VenEconomy: Communism Becomes More Evident in Venezuela
From the Editors of VenEconomy
Latin American Herald Tribune
March 17, 2014

Nonstop violent actions from the Venezuelan government meant to attack students and other common citizens legally protesting for over a month have left nearly 30 people dead without any justification, another evidence of its antidemocratic and despotic nature.

This has also proved that apartheid and legal, social and economic discrimination are being applied in Venezuela in order to repress millions of citizens not embracing a Cuban-style communist regime. The “kidnapping” of public powers, particularly the judiciary, the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Ombudsman Office have made them become totally submissive to the will of the country’s Castro-communist regime.

This became more evident on Wednesday with a ruling of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court ordering the mayors of Baruta and El Hatillo (two municipalities of the Caracas Metropolitan Area), Gerardo Blyde and David Smolansky, respectively, as well as the mayor of the city of San Diego (Carabobo state), Vicencio Scarano, to avoid putting “obstacles in the middle of roads and streets in order to allow free transit of persons and vehicles”. In addition, the Constitutional Chamber made it clear that if mayors fail to comply with this ruling, it may result in “disobedience to the authority.” José Ignacio Hernández, a Venezuelan lawyer, wrote in his blog that this detail is significantly important since “in accordance with article 31 of the Organic Law for the Protection of Constitutional Rights and Guarantees, this disobedience to the authority, known as contempt, may result in prison terms of six (6) to fifteen (15) months.”

This may give us a clue where the National Executive is getting at: the intervention of regional and municipal bodies in the hands of the opposition coalition.

On March 12, mayors of El Hatillo, Chacao, Baruta and Sucre municipalities reported this as being a “political maneuver from the National Executive, which seeks to encourage a move by the Supreme Court of Justice to take over mayoralties supporting the MUD political party and disregard the will of the people”. And the mayor of Chacao, Ramón Muchacho, alerted via his Twitter account about “a strange situation” going on in this eastern Caracas municipality, where “small but organized groups are taking advantage of protests for vandalizing” State buildings “without the Government doing anything about it.” “These acts of vandalism serve as an alibi for the Government to discredit student movements in legitimate protest and to attack our Polichacao police force,” said Muchacho.

Muchacho also wrote: “Isn’t it strange that this is happening only in zones in the hands of the opposition, where particularly the State first allows and encourages acts of vandalism by paramilitary groups, so the National Guard and the National Police can come later to repress and attack the homes of neighbors with tear gas, pellets and the excessive use of public force?”

This modus operandi is not surprising when it comes from a ruler who has threatened not to let “any mayor or governor who does not recognize Maduro (as president)” in the Miraflores presidential palace; neither from a ruler who has been taking resources and responsibilities from opposition governorships and mayoralties to hand them over to parallel authorities, as he has done already with the Greater Caracas Mayoralty and the Governorship of Miranda state.

Could it be that the successor of the late Hugo Chávez, not only gave the order to “put out” every “small flame that ignites along the way,” but also is picking up where his mentor left off in November 2008, shortly before a regional election, when he warned voters that “if you allow the oligarchy (...) to take the (Carabobo) governorship back again, perhaps I’ll be giving the order to take the tanks from the Armor Brigade out to defend this revolutionary government and its people.”

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