The good news of the day is that it looks like the opposition and the government have agreed to start talking to each other. Their meeting today was “exploratory” in nature, but the meeting bore fruit. Vice President Jorge Arreaza said:
[Both the opposition and the government are convinced] of the need to grounding ourselves on the principles and dispositions our our Constitution, to reject violence, to reject intolerance and to move forward. We hope that in the next few hours a formal meeting can take place, [one that is] public and which Venezuelans will be able to share and see together. Three witnesses will join us as a measure of good faith – Holguin [Colombia], Patiño [Ecuador], and Figuereido [Brazil]. This is a very important meeting, [it will] tell us the truth.
The executive secretary of the MUD [opposition], Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, said:
The first agreement is the decision to talk in terms of mutual respect and before the entire country (…) That first meeting [should] be before all of Venezuela and the entire world, so that it can occur with transparency, so that everyone’s position and motivations may be perfectly clear, [as well as] the sincere will to give all Venezuelans hope, paths and possibilities for the future.
(…)
One of the issues that has worried us the most and motivated us to have this meeting is the situation the Venezuelan students find themselves in. It’s an issue to which we must all be sensible, that there may be respect for their human rights which the Constitution and the law recognizes for all Venezuelans. Our youth and our students will be very much present during these upcoming meetings.
Apparently they did manage to get the Vatican involved as well, as one of their representatives will be present during the talks as well.
This is quite the news, since even as late as this afternoon it appeared as if the two sides were really far apart from one another.
Here is a picture taken during the meeting today:
Earlier in the Day
Earlier today, the opposition made it seem as if talks between them and the government were not a done deal, as Maduro had made it seem last night. Earlier in the day, UNASUR diplomats met with opposition representatives. Andres Velasquez, an opposition National Assembly deputy, said today, “How can we sit [and meet the government] if we haven’t worked out an agenda, which is a prerequisite for us?” This was a sentiment that I saw echoed by a couple of opposition politicians throughout the morning on Twitter.
Jose David Cabello (Director of SENIAT and Minister of Industry) and Pedro Carreño (A PSUV National Assembly deputy) had this to say on the conditions for talks with the government that the opposition made public last night:
Jose David Cabello: “The opposition wants dialogue? With conditions. It’s the same story as the elections. [These are] unacceptable conditions for any government.
Pedro Carreño: “The Bum of Miranda [Henrique Capriles] in the meeting with UNASUR presented demands by the MUD [opposition] for a dialogue with Maduro. It seems like they forget that HE WHO WINS, GOVERNS!!”
The meeting that took place last night between the diplomats from UNASUR and the opposition included representatives from each of the parties that make up the MUD, as well as governors Capriles, Falcon and Guarulla. Apparently, it was at this time that the opposition formally requested that a representative from the Vatican be present during any future talks.
Elsewhere in the Country
Two days ago, Nairobi Pinto, a journalist at Globovision, was kidnapped from her doorstep by three masked, armed men. Nairobi’s father, who was out with her helping her unload grocery bags from her car when the kidnapping happened, says that so far, no one has contacted the family about a ransom. The kidnapping is being investigated, but so far there aren’t any real leads on a motive.
Today, the Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace, Miguel Rodriguez Torres, said on the kidnapping:
On the Santa Monica incline going up to Cumbres de Cururmo, there was a really violent barricade there. We’re aware that there have been crimes committed [near the area], several robberies and also an attempted kidnapping near there.
This statement seems to be keeping with the government line that the barricades and the areas around them are a sort of lawless space that breeds crime and violence. This statement is similar to Maduro’s comments regarding the death of Adriana Urquiola, for which he blamed the barricades in the area (instead of the man who shot her in the head).
The IMF is predicting that Venezuela will enter an economic downturn that will last into 2015. The body sees Venezuela as having both a contraction of GDP (-0.5%) and inflation in the double digits (50.7%) for 2014. Venezuela is also projected to have the highest unemployment rates in North and South America in 2014 and 2015, at 11.2% and 13.3%, respectively. The IMF does qualify the outlook as being “subject to high uncertainty”, and even goes further to say that “forecast errors [for Russia and Venezuela] are significantly larger, reflecting in part the lesser suitability of the estimation method”.
Here’s a video I just found of an interesting interaction between demonstrators in Chacao and the National Police. A really polite National Guard officer approaches the demonstrator camp and asks the protesters if they have any doctors, since one of their officers is hurt. Two demonstrator paramedics come up, and the meeting between the two sides ends with “Thank you!”s and a handshake:
And earlier this morning, Maduro re-tweeted this.. The tweet reads, “Two extraordinary men!”:
Commentary
The late-day announcement that talks had been agreed upon took me by surprise. This afternoon, it seemed as if the two sides were as far apart from each other as they had ever been. Neither side had made any sort of open gestures of reconciliation, save for the agreement to begin talking about possibly talking in the future. Now that talks have been agreed upon, the opposition will get a chance to showcase its four points the opposition wants to bring to the table.
This is an exceptionally civil development, specially after months of slurs, finger pointing and demonizing. We have been seeing the alternative to dialogue for the past two months – attrition and death. If the format of the talks is what both sides have claimed it will be – open, transparent and possibly broadcast over television – then all the better. The more Venezuelans can see about the dialogue process, the better.
In Venezuela 