Lost from afar

I feel obliged to blurt something since it is going to be soon a month without an entry.  But then again, contrary to Punditlandia principles where the less you know about a topic the most you believe to be entitled to speak or write about it, it does not feel right to me to write about the suffering of Venezuela this past months, when I am here with all life's comfort.

It has been particularly offensive to read some Liberals, from the Obama administration, preaching absolute non involvement with Venezuela to patronizing congratulations about the recent declaration that the Red  Cross supplies will enter, with the suggestion that the opposition bears some of the responsibility as to why humanitarian help did come sooner to Venezuela.  That type of self sufficiency is unbearable and I find Ilham Omar in a way less offensive, at least she does not patronize.   But it confirms one thing, the Obama administration Southern policy has been a complete fiasco and we see new evidence on the why everyday.

If I digress on that it is because the hand wriggling I read from many parts is obscene. Only now they are  realizing that Maduro is a serious problem? And yet they have been unable to man up to the situation and do something about it.  Europe as a whole is way behind the US. If France spearheads the critics, the recent visit of Prince Charles to Cuba is total disgrace. I think Brexit has fried the UK government brains. They keep condemning Maduro but they send the heir to the pupeteer. 

The point here is that Venezuela is left to cruise fast to disaster. What happened in March is unspeakable.  Besides the obvious strain on the population there is also terminal damage to the economy. 

I lost my mother in law two days ago. She is not a "direct" victim of the blackouts but they certainly sped up her condition, delaying many treatments and lab checks. Not being there does no allow me to decide between  direct and "direct".  Amen of my personal distress at losing the woman with whom I had to share the burden that were the 5 years of Ivan's via crucis, and not  being there to thank her again and say farewell.

But there were material losses. My freezers barely made it through the first 79 hour blackout. Not too much loss there but a total loss in my refrigerator.  When there is no light there is no water and a lot of my gardening went dry.  My family had its own losses and misery, in particular a brother stuck on an eighth floor with 2 kids, wife, and two visiting in laws.  And yet we were not the worse off.

The worse off where people without food, unable to pay for it if they could find some it since there is no cash and no card points.  People who saw their neighbouring food stores being pillaged by chavista hords, directed by the way. People in hospitals, where again the regime locked public entrance least some one would report casualties. People without water for days as we wait for some epidemic to rear its head.  People without security as the lack of light made lock up themselves in the hope that colectivos, paramilitary and mere  criminals would catch them absolutely defenseless.

It has been awful,  being thrown back into the XIXth century suddenly, without even a phone to call for help or inform relatives that, well, you were still alive.

But even more awful is that blackouts are now long and recurrent. And even worse that the regime makes a mockery of it, inventing the stupidest excuses possible, sending people saying that we recovered the ability to talk to each other, village activities of yore, while on state TV, if you could see it, joy, happiness, dancing, patriotic victory screams were the news.

More than ever the regime has shown its two worse defaults, amen of the down right criminal.  First, it's absolute incompetence. With 3 million out of the country, with 30% production from what was produced a few years ago, it is unable to keep electricity as consumption dropped considerably.

And second, that it does not care a shit, that it is genocidal.