Acebuckeye13 posted:

Looks like some form of negotiations are going on:

https://twitter.com/ReutersVzla/status/1129364190857125890?s=19

Lightning Knight posted:

Ideally they’re chatting with the left party representatives and not Guaido and the other right-wingers.

quote:

Venezuelan Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez and Miranda state governor Hector Rodriguez of the ruling Socialist Party both traveled to Oslo, according to opposition sources. Opposition legislator Stalin Gonzalez and political advisers have also gone, they said.

Norway’s Foreign Ministry said its norm was not to comment on possible roles in ongoing or potential peace talks. “We strongly encourage the parties to find a political and peaceful solution in order to avoid further escalation,” a ministry spokeswoman said.

Norway has a tradition of conflict mediation, including assistance with Colombia’s 2016 peace deal between the government and FARC rebels.

When asked about the talks in Norway, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York: “We’re very much aware of what is going on and very much supportive of this process.”

Guaido, in a speech on Thursday, confirmed opposition envoys were in Norway, which was mediating between both sides, but said they would not get involved in a “false negotiation that does not lead to the end of the usurpation.”

Many Venezuelan opposition supporters are skeptical about mediation talks, given that past rounds have failed, divided the opposition and, in their view, merely bought time for Maduro to consolidate power and quell street protests.

Guaido said he would meet later on Thursday with participants in a diplomatic effort between European and Latin American countries, known as the International Contact Group on Venezuela (ICG), which aims to negotiate an end to the crisis.

Adventure Pigeon posted:

I know a lot of people in Colombia, and from speaking with them I gather the big reason why they don't do anything is they don't want to cause Venezuela to destabilize even further. If the Venezuelan government collapses, a lot of refugees are going to be pouring into Colombia, which is the last thing they want, especially given how much violence is likely to follow. Colombia has a well trained, equipped, and experienced military with a lot less corruption issues than Venezuela's, but there's nothing to gain from a war, even if Maduro does act like a belligerent rear end in a top hat.

quote:

According to a 2014 report published by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Buenaventura, a port town in Colombia, "entire neighborhoods were dominated by powerful paramilitary successor groups" HRW reports that the groups "restrict residents' movements, recruit their children, extort businesses, and routinely engage in horrific acts of violence against anyone who defies their will." It is reported that scores of people have been "disappeared" from the town over the years. Bodies are dismembered before they are disposed of and residents have reported the existence of casas de pique, "chop-up houses" where people are slaughtered. Many residents have fled and are considered to have been "forcibly displaced": 22,028 residents fled in 2011, 15,191 in 2012, and 13,468 between January and October 2013.[64]

In Colombia, the terms "death squads", "paramilitaries" or "self-defense groups" have been used interchangeably and otherwise, referring to either a single phenomenon, also known as paramilitarism, or to different but related aspects of the same.[66] There are reports that Los Pepes, the death squad led by brothers Fidel and Carlos Castaño, had ties to some members of the Colombian National Police, especially the Search Bloc (Bloque de Búsqueda) unit.[67]

A report from the country's public prosecutors office at the end of 2009 reported the number of 28,000 disappeared by paramilitary and guerrilla groups. As of 2008 only 300 corpses were identified and 600 in 2009. According to the prosecutor's office, it will take many more years before all the bodies recovered can be identified.[citation needed]

At least 40% of the national legislature are said to have ties to paramilitary groups.[64] In August 2018, prosecutors in Colombia charged 13 Chiquita brands with supporting the right wing death squad that killed hundreds in the Urabá Antioquia region between 1996 and 2004.[68][69] Salvatore Mancuso, a jailed paramilitary leader, has accused Del Monte, Dole and Chiquita of funding right wing death squads. Chiquita was fined $25 million after admitting they had paid $1.7 million to paramilitaries over six years; the reason for the payments remains a matter of dispute, with Chiquita claiming the money was routine extortion money paid to paramilitary groups to protect workers. Activists, on the other hand, insist that a portion of the money paid by Chiquita was used to finance political assassinations.[70]

Raccooon posted:

So where is this stuff at now? Coup attempt failed and its over or do we expect another coup attempt in a month or two?

quote:

Mr. Guaidó has since announced a series of labor strikes intended to keep the opposition’s momentum, and he continues to exhort the armed forces to turn on Mr. Maduro. This unrealistic strategy has run its course.

Lightning Knight posted:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/opinion/venezuela-democracy-military-guaido.html


Considering that even the NYT is not terribly interested in him anymore, I'm gonna guess that the interventionist types have moved on to the new shiny hotness that is sabre rattling in Iran.

Squalid posted:

Raccooon posted:

So where is this stuff at now? Coup attempt failed and its over or do we expect another coup attempt in a month or two?

Helsing posted:

Compelling proof that socialism can solve climate change.

