Rampant corruption in Venezuela’s national oil company weighs down the economy

 

Venezuela’s former oil minister Tareck El Aissami (left) and President Nicolás Maduro during a 2018 tour of a baseball stadium under construction in Caracas.RICARDO MAZALAN (AP)

Rampant corruption in Venezuela’s national oil company weighs down the economy

In the 1990s, PDVSA was a model state enterprise, but its politicization has become an albatross around the country’s neck

FLORANTONIA SINGER

Caracas - MAR 23, 2023 

Tareck El Aissami: Hugo Chávez’s protege who increased his power under Maduro

 

Tareck El Aissami arrives at a signing ceremony for an agreement with Chevron, in Caracas, last December.MATIAS DELACROIX (AP)

Tareck El Aissami: Hugo Chávez’s protege who increased his power under Maduro

The Venezuelan Minister of Petroleum resigned on Monday over a corruption scandal at the state-owned oil company PDVSA after the arrest of senior officials linked to him

ALONSO MOLEIRO

Caracas - MAR 21, 2023 - 10:39 COT

Venezuela grapples with economic collapse

A fuel processing plant in Falcón (Venezuela).MIGUEL GUTIERREZ HENRY CHIRINOS (EFE)

Venezuela grapples with economic collapse

The modest recovery of recent years fails to mask Venezuela’s crisis: a shattered productive structure, poverty levels nearly three times the regional average, and profound inequality

ALONSO MOLEIRO

Caracas - JAN 17, 2025 - 23:30 COT

The inauguration of Nicolás Maduro last Friday ushers in a new chapter for Venezuela, marked by deep socioeconomic wounds. The ongoing financial crisis — arguably the population’s greatest source of discontent — persists despite a modest reactivation of consumption. Crisis and political conflict remain intertwined, and after a decade of catastrophic governance and escalating tensions between the ruling party and the opposition, the Maduro government now faces an especially turbulent period.

Maduro’s six-month scramble to hold onto power

Nicolás Maduro celebrates after electoral authorities declared him the winner of the Venezuelan election, on July 29, 2024.FERNANDO VERGARA (AP)

A Maduro's six-month scramble to hold onto power

A reconstruction of the last six months of turmoil in Venezuela following the July elections, highlighting the opposition’s accusations of fraud, the exile of González Urrutia, the presentation of the paper tallies, the repression and persecution of Chavismo, and the growing tension leading up to the inauguration on January 10

 

Voting count in the primary elections in the Catia neighborhood of Caracas (Venezuela) on October 22, 2023.MATIAS DELACROIX (AP)

A milestone that changed the history of Venezuela

María Corina Machado recalls the primary elections that a year ago made her the leader of the opposition to the government of Nicolás Maduro

MARÍA CORINA MACHADO

OCT 22, 2024 - 05:36 

 

Nicolás Maduro arrives at the BRICS summit at Kazan airport, Russia, on October 22.ALEXANDER VILF/BRICS-RUSSIA2024. (VIA REUTERS)

VENEZUELA

The solitude of Nicolás Maduro

Venezuela’s president traveled to Kazan in search of legitimacy, but returns without joining the bloc of countries aligned against the West and amid a diplomatic war with Brazil that further complicates his role in the international community

Venezuela opposition leader Edmundo González reportedly leaves country for Spain

Edmundo González Urrutia

Venezuela opposition leader Edmundo González reportedly leaves country for Spain

Venezuelan vice-president Delcy Rodriguez and Spanish foreign minister José Manuel Albares release statements saying the opponent of Nicolas Maduro had left

Edmundo González abandona Venezuela y pone rumbo a España después de recibir asilo político

Guardian staff and agencies

Sun 8 Sep 2024 05.00 BS

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González has left the South American country after seeking asylum in Spain, according to the Spanish foreign minister.

“Edmundo González, at his own request, flew to Spain on a Spanish air force plane,” José Manuel Albares said in a statement online, adding that the “government of Spain is committed to the political rights and physical integrity of all Venezuelans”.

 

Maduro intent on third term as 1,600 perceived opponents languish in cells 

Nearly a month after the Venezuelan president’s roundup many expect him to ride out the threats to his 11-year rule

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro and Clavel Rangel

Mon 26 Aug 2024 05.00 

Nicolás Maduro has baptised his political crackdown Operación Tun Tun (Operation Knock Knock) after the spine-chilling visits his security forces pay their targets. But when members of Venezuela’s secret police came for Aixa Daniela Boada López, they announced their arrival with a thump not a tap.

