Venezuela´s Cul de Sac

Venezuela´s Cul de Sac

By: Erreh Svaia

Caprine Dispersion

“There is no turning back.”

Hugo Chavez

What happened yesterday in Venezuela might be the tragic conclusion of a process started almost two decades ago when Hugo Chavez became elected president of a country angry at its political establishment, Venezuelan society wanted to punish its traditional political system, they were tired of corruption and they were ready to jump from the cliff into the nothing, they brought they couldn't be worst (big mistake), the man capable of concentrating all that anger was Chávez, a socialist military commander who promised to end corruption, to make poor people a priority and to create a state of social happiness, I'm sure Chavez was nothing more than a populist, but he was wisely advised by a clever dictator, Cuba's despot Fidel Castro, who saw an opportunity in Chávez to solve his troubles after the loss of the troubled USSR patronage, Venezuela, a democratic oil rich country with rampant corruption was the perfect piece to start his new project which will give impulse to the so called 21St century Socialism, Castro wisely made a connection with two uprising left wing stars on two powerful countries in South America, Chávez in Venezuela and Lula Da Silva in Brazil, and that was just the beginning of it all, in Castro, Chávez saw a chance to overcome democracy and create a Cuban style autocracy, it was just a matter of time for Chávez to start the process of expropriation of private industry, the control of media industry and the establishment of a planned economy, taking full advantage of China's lighting fast economic growth and high soaring oil prices, Chávez created an illusion of economical bonanza, money coming from oil transactions made it easy for Chávez to increase his influence in America and far beyond, in Venezuela the building of a large patronage system helped him enough to win local approval in order to start dismantling the country's democratic system, opposition started losing ground, but even the best plans fail at times, and just as oil prices started falling quickly, Chávez health also started to be affected, just as his life was reaching and end and Venezuela economy started to fall apart, the military started to apply Cuban government style of techniques to keep the economy afloat, becoming a part of the Colombia's FARC drug trafficking schedule, as the country became a narco-military state, Cuba was looking for a way of keeping its influence on Venezuelan government and to place its own people in charge, as Chávez died in complete secrecy while being attended in a Cuban hospital, Nicolas Maduro was appointed as Chávez successor, not considering Diosdado Cabello, second in charge to Chávez who constitutionally was the natural heir to the presidency, probably blackmailed by the Cuban government because of his drug trafficking involvement, Diosdado had to accept the Cuban imposition of Maduro and the fake elections staged in order to support Maduro's rise.

But Maduro's not only lacked Chávez charisma, he also lacked his luck, and just as China's growth started to slow down, oil money stopped flowing like before and the economy sank, inflation rose to never before seen in America levels and civil understated to blossom, paramilitary troops were formed in order to harass growing street and political opposition and posterior elections were handled to Cuban military intelligentsia in order to prevent any democratic opposition advances, into after years of economic, social and security deterioration, the National Assembly was recuperated by the democratic opposition, creating a counter balance to Chavista abuses, but the plan to end democracy was already set in motion and taking advantage of a continuous state of alert the Chavista government staged its next movement in order to overcome the growing opposition growing fast in the streets, the creation of a new Constituent Assembly (with members directly selected by the government) approved with a fake staged election this weekend, resulting in a more dramatic violent event with people killed on the streets after protest broke up, granting with enough powers (against the Constitution) to dissolve the democratically elected National Assembly and to jail the judged elected by it, giving total power to the Unified Socialist Venezuelan Party and returning Cabello to its position as one of the country's strongman, and finally ending the transformation from one of the continent exemplary democracies into a Soviet like party dictatorship.

Now it's difficult to imagine what's in Venezuela's future now that the Cuba like isolation route has almost been completed, as a military dictatorship operating, it would be too risky for the opposition to revolt against the government in a violent way, the backlash could end up as a bloody chapter, economic sanctions coming from the outside can only be directed at government positions, because a complete economic blockade would only affect civil society benefiting the Chavista government, just as countries like Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru and European Union have been vocal against the ant democratic nature of the Constituent Assembly and the democratic erosion in Venezuela, how to help solving this increasingly growing authoritarian puzzle is becoming a very difficult task, as now fully fledged dictator Nicolás Maduro has put his sight on the judicial system, and threatened judges with imprisonment, you can claim that the system is broken, as increasing disapproval of the government grows, democratically, there seems to be no exit, as bureaucracy, the military, pensioners and very poor people on government patronage systems are still on favor of the fascist regime, but if Hugo Chávez was once a popular leader, Maduro seems to be losing the Chavista political capital at a very fast pace, to control a country with 75% of the population against you is not going to end well.