Squalid posted:

When I was trying to figure out why Venezuelan coal production dropped 95% one possible partial explanation I found was that Chavez personally stopped the development of some mines due to indigenous protests. So yeah, pretty much, when you don’t care about profit it’s a lot easier to cut emissions. Uh, kinda harder to give people something else to do though I guess.

Also where has the US turned to make up the oil imports it can’t get from Venezuela? Russia. I wonder how that impacts Russian foreign policy.

caberham posted:

So what’s happening to the Venezuelan embassy in DC?

quote:

Four protesters who were arrested and removed from the Venezuelan Embassy in D.C. on Thursday made their first court appearance Friday.

Kevin Bruce Zeese, 64, Margaret Ann Flowers, 57, Adrienne Pine, 49, and David Vernon Paul, 70, were arrested at the Venezuelan Embassy in Georgetown on a criminal complaint after participating in a month-long occupation of the diplomatic building, according to a Justice Department statement.

Activists with a group called CODEPINK began occupying the embassy on April 10. But after receiving a notice from American officials on Monday to leave the premises, only the four defendants remained inside the building, the DOJ said.

The four activists were arrested on a criminal complaint charging them with interfering the State Department’s protective functions by “knowingly and willingly obstructing, resisting, or interfering with a Federal law enforcement agent engaged, within the United States, in the performance of the protective functions of the State Department Basic Authorities Act.”

At Friday’s hearing, Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey released all four defendants on various conditions. The next court date is set for June 12.

The maximum penalty for interfering with the protective functions of the State Department is one year in prison.

lambskin posted:

drat this thread sure slowed down

Moridin920 posted:

https://twitter.com/dancohen3000/status/1131198482780426241

Chuck Boone posted:

This thread's been up since 2015, and I hung out a lot in the one that was here before it. So I've been here for at least four years.

I'm speaking only for myself, obviously, but it's really tough. Reading comments from the endless parade of apologists who drop in here whenever something big enough happens in Venezuela to make international news is discouraging sometimes. It's always the same rehashed of propaganda, the same unreliable sources. I'm much quieter now in here than I've been in previous times for the sake of my emotional health. I still want to provide regular updates, but recently I haven't even been skimming the thread.

I think in total there were about 5 venegoons in the thread at one point. I was the only one that was living outside of Venezuela. That's not the case anymore. I understand the ones who've gone silent.

Darth Walrus posted:

Wasn't there previously something ITT about how that was converted into a money-laundering scheme that doesn't actually feed people?

quote:

The United States is preparing sanctions and criminal charges against Venezuelan officials and others suspected of using a military-run food aid program to launder money for President Nicolas Maduro’s government, according to people familiar with the matter.

Chuck Boone posted:

The CLAP distribution system is not a welfare program. It's a front for a corruption scheme worth billions of dollars that benefits Maduro directly.

The regime buys food from companies in Mexico at insane markups. These companies are owned by people with direct connections to Maduro. Aside from overcharging for the food, these companies in Mexico are also sending low-quality products to Venezuela in order to further cut costs and increase their own illicit profit. All of that is common knowledge in Venezuela.

Uninterrupted and anyone else reading this: the crisis in Venezuela is complex. It goes back at least 20 years. It involves a cast of players too numerous to count. You cannot engage with these topics from just reading a couple of Telesur and Venezuelanalysis articles.

Guaido is absolutely correct in criticizing the CLAP system for being corrupt. The system has to be replaced with an actual welfare program that serves the needs of Venezuelans.

EDIT: If you read Spanish, I recommend that you check out Armando.info's work on the CLAP system. They broke the story and they've done some incredible investigative journalism to uncover the corruption.

Discendo Vox posted:

The venegoons gradually stopped posting as more and more people came in to poo poo up the thread.

quote:

ICC Statute
Pursuant to Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the 1998 ICC Statute, “[i]ntentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions” constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts.

The Annotated Supplement to the US Naval Handbook (1997) states:
Art. 54(1) [of the 1977 Additional Protocol I] would create a new prohibition on the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare … which the United States believes should be observed and in due course recognized as customary law

Discendo Vox posted:

Still not an illegal seizure per the laws multiple people have described to you at length, the sanctions are apparently targeting the leaders, not the program, like the pre-2017 ones, you're still being dishonest and trying to troll, this is still why the thread has died.

GoluboiOgon posted:

how exactly are the people managing CLAP supposed to import food when they can't use the global finance system to pay for importing food? the trump administration is just trying to spin yet another war crime in the most positive light imaginable.

Discendo Vox posted:

Still not an illegal seizure per the laws multiple people have described to you at length,

Discendo Vox posted:

The venegoons gradually stopped posting as more and more people came in to poo poo up the thread.


Since this time, Chuck Boone also gave up.


First paragraph of the article.



