The Day the Prisoners Are Freed in Venezuela

The Day the Prisoners Are Freed in Venezuela / 14ymedio, Carlos Alberto
Montaner
Posted on January 9, 2016

14ymedio, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami, 9 January 2016 – I couldn't
avoid the sense of déjà vu. It brought to mind Eduardo Suarez, formerly
with El Mundo, a professional of the image with a fine instinct for the
news. Hugo Chavez's photographs being expelled from the new Venezuelan
National Assembly brought back to me the unforgettable episodes at the
end of European communism, with the statues of Stalin rolling on the
ground in the midst of a glorious dust.

Somehow, what happened in Caracas is a continuation of those events. It
is with good reason that the Chavistas and their fellow travelers
proclaimed themselves cultivators of 21st Century Socialism, although
with much less violence than that of the 20th century, but with the same
level of incompetence and perhaps even more corruption. It was the
enormous amount of patronage, collectivism and disdain for the ways of
liberal democracy that allowed this to happen, in the time after the
fall of the Berlin Wall and the total discrediting of Marxist superstitions.

Henry Ramos Allup, the new president of Venezuela's National Assembly,
has done well, starting his work without fear. Not only does he have
reason behind him, but also the Constitution and two-thirds of the seats
in parliament. According to a Datincorp survey, 81% of Venezuelans
reject Nicolas Maduro's call to ignore the decisions of the new parliament.

The clearest priority of this anguished society is to relieve its grave
economic problems, but this rescue operation begins by respecting the
popular will, expressed in the designation of 112 deputies, not one
less, and in releasing to the streets the hundreds of unjustly
imprisoned political prisoners, led by Leopold Lopez and Antonia
Ledezma. Venezuela's national poet, Andres Eloy Blanco, anticipated it
many years ago: "I sowed the stars / held in the heart / and it was good
like the day / the prisoners were freed."

Former Spanish president Felipe Gonzalez warned Maduro with great
urgency. Venezuela is heading into a humanitarian crisis. Bad governance
has decimated the productive capacity of the country, there is not
enough food, medicine nor the money to import them, and international
credit is finished.

As Maduro continued to chat with the birds, indifferent to reality, and
as his new minister of the economy can't find his right hand and ended
up pulverizing the rubble, the only hope for rectification is the set of
measures that can be taken by the National Assembly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/world/americas/even-in-death-chavez-dominates-venezuelas-presidential-race.html

Second, inflation takes off and the government responds with price
controls and the printing of money, which worsens the crisis. The third
stage is complete chaos: shortages, an exponential increase in poverty,
and a virtual collapse of the system.

The fourth, which Venezuelans should be experiencing now if Maduro
weren't so blatantly ignorant, is the adjustment. Prices must be
reconciled, public spending cut and the productive apparatus revitalized
by opening the doors to entrepreneurs and national and foreign
investors, which requires respect for private property and a trustworthy
judicial system.

21st Century Socialism arose with the petrodollars of Hugo Chavez's
Venezuela, under the treacherous direction of the Castros, and will end
up with the collapse of this artificial, absurd and, above all,
unaffordable, little world. Fortunately, as happened with the communist
counties of Europe, the transition will probably be peaceful and carried
out via legitimate elections. He who kills through ballot box, dies
through the ballot box.

Source: The Day the Prisoners Are Freed in Venezuela / 14ymedio, Carlos
Alberto Montaner | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-day-the-prisoners-are-freed-in-venezuela-14ymedio-carlos-alberto-montaner/