April 22: Closed Doors

Courtesy of Horacio Siciliano, a Venezuelan student and photographer, some more pictures of the demonstration that shut down the Prados del Este highway in Caracas yesterday:

This sign reads, “I don’t have milk, I don’t have gas (for cooking), I do have: Poverty, Murders, Torture, Repression, Insecurity, Authoritarianism, and Bullets!!!” The capital letters spell “PATRIA”, which means “homeland” or “motherland”:

Today, it was announced that the opposition and the government would meet again on Thursday to discuss the crisis the country is currently going through. Like the second meeting – but unlike the first – this third meeting will take place behind closed doors. The move has been decried by some who would prefer the process to be as transparent as possible. Ramon Aveledo, the head of the opposition delegation, said:

It’s important that Venezuelans remember that for us to make headway in terms of agreements, it’s easier to not be in front of cameras.

The opposition will again insist on an amnesty law to secure the release of political prisoners, a motion which the government has dismissed out of hand the previous two times it has been brought up.

Maduro is expected to announce something called an “economic offensive” some time tonight. The “offensive” will apparently have three goals: 1) the increase of internal production of goods, 2) increase in the stock of goods to tackle scarcity, and 3) “politics of fair prices”. We’ll have to wait for Maduro to give more details.

Finally, a survey conducted by the Instituto Venezolano de Analisis de Datos (IVAD) between April 2 and 10 found that 74.8% of respondents believed that the country was undergoing an economic crisis, while 77.8% believed that it was also undergoing a political crisis. The survey also found that 76.5% of respondents believed that if scarcity, rising food prices and the overall negative economic situation continued, Venezuela would undergo a “social explosion” [“estallido social”], meaning increasing protests and unrest.