoting their own views on socialism) is blown out of the water.
He is a dictator and the buck stops with him.

Monica I have posted about the sanctions that have withheld medicines from Venezuela several times. POGS doesn't want to listen or condemns the sources. As for "Maduro supporters" there are none on this site. There are however lots of posters who are using Venezuela's terrible situation to promote their own views on socialism. They constantly fail to recognise any complexities or any contributory factors, preferring instead to make false accusations about other posters. It's not only wrong, it's insulting and it makes any discussion impossible.

Monica

Agreed.

I see the Venezuelan Congress has named a new transitional board of directors for state-owned oil firm PDVSA on Wednesday .

How that will work out I have no idea but if anything stops the destruction of the PDVSA and the corruption of Moduro and his cohorts involved in defrauding the Venezuelan people I hope it proves successful.

Of course the problem is China and Russia have backed Moduro with so much money the country is going to take years to get back on it's feet if Moduro is ousted. Then it depends on democracy and Guido doing the right thing and not falling into the trap of power and corruption themselves.

Time will tell.

POGS You are wasting your time neither Maduro's supporters or those extolling socialism ever answer questions. Look further up, all the questions I asked Grannypauline. Narry an answer did I get.

Silence speaks for itself really I had my answers and that is why I stopped posting on this thread

Can anybody answer the questions I asked trisher on Monday?

trisher

". POGS the sanctions you post are the publicised and UM permitted sanctions but many reprts eveal there have been more than that "
--
Then provide the dates / facts for us to debate but so far you have offered no links that give anything other than just say sanctions have caused the hardships in Venezuela by Moduro apologists .

When do you think the reports of shortages, human rights abuses started?

When do you believe the US Sanctions started stopping the import of Venezuelan oil?

If it was US sanctions that caused shortages how did the sanctions cause Moduro to kill his people, imprison his people, not use the resources of oil and Russian /Chinese financial help to buy food and medicines for his people etc. etc.

POGS the sanctions you post are the publicised and UM permitted sanctions but many reprts eveal there have been more than that.
From theUN report
The effects of sanctions imposed by Presidents Obama and Trump and unilateral measures by Canada and the European Union have directly and indirectly aggravated the shortages in medicines such as insulin and anti-retroviral drugs. To the extent that economic sanctions have caused delays in distribution and thus contributed to many deaths, sanctions contravene the human rights obligations of the countries imposing them
This man is an international lawyer and well respected. Why would the UN high commisioner not meet him? Well quite possibly because he produced a balanced and unbiased report which dealt honestly with the problems but didn't meet the US expectations and the UN decided to take the easy route and comply with those.
You doubt the veracity of the venezuelanalysis and counterpunch information but even if they have exaggerated and overestimated the effects of the hidden sanctions there must be some truth. And the question remains why did the UN rep believe there might be human rights abuse? It is his field of expertise.

Can we get some facts about US Sanctions please.

www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/venezuela/

trisher

trisher Sun 10-Feb-19 20:15:1

" lemon there are links and details about the sanctions and the UN observer's comments earlier in this thread. POGS didn't like them so I posted the details from the Independent
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-us-sanctions-united-nations-oil-pdvsa-a8748201.html
I understand why people think there were only sanctions against individuals but it really isn't so. The real situation is quite hard to discover and if I were a conspiracy theorist I might wonder why"
--

' POGS doesn't like them', meaning?

Your links to venezuelananylisis and counterpunch? If so I personally would not / do not rely on either of those sites for information understanding their history.

As for your link to Alfred de Zayas in the Independant what do you make of this point:-

Despite being the first UN official to visit and report from Venezuela in 21 years, Mr de Zayas said his research into the causes of the country’s economic crisis has so far largely been ignored by the UN and the media, and caused little debate within the Human Rights Council.

He believes his report has been ignored because it goes against the popular narrative that Venezuela needs regime change.

“When I come and I say the emigration is partly attributable to the economic war waged against Venezuela and is partly attributable to the sanctions, people don’t like to hear that. They just want the simple narrative that socialism failed and it failed the Venezuelan people,” Mr de Zayas told The Independent.

“When I came back [the UN and media were] not interested. Because I am not singing the song I’m supposed to sing so I don’t exist … And my report, as I said, was formally presented but there has been no debate on the report. It has been filed away.”

