Before we get back to Venezuela : Down The Rabbit Hole lets take a quick look at the vaccination situation in V-land considering the rising Covid 19 cases in recent weeks. Here’s the headline from Telesur (Venezuela state owned media) “COVAX To Send Venezuela Millions Of Doses In July And August”

 Now a couple of quick Maduro bites. “We have already made the payment” ……”Venezuela is a country under siege so that we cannot buy their vaccines” ….and of course there were the obligatory persecution of imperialism references.

 PAHO reports 8% of citizens in South America have been vaccinated. Remember the rate in Venezuela is 1.1 %.The WHO has delivered about 19 million doses in the Americas. So why is Venezuela’s rate so low, apart from the chaos and ineptitude that accompanies all things Chavista?

 Chavismo has as history of not paying it’s bills as well as a history of antagonizing NGOs. They don’t want any help for the Venezuelan people unless they can control it and profit from it.It’s always the same refrain.Venezuela says they’ve paid but nobody ever gets the money or they get partial payment. Now the Chavistas are putting on a benevolent front allowing NGOs to help but what isn’t discussed is that they must comply with onerous conditions and controls.

 Amnesty International reported in May that NGOs in Venezuela must disclose details on beneficiaries,funding,staff,and governance and it is used as a tool for criminalization and reprisal. Its not hard to figure out why groups are reluctant to help Venezuela.

 More to come in future posts but for now lets get Down The Rabbit Hole…..

 There is a lot of talk these days about sanctions.North Korea,Iran,Russia,China Venezuela,Cuba…The criticism is always that they hurt the people which assumes that these governments would be taking care of their people were it not for the sanctions.As we will see with Venezuela that is simply not the case.

 I want to issue my disclaimer,the same one I use with my family all the time.I’m not a Biden guy,nor was I a Trump guy (although he did do a lot of good things for the USA),nor Obama,and so on.As a lifetime fan of history it seems most of “my guys” are dead.History is best served when you take the time to read what really happened,in as much as its possible,and do your best to understand it whether you like it or not,agree with it or not.

 That said,there has been a lot of talk about the negative effect of US sanctions on the population of Venezuela. There is misinformation (I’m burned out on the term ‘fake news’) floating around that is being parroted by members of congress, the media,and at least one or two prominent economists.The claim is that US sanctions are responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 Venezuelans. (note: That number has been around a while and never seems to be updated)

 The first thing that strikes me about that statement is the number 40,000. If we’re talking about the the number of Venezuelans that have died from malnutrition/starvation,lack of medicine/healthcare,suicide (yes,suicide), and other related issues in recent years I would have to say that number is way low.From what I’ve read the number is more likely more than 300,000 and that’s not counting the 28 or 29,000 murders per year over the last few years. It would probably be even higher had not over 5 and a half million people already fled the ravages of Chavismo.

 The next thing about that statement is its simplicity.All sanctions are not created equal and in order to understand the impact of the sanctions you have to know specifically what they are and how long they have been in effect,right?

 The sanctions on Venezuela were initiated by Barack Obama in 2015. I guess most of the progressive crowd don’t know this or have chosen to overlook this fact.At that time the Venezuela people were already dying from shortages of food and medicine. Food shortages were the most prevalent at the time and caused massive demonstrations in 2014 in which 40 people were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands imprisoned as the government repressed the dissent.

 To be continued……..