 

Hundreds of people protested in the streets of Caracas, Venezuela, on July 29.ISRAEL FUGUEMANN (CUARTOSCURO

ELECTIONS IN VENEZUELA

Inside and outside Venezuela, pressure intensifies for a verifiable vote count

At least two people are dead and over 46 arrested as the Chavista government moves to repress the street demonstrations spreading throughout the country

Juan Diego Quesada

Caracas, 30 July 2024

Public anger over suspicions that the government committed fraud in Sunday’s presidential election has spread across Venezuela. Statues of Hugo Chávez, the founder of the left-wing populist movement known as Chavismo, were knocked down with sledgehammers in three cities. Protesters decapitated one of the statues and dragged the bronze head through the streets on a chain tied to a motorcycle, evoking what the Greek mythological hero Achilles did with the corpse of the Trojan prince Hector in Troy. People applauded as they passed.

‘Hard to believe’ / Venezuela election result met with suspicion abroad

Nicolás Maduro

‘Hard to believe’: Venezuela election result met with suspicion abroad

Nicolás Maduro faces calls to publish transparent breakdown of vote but allies hail his apparent victory

Sam Jones

Mon 29 Jul 2024 12.37 BST

Nicolás Maduro’s apparent re-election as Venezuela’s president has been met with scepticism, suspicion and calls for a transparent and detailed breakdown of the vote in Sunday’s controversial poll.

As coronavirus spreads, some Venezuelans opt to return home

By MARKO ALVAREZ

April 6, 2020

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — As Colombia continues with a nationwide lockdown to control the new coronavirus, some of the millions of Venezuelans who have gone abroad in recent years are deciding they are better off back in their homeland.

According to Colombian authorities, nearly 600 Venezuelans returned to their country over the weekend through a humanitarian corridor.

Many, like Jesus Ocaña, said they have not been able to find work in a country where businesses remain shuttered and people have been ordered to stay inside because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The 21-year-old was heading back to Venezuela by foot Monday from Bogota — a journey he expected to take him about 15 days.

“We all left Venezuela with a dream of getting ahead,” Ocaña said. “But we’ve been left without jobs and any way of sustaining ourselves.”

The returning migrants represent a small number of the total who live in Colombia. An estimated 1.8 million Venezuela reside in the neighboring Andean nation. According to the United Nations, over 4.5 million Venezuelans have fled in recent years, deciding to abandon a nation suffering a deep economic contraction and humanitarian crisis.

Migration officials say tens of thousands of Venezuelans arrived in January and February, but at lower levels than typically seen. Meanwhile, a higher number fled to other countries, mostly through flights from the Bogota airport.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has said he will welcome back any compatriots returning by land. The border with Colombia is officially closed and diplomatic relations severed, but a humanitarian corridor was created. He said Sunday at least 1,500 have returned thus far and that he expects about 15,000 total to come back.

The head of state said the Venezuelans will be “rigorously” tested for coronavirus symptoms and required to quarantine for 14 days as a precaution.

“We’re going to receive them with love,” Maduro said.

Nonetheless, some Venezuela have posted videos on social media saying soldiers detained them at a bus terminal in the border town of San Antonio. One video showed dozens sprawled out on blankets on the ground. The migrants include pregnant women, children and the elderly and complained of little to not access to food and water.

AP NEWS

Some Venezuelans find a way to use devalued money that is now just paper.
Photograph: Juancho Torres

Life's a struggle as Venezuela inflation heads for one million per cent

The IMF has drastically upped its inflation prediction, with people unable to afford food and medicine – even as Nicolás Maduro tightens his grip on power

Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá and María Ramírez 

in Ciudad Guayana
Wed 25 Jul 2018

T

wo years ago, shoppers in Venezuela would pay fruit sellers like José Pacheco with boxfuls of 100 bolívar notes – then the currency’s highest denomination. Now, thanks to rampant hyperinflation, even those are useless.

“It’s crazy to accept notes of 100, 500, or 1,000 bolivares,” said Pacheco, a wiry 61-year-old, whose humble stall clings to the fringe of one of the major markets in Ciudad Guayana, a city in Venezuela’s southern Bolívar state.