Watch more

Trump’s intervention in Venezuela is wholly undemocratic
The then UN high commissioner, Zeid Raad Al Hussein, reportedly refused to meet Mr de Zayas after the visit, and the Venezuela desk of the UN Human Rights Council also declined to help with his work after his return despite being obliged to do so, Mr de Zayas claimed.

He told The Independent the office gave him the “cold shoulder” because they were worried his report, which is now published, would be too independent.

“They are only interested in a rapporteur who is going to … do grandstanding, is going to condemn the government and ask for regime change. And I went there to listen. I went there to find out what’s actually going on,” Mr de Zayas said.

A spokesperson for the office of the UN high commissioner said: “The 56 Special Procedures – of which Alfred de Zayas was one – are independent, as well as very numerous, and so it is not a practice for the high commissioner to meet with them individually to discuss their reports. It would be physically impossible for him … to do so.”

The spokesperson said the actions of the Venezuela desk are more “complicated” then Mr de Zayas described, adding, “calling for regime change is not our business”.

Better start with saying that I do not support Chavez and Maduro' s corruption and lack of democracy. This is part of the problem the country is now in.

But I have a question to Pogs and lemongrove: how is/was Venezuela ever a socialist country?

We have already discussed the obscenity of half the world's wealth being own by a handful of the world's richest people. If this news were to be headlined, day after day, in our newspapers and on our TV news bulletins, rather than a column being tucked away in the middle of a newspaper, perhaps people might finally see that the system as it operates at the moment is dysfunctional. But, as they say, money is power - the power to dictate what is to be reported and in what manner, to blackmail or bribe governments, etc. etc. etc.

It is imperative to those who benefit from this crazily unequal system that socialism be discredited. They have done such a good job that, even for a country like Cuba where reputable statistics show that health, education and housing standards far exceed those of neighbouring countries, people still deny it.

I accept that people on the left of the political spectrum are likely to be biased - but no more so than people on the right. So just announcing that the people whose views are different from your own are "left wing" is, in my opinion, a lazy way of refuting another person's views.

lemon there are links and details about the sanctions and the UN observer's comments earlier in this thread. POGS didn't like them so I posted the details from the Independent
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-us-sanctions-united-nations-oil-pdvsa-a8748201.html
I understand why people think there were only sanctions against individuals but it really isn't so. The real situation is quite hard to discover and if I were a conspiracy theorist I might wonder why?

I meant Columbia ( not Chile)
trisher I have not seen any reports of the US witholding paid for in advance medicines, and would agree ( if they had, for no good reasons) done this then it would be wrong.
Sanctions were imposed against individuals there and not the populace as a whole as you imply.
Never mind medicines.......they have no food there and many are literally starving due to Madhuro and his policies,
Most have lost so much weight it’s terrible and their best chance is to flee over the border if they want to live.
You need to do more looking at what is happening there then trying to do a whitewash job on Madhuro and pals.

So why would a country stop legitimately brought medicines lemon and then try to send them as aid? Wouldn't you be suspicious if your neighbour pinched your groceries and much later turned up with a food parcel?

I will answer trisher and I think it was wrong, however that has nothing to do with Venezuela being an economically broken country.
Even now, massive amounts of food and medicine is waiting in Chile but Madhuro will not allow the aid to come in and says ‘they don’t need it’!
You just cannot keep on, despite all the evidence, blaming the US for the ills.

Is Moduro a socialist-NO! Do I approve of the way he is and has behaved-NO! But I am also bright enough and informed enough to realise that a successful socialist Venezuela would have threatened US interests.
So I will ask again (but you won't answer)
Was it OK for the US to stop the export of legitimetely purchased vital medicines to Venezuela?
Perhaps you could also comment on why the UN considered this a posssible violation of human rights.

Your Socialist views have blinkered you as I said above trisher so you cast about for as many other factors as you can to put the blame on.Moduro was /is in charge of the country and the buck stops there. I would say he is a corrupt and useless dictator and whether he is right wing or left wing would make no difference to me.
It does to you though, obviously.

No comment about US sanctions then lemon or why they blocked medicines legitimately bought by Venezuela? Of course not much better as I said to say "the nasty man did it"

Au contraire trisher as Monica POGS and Jalima
Have all made some excellent posts on this thread.
Just admit that Maduro is a corrupt swine who is hell bent on destroying his country, and the fact that he is a socialist
And his dictatorship style of governing just do not work should not blind you to what is going on there.