Mired in MUD

Mired in MUD by Caracas Gringo MUD announced the suspension of “work group” meetings that were “dialoguing” with the regime about a proposed amnesty law, a truth commission and the appointment of new “public powers” at the Supreme Court, Attorney General’s office, etc. Ramon Jose Medina, MUD’s deputy executive director, said the MUD’s decision to suspend the meetings was prompted by the Maduro regime’s escalating repression of anti-government protesters since the “dialogue” began a month ago. But apparently the “dialogue” itself has not been suspended – yet. The next scheduled meeting between MUD and senior regime gangsters is on Thursday this week, but Medina admitted it’s unclear if Thursday’s meeting will happen because the Maduro regime doesn’t appear to have decided yet if it wants to “dialogue.” Medina then accused National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello of “dynamiting” the dialogue “before the impotence and approving silence of Maduro.” Here’s a different interpretation of the situation: First, the handful MUD “representatives” participating in the farcical dialogue brokered by the foreign ministers of Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil were exposed last week in Washington, DC as regime bootlickers who don’t represent anyone. Second, if these MUD characters engaged in the “dialogue” ever had any claim to being the official “representatives” of the “organized opposition,” it’s now clear that there isn’t any “organized opposition” and the MUD’s dirt bags only represent themselves. Third, let’s take a closer look at the MUD personalities who are “participating” in the “dialogue:” The MUD’s principals in the “dialogue” are Ramon Guillermo Aveledo and Ramon Jose Medina, whose MUD titles are executive director and deputy executive director, respectively. It’s not clear if these are full-time paid gigs, but Medina sits on the board of directors of Banco Occidental de Descuento, which is owned by Victor Vargas who also finances the MUD and simultaneously swims in the Bolivarian regime’s financial corruption cesspool. Aveledo and Medina also hail from the old Copei party that ultimately was destroyed in the 1990s by Rafael Caldera, arguably one of the most despicable, selfish and arrogant political figures Venezuela has ever produced. Copei barely survived Caldera plus over 15 years of Chavez-Maduro chaos, but nowadays it’s a nothing party. [A digression for a spot of history: Folks forget that Rafael Caldera used his post as Senator-for-Life in February 1992 to justify and defend Hugo Chavez’s failed coup. When Caldera was finally re-elected president in 1993, one of his first actions was to pardon Chavez and restore all his political rights. Even before Chavez assumed the presidency at the start of 1999, some in Caldera’s inner circle including at least two of his sons and a military in-law conspired unsuccessfully to topple Chavez even before he took the oath of office. Finally, in 2001-02, this same group of conspirators engaged in the plotting that backed Pedro Carmona’s failed attempt to proclaim himself president immediately following the carnage of 11 April 2002 in Caracas.] Omar Barboza also is participating in the MUD’s “dialogue” with the regime. Barboza is currently president of the Un Nuevo Tiempo party, which is a Zulia-based spin-off from AD. Barboza is associated with former Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales, who has been in exile since 2009 in Peru. Un Nuevo Tiempo controlled the Zulia state governorship from 2000 until 2012 when Francisco Arias Cardenas defeated the incumbent Governor Pablo Perez Alvarez, who recently hasn’t been heard from much. Barboza’s AD-sourced Zulia roots date back many decades. He’s a longtime Maracucho thug who was implicated in the infamous “pozos de la muerte” scandal in the last century. Barboza “represents” only the interests of the auld elite group of moneyed Maracuchos that is headed by Manuel Rosales and his spouse Eveling Trejo de Rosales, currently Maracaibo’s mayor and holding down the fort until Manny can return home triumphantly...someday. Henry Ramos Allup, secretary general of AD, also forms part of the MUD crew “participating” in the “dialogue.” Ramos Allup, like Barboza, is another long-in-the-tooth dinosaur that continues to deny he is essentially extinct politically. With so much oil in Venezuela, one would hope they’d find a tar pit and give themselves up to fossilization, instead of continuing to serve as perfect idiots and foils for the regime’s atrocities. Ramos Allup studied law but has been a professional full-time politician since childhood, practically. Ramos is also the chief political operator (outside the Bolivarian regime) of his father-in-law, one of the corrupt slimes that Alek Boyd at Infodio has written about. Who, precisely, is Ramos Allup representing? AD? The “pueblo”? D’Agostino? AD and Copei literally owned the Venezuelan state for over 40 years from 1958-98. Ramos Allup is the last of that generation who tenaciously outlasted and outlived everyone else to finally become secretary general of AD, which like Copei has devolved into a party of nothing. This quarter of MUD “notables” reminds this Gringo of the sanitation workers in clown costumes at the tail end of Ringling Brothers circus parades whose jobs involve shoveling elephant, camel and horse shit into brightly colored wheelbarrows. Another MUD character in the “dialogue” is Andres Velasquez of Causa R, which in its origins back in the early 1970s styled itself a socialist worker’s party that built a strong following in the state-owned basic industries and had an urban