Venezuela: children of the crisis

'It's a pain you will never overcome': crisis in Venezuela as babies die of malnutrition

As Venezuela enters its seventh year of a crushing depression, doctors are seeing a rise in infant mortality rates due to deprivation

by Tom Phillips and Clavel Rangel in El Callao

Wed 12 February 2020

Her coffin was little larger than a shoe box. Her life had lasted three short months.

“She was a calm little thing,” the girl’s grandmother, Yamilet Zerpa, remembered as mourners filed into her sitting room to say their last goodbyes.

On a table before them lay a small white casket lined with sky blue cloth. Inside was Yaretzi López Pinto: born 14 October 2019, declared dead on Thursday 16 January this year.

Morticians had folded Yaretzi’s delicate hands over her chest and placed a pink flower on her fingers. Minnie Mouse smiled up from her dress beside the word: “Sweetheart”.

Child in hospital
Barquisimeto, Venezuela

'All we have are walls': crisis leaves Venezuela’s schools crumbling

Schools across the country in dire straits as teachers abandon the profession or skip the country amid one of the worst economic downturns in modern history

by Tom Phillips and Clavel Rangel in El Palmar

Saturday 15 February 2020

There are 723 pupils at the José Eduardo Sánchez Afanador school but no electricity, no computers, no tables and no chairs.

The windows lack glass, the toilets have lost their sinks and its metal classroom doors have been plundered by thieves, allowing pigeons to colonize several of the filthy spaces.

Children of the crisis / A million children left behind as Venezuela crisis tears families apart

Nicolás Maduro

Venezuela: children of the crisis

A million children left behind as Venezuela crisis tears families apart

As the country battles economic collapse, parents have been forced to migrate, leaving their offspring in the care of family, neighbours or sometimes alone

by Tom Phillips and Clavel Rangel in Ciudad Guayana

Thu 20 February 2020

It has been four months since Isabel Carrasco skipped her crumbling country, entrusting her daughters to a neighbour to join modern South America’s largest ever exodus.

Carrasco’s destination was Guyana, although the woman now raising her children isn’t sure which part.

Her mission: to earn enough money to help her children back in Venezuela survive its economic collapse.

How Venezuela's Fearsome "Colectivos" Help Keep Maduro in Power

HOW VENEZUELA’S FEARSOME “COLECTIVOS” HELP KEEP MADURO IN POWER

By Juanita Ceballos, Ramón Campos Iriarte and David Noriega Jul 7, 2019

CARACAS — It’s been five months since 35-year-old opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself Venezuela’s rightful president. Since then things haven’t exactly gone to plan: Not only has he tried and failed on multiple occasions to take down President Nicolás Maduro, he’s put Venezuela’s fearsome pro-government militias — better known as colectivos — on high alert.

Most colectivos formed in the early ‘90s when residents of working class neighborhoods organized and implemented defensive tactics to secure their barrios from state repression. When Hugo Chávez became President, he legitimized the colectivos, giving them resources and gaining their loyalty. They’ve never lost their devotion to Chavez, in fact they’ve extended it to his embattled successor. Over time, they’ve also become intertwined with the government’s security forces, and today play a crucial role in keeping Maduro in power.

Since Guaidó came into the picture, colectivos like Fuerza Motorizada have been acting as an unofficial police force — monitoring opposition rallies.

“When the Venezuelan opposition starts making noise, we go out there on intel runs. Just one or two of us having a quick look around,” said Hendry Carvajal, leader of one Fuerza Motorizada’s subgroups. “But when things get hectic, the entire Caracas chapter activates. That means 2,000-3,000 motorcyclists out in the streets.”

But colectivos aren’t limited to street patrols. The group Alexis Vive controls the better part of the neighborhood 23 de Enero, the largest pro-government stronghold in Caracas. It’s members are fiercely loyal to Chávez. Using a mixture of intimidation and indoctrination, they make sure the neighborhood feels the same way too. And just in case, their surveillance cameras keep watch while a radio station spouts pro-government propaganda.

"Juan Guaidó is such a traitor and such a suck-up. He thinks he can come and make something of himself in Venezuela and be president, and that we'll accept that, ” said José Lugo, leader of the Alexis Vive colectivo.

"We're going to launch the war of the people. And they won't know who is shooting at them."

This segment originally aired June 26, 2019, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.

VICE