A 14-year-old girl died in hospital today after being admitted to the Miguel Pérez Carreño hospital in western Caracas following yesterday’s deadly stampede at a high school graduation party in El Paraiso, Caracas. The stampede occurred at the Los Cotorros club after a fight broke in during the party–which was attended by some 500 people–and someone set off a tear gas canister.
The death of the teenager, whose name has not been made public, brings the death toll of the stampede to 18.
Journalist: Couple Denied Police Help Due To Lack of PSUV I.D.
Horacio Siciliano, a Venezuelan journalist, reported through his Twitter account yesterday that a couple that sought police help in Caracas following a robbery were denied assistance after they failed to provide their carnet de la patria [motherland I.D.], a divisive piece of identification that is key to the ruling party’s plan for governance in Venezuela.
According to Siciliano, his friend’s father was robbed alongside his partner in Plaza Venezuela, Caracas on June 15. Siciliano said that after the couple sought help from some National Bolivarian Police officers who were near the scene, they refused to help them. When the couple went to file a report about the robbery with the country’s investigative police, the CICPC, they were also refused service.
Below, the tweet with which Siciliano told the story:
Yesterday, my friend’s father and his wife were robbed in Plaza Venezuela. They asked the [National Bolivarian Police] who were nearby for help and they did NOT move [because they said that] “We cannot do anything”. They went to the CICPC in El Llanito to file a report and they were told that they COULD NOT file their report WITHOUT their “Motherland I.D.”
The Maduro regime launched the carnet de la patria in early 2017 as a way to regulate access to subsidized goods. At launch, the I.D. was meant to track cardholder purchases to limit hoarding of scarce food and basic necessities. Regime critics began warning at the carnet‘s inception that the regime could easily expand its scope to effectively create a two-tiered state, where only those who signed up for the carnet–and, by connection, the ruling PSUV party–would receive government services.
Since its inception, Maduro has expanded the carnet‘s scope, and it is now also used to distribute pensions. Maduro has reiterated since the carnet’s launch that the I.D. will one day be used to gain access to subsidized housing, and vote.
Regime Adversary Wins Colombian Presidential Election
Ivan Duque, an outspoken critic of the Maduro regime, became Colombia’s president today after winning a run-off election against Gustavo Petro. Duque ran for the Centro Democratico [Democratic Centre] party, and is the protoge of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, whose hard-line against leftist guerrillas earned him a prominent spot in the pantheon of Maduro’s enemies.
Duque won with 53.95% of the vote to Petro’s 41.54%.
Many Venezuelans watched the election in Colombia with bated breath. While Petro downplayed his ideological connection to the politics of Hugo Chavez and the PSUV, many both in Colombia and in Venezuela still saw him as being too affectionate towards the Maduro regime.
EDO, a Venezuelan political cartoonist, released the image bellow today. The image shows a scared Colombia (left) voting before a mirror, where it sees its reflection as a dead Venezuela choked by a Cuban flag. The implication is that Colombian voters elected Duque out of a fear that a Petro presidency would have sent Colombia down the same path that doomed Venezuela:
Questions/Comments? E-mail me: invenezuelablog@gmail.com
In Venezuela 