base in the Catia area of Caracas. Aristobulo Isturiz started his political rise in Causa R, but jumped ship by the early ‘90s and joined Chavez because the chances for theft were better in the Bolivarian regime. Who does Velasquez represent now? Causa R (with the R reversed) always called itself the party of the workers. But is that still true today? To his credit, Velasquez was reluctant to participate in the “dialogue” and was the first in the group to urge the MUD’s withdrawal from the farcical talks because the regime is playing dirty. But why’d Velasquez ever accept participating in the first place? If Velasquez is not “there” at the MUD table, then he’s nowhere, meaning he’s a non-entity, just another aging Venezuelan professional politician. Henry Falcon, governor of Lara state and former mayor of its capital Barquisimeto, is also on the MUD’s side of the “dialogue” with the regime. Falcon now heads the Avanzada Progresista party founded in June 2012 by a bunch of disgruntled members of the PSUV, Patria Para Todos and Por La Democracia Social parties – all self-proclaimed socialist or progressive or popular groups that followed Chavez blindly until they were squeezed out of play in the endless internal power struggles that characterize the PSUV. Falcon was a PSUV and PPT member (Ali Rodriguez Araque, Luis Miquilena) before he broke with Chavez in early 2012. The best my friends in Barquisimeto can say about Falcon is that “Se le reconoce que ha tratado de hacer las cosas mas o menos bien y no jode, ni abusa, ni ha robado, tanto como los demas ladrones rojos rojitos.” Uh…ok…. Who does Falcon represent? He’s left-of-center, but so are AD, Copei, Un Nuevo Tiempo, etc. All these fools call themselves left-of-center, popular, centrist, etc. Of course, Falcon wants to be president someday. His lifelong socialist trajectory suggests if Falcon ever did become president the country could only look forward to more leftist/statist bullshit with all the interventionism, centralized control and stealing that comes with the model. [Another digression: I’ve never met a Venezuelan who didn’t want to be president. Even people who could never be president have dreamt of being president. An old friend in banking recalls being at a meeting in late 2001 in a prominent businessman’s home in Alta Florida where a group of “empresarios” were weighing who might replace “el loco de Chavez.” Gustavo the media magnate was there that day with a bottle of very expensive scotch whiskey, and my banker friend recalls Gustavo appeared to see himself as the potential Venezuelan equivalent of Italy’s Berlusconi – until it was pointed out that having been born on an island he didn’t qualify constitutionally to be president.] The MUD’s team at the “dialogue” also includes Julio ‘Power Point’ Borges of Primero Justicia, which is a spin-off from Copei. Borges is a lawyer and professional politician, but unlike his colleagues he’s also a former TV star who in the late ‘90s had a show on RCTV called “Justicia Para Todos.” Primero Justicia basially represents many of the folks who quit Copei where the likes of Caldera, Eduardo Fernandez and others who devoted years of effort to block the rise of younger leaders from below. So the MUD’s representatives at the “dialogue” are basically fronting for the auld discredited guard: AD and Copei, Un Nuevo Tiempo (AD-Zulia), and Primero Justicia (Bastard Son of Copei). Causa R is clinging to the MUD’s leaky life raft because that’s the only wreckage still keeping it afloat, and Falcon is carrying the colors for everyone on the left who is pissed off with the PSUV hierarchy. The students in the streets see this as clearly as mine decades-older eyes do. The student movement leaders haven’t any doubt whatsoever that the MUD officials at the “dialogue” don’t represent the students, any youth or “the opposition,” and thus have no legitimate leadership claims over the masses and have nothing to offer except more of the same old tired garbage; i.e. “quitate tu pa’ ponerme yo.” Fedecamaras president Jorge Roig is also participating in the “dialogue,” presumably as an independent. Fedecamaras is another dinosaur in need of a tar pit. It’s unclear what Roig hopes to accomplish. Certainly, on behalf of the business sector represented in Fedecamaras, Roig wants the regime to pay its overdue debts to the private sector at the exchange rates in effect when the unpaid debts and dividends were accrued in hard currency on corporate books. But Maduro won’t do that. Business will have no choice except to gets its money through Sicad 1 or 2 (at the floating rate) and eat the exchange losses. But Roig ought to be there – if only to bear witness to whatever machinations the regime and MUD’s dirt clods might engage in if there is no one present to take first-hand note of what transpires behind closed doors. And that’s all there is, folks. Henrique Capriles showed up at the first televised roundtable where everyone vented their feelings. He made some strong points, but sadly Capriles just does not have sufficient charisma and gravitas to occupy the throne. Capriles may have won the MUD’s presidential primary back when…but he’s not presidential timber. He also lacks the stones. My support goes with nationally recognized leaders that rejected the “dialogue” as the farce it has been since it was first proposed. Maria Corina Machado and Leopoldo Lopez definitely have the stones, but they’ve been neutralized by the regime – for now. Antonio Ledezma also has courage, integrity and experience. But even these individuals cannot claim to have any leadership or even influence over the anti-government student protesters.