See also from the OP,

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3738387&pagenumber=93&perpage=40#post463671123

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3738387&pagenumber=125&perpage=40#post470427527

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3738387&pagenumber=378&perpage=40#post492871862

quote:

Many Venezuelan families rely on the subsidized food program, known by its Spanish initials CLAP, for their basic necessities in the oil-producing South American nation, where hyperinflation has raged for years.

Moridin920 posted:

Later in the article


While I don't doubt there is corruption happening, is it the case that literally 0 people are benefitting from this program and it is 100% a scheme to funnel money into pockets of corrupt officials?

Moridin920 posted:

Later in the article


While I don't doubt there is corruption happening, is it the case that literally 0 people are benefitting from this program and it is 100% a scheme to funnel money into pockets of corrupt officials?

Discendo Vox posted:

The venegoons gradually stopped posting as more and more people came in to poo poo up the thread.

GreyjoyBastard posted:

As I understand it there are two major flaws in the CLAP system as-run:

- A significant proportion that I can't be assed to directly estimate is stolen by civil and military officials to sell on the black market (and iirc so is some of the associated money for importation)
- Of the food that does make it to recipients, it's heavily targeted at PSUV supporters, with loyalist colectivos handling a lot of the distribution (and often pocketing a bit for themselves at that step of the process)

It's my understanding that MUD leaning poor areas mysteriously experience a greater number of unfortunate delivery disruptions.

If these particular sanctions freeze the assets of the CLAP head honchos while still allowing food importation (albeit probably with the usual kickbacks etc), I'm gonna have trouble getting too worked up. If they disrupt the actual delivery of food, corrupt and politicized though it may be, that's bad.

Discendo Vox posted:

Still not an illegal seizure per the laws multiple people have described to you at length, the sanctions are apparently targeting the leaders, not the program, like the pre-2017 ones, you're still being dishonest and trying to troll, this is still why the thread has died.

VitalSigns posted:

Some humanitarian aid might have been stolen maybe, time to carpet bomb the global south

GoluboiOgon posted:

gonna requote an earlier post i made. this is one of the main journalistic sources used about government corruption in the CLAP program:

https://apnews.com/69e87948759d4f0ab81326718bf89032

I'm not sure that this is the best source tho. It relies too much on the anonymous testimony of a large food importer. He complains about paying $8m in bribes to the government on a >$130m food contract, but then later provides evidence that the government is paying twice the market price for corn. So he is presumably overcharging by >65m (ostensibly to cover bribes), giving 8m to the government, leaving a surplus of > 50m for himself. Accepting kickbacks from this sort of deal is of course bad and should be stopped, but it doesn't sound as if maduro's ministers are the main profiteers here, or even the driving force behind the extremely high prices paid for food.

the article also cites many cases of low level corruption in the food supply chain, of things like soldiers demanding chickens as bribes at road checkpoints, or soldiers stealing from the port to resell grain at a markup on the black market. this sucks, but sanctions on high level officials aren't going to stop this.

quote:

But Mexican prosecutors said an investigation found that the Venezuelan officials and Mexican businessmen bought poor quality items in bulk and exported them to Venezuela at more than double their real price.

Mexico’s top organized crime prosecutor, Israel Lira, said the suspects have agreed to pay $3 million in reparations to the U.N. refugee agency, to be used for its Latin America operations. The agency is focused overwhelmingly now on helping Colombia resettle hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing the humanitarian crisis.
. . .
U.S. Treasury Department officials previously compiled a list of suspected shell companies that they believe senior Venezuelan officials have used around the globe to siphon off millions of dollars from food import contracts.

Financial forensic investigators from the U.S. and three conservative Latin American allies — Mexico, Panama and Colombia — traced transactions by companies believed to be controlled by a government-connected businessman.
. . .
Much of the food comes from Mexico, and there have been complaints about its quality. A study found that the powdered milk distributed in CLAP boxes regularly contained a third of government-mandated protein levels and twice the level of recommended carbohydrates.

On May 17, three days before Maduro was re-elected, Colombia announced the seizure of 15 shipping containers filled with more than 25,000 CLAP boxes containing beetle-infested rice and other spoiled food.

Alex Saab, from the Caribbean city of Barranquilla, has been identified by U.S. officials as a major focus of the investigation. Mexican prosecutors identified one of its suspects only as “Alex.” They are barred by Mexican law from releasing his surname.
. . .
The U.S. Treasury estimates at least 70 percent of the CLAP program is being gutted by corruption, citing evidence of overbilling.

Squalid posted:

legitimate sources of information like the FBI

Squalid posted:

If anyone actually cares I could dig up the specific allegations by prosecutors and the US Treasury but I assume nobody does. None of this information fundamentally changes the argument people are having over whether sanctions are justified or not. The effect these new sanctions will have on the food situation was probably not a major consideration of the US officials responsible for crafting them.

Discendo Vox posted:

Still not an illegal seizure