A Simple Question: Venezuelan Economic Crisis скачать в хорошем качестве

A Simple Question: Venezuelan Economic Crisis

Every day the news about Venezuela seems to get worse. On March 29 the Supreme Court dissolved the National Assembly. The partial reversal of this decision days later did not prevent the outbreak of a new wave of deadly protests in the beginning of April. The death toll now stands at thirty, and is rising by the day. Both opposition and government supporters have been killed. Government offices have been looted and set aflame, and government officials murdered. No end is in sight. Venezuela’s deep economic and social crisis shows no signs of abating, and will likely get worse amidst the chaos and violence wracking the country. The opposition has shown its willingness to sacrifice possibilities for economic recovery to achieve its goal of removing President Nicolás Maduro from office, with reports that the National Assembly head Julio Borges recently contacted over a dozen leading international banks, urging them not to do business with Venezuela. The government, in turn, faces increasing criticism for its seemingly complete inability to solve, or even admit the full severity of, the nation’s socioeconomic crisis, and what many have criticized as a slide into authoritarianism. There are two contrasting narratives currently circulating about Venezuela’s crisis. The first, prominent in mainstream Western media, portrays the government as a dictatorial regime engaged in ruthless repression of a heroic opposition peacefully seeking a return to democratic rule. The second, put forward by the government and certain sectors within the small (and likely dwindling) international solidarity community, portrays a democratically elected government besieged by a violent, unhinged opposition that (a) represents a small minority of wealthy elites; (b) enjoys full support from the US empire; and (c) will stop at nothing to achieve regime change, regardless of the legality or morality of its actions. Evidence suggests the latter narrative to be closer to the truth. The United states has been trying over throw the Bolivarian Revolution since Hugo Chavez came to power and nationalized the resources of Venezuela. The idea that Venezuela is authoritarian has been repeated ad nauseam for nearly the entire eighteen-year period of Chavista rule, which began when Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1998. Until recently, it has been relatively easy to refute this claim, which ignores the fact that Venezuela’s ruling party has been repeatedly affirmed at the polls, winning twelve of fifteen major elections between 1998 and 2015, and conceding on the three occasions when it lost (December 2007, September 2010, and December 2015). On the five occasions Chávez stood for office between 1998–2012 he won by substantial margins (e.g., his lowest margin was 55-44 percent in 2012, and his highest was 63-37 percent in 2006). Venezuela’s current president, Nicolás Maduro, was also democratically elected. Regularly repeated charges of electoral fraud are baseless, as fraud is all but impossible in Venezuela’s electoral system, which Jimmy Carter has called “the best in the world.” Furthermore, what is often missing in the Western Mainstream press and especially those stationed in the U.S is how there is ample evidence that the opposition’s willingness to use violent and unconstitutional means against the government is not confined to the 2002 coup, but continues into the present. In April 2013 the opposition refused to recognize Maduro’s victory, despite zero evidence of fraud, and engaged in violent protests that led to at least seven civilian deaths. Forty-three died in another wave of opposition-led violence between February-April 2014. The opposition has engaged in numerous acts of violence during the current round of protests. In an on-the-ground April 23 report from Venezuela, Rachel Boothroyd Rojas, of Venezuelanalysis.com, wrote: “A catalogue of the violence over the last eighteen days is shocking — schools have been ransacked, a Supreme Court building has been torched, an air force base attacked, while public transport, health, and veterinary facilities have been destroyed. At least twenty-three people have been left dead, with many more injured. In one of the most shocking cases of right-wing violence, at around 10 PM on April 20, women, children and over fifty newborn babies had to be evacuated by the government from a public maternity hospital which came under attack from opposition gangs.” One of the more tragic recent deaths occurred Sunday April 23 when Almelina Carillo, a “forty-seven-year-old nurse was on her way to her afternoon shift when she crossed paths with [a] Chavista march [in downtown Caracas] and was critically injured by [a frozen bottle] presumably thrown [from a high-rise apartment] by an opposition sympathizer.” "This programme was produced by Aparat Ltd for Press TV"