We’ll get to our Down The Rabbit Hole segment in a bit but first…Reuters reports that Venezuela’s TSJ (Supreme Court) ordered a “broad and diverse restructuring of the Venezuela Red Cross and the dismissal of the president and members of the board of directors”.

 The ruling ordered the establishment of an ad hoc restructuring board, to be chaired by the former president of Venezuela’s largest business association. The activities of the Venezuela Red Cross will continue, the court said (If you believe them). The court will work with the Attorney General’s office to prosecute the outgoing board.

 Miguel Villareal, VP of the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent National Societies called on Venezuela President (dictator), Nicolas Maduro, not to allow an intervention in the Red Cross Venezuela chapter saying it would stain “the 128 years of life in our institution”.

 OK, so here’s what we don’t know…Why did TSJ take this unprecedented action? The Red Cross operates in all kinds of countries with all kinds of governments and I’ve never heard of anything like this. The Maduro regime says the court and the Attorney General’s office will prosecute the outgoing board, however, they gave no indication of what potential charges might be.

 Here’s what we do know… The Maduro regime wouldn’t allow NGOs to operate in Venezuela for years, denying the existence of a humanitarian crisis and blocking aid from various countries and organizations from entering Venezuela.

 A couple of years ago, no longer able to deny the crisis existed and facing international pressure they finally agreed to allow NGOs to operate in Venezuela and allowed some shipments of humanitarian aid, albeit on a limited basis.

 We cautioned at the time that the Chavistas don’t like anything they don’t control (no opportunities for corruption, extortion, etc.) and it remained to be seen how much they would be allowed to help the Venezuelan people and for how long.

 Well, the Venezuelan people are still starving and dying, as they have been since 2014, and Venezuelans continue to flee the Maduro regime and 21st Century Bolivarian Socialism with over 7.3 million migrants (the largest in the world) and counting.

 It’s hard to say this is a new low for Nico as he’s shown nothing but disdain for the citizens of Venezuela since he took office but it’s certainly in the running. These are the guys the international community wants to “normalize” relations with. This is not normal.

 Then we have SAMAA reporting that the current Miss Venezuela, Ariana Viera, has died from injuries received in a gar crash two weeks ago. She was 26 and was a lovely young woman so this is obviously very sad but there is a strange twist to the story.

 Two months before the accident she shared a video on Instagram saying “Recording myself for my future funeral…”

 Now, let’s head Down The Rabbit Hole…

 Chapter 4/ continued…

 …Another victim of the blackouts, which contributed to the post-apocalyptic scenario was commerce. Under the crunch of a cash shortage and with hyperinflation requiring large amounts for any purchase most transactions were (are) done with debit cards or bank transfers using smart phones. No power meant no card readers and mostly no cell service so unless you had dollars or euros it was a blast from the past as people reverted to the barter system.

 In the brief period between the first two blackouts and following the third one the government’s response to the situation was more focused on where to place the blame rather than on what was being done to fix the problem. Much of it was the same explanation they used for everything wrong with the country. “It’s right-wing terrorists” or “Colombian paramilitaries backed by the US” or “It’s a plot by the CIA to bring down The Revolution” and now these took on a new wrinkle. These three, with numerous references to imperialist oligarchs, were behind hackers that attacked the Guri dam’s operating system. They quickly had to change their story when someone informed them that the system at Guri was an old analog system that had never been upgraded to digital. You can’t hack an analog system.

 Even the Chavista’s stranglehold on the media couldn’t contain the facts. They could jail sources inside the country but that wouldn’t erase what they might say outside the country. The main sources for reality came from around the world. Corpolec (government-owned electric company), like PDVSA, had lost many employees due to economic conditions,purges, scapegoating, and fear of future scapegoating. There were also engineers with foreign firms familiar with the complex nature of Guri’s system and specifically it’s turbines. They knew what hadn’t been done, what should have been done, and what needed to be done.

 So what really happened? Again, I’ll try not to get too deep in the weeds. As previously stated, Guri provides most of the electric power in Venezuela. The massive turbines generate power which leaves Guri on one main line and is then split to three primary lines. Like all power lines they require constant maintenance to keep both the lines and the ground below clear to prevent physical and fire damage.This simply was neglected. When fire triggered an overheat alarm on one of the primary lines and it shut down that power was diverted to the remaining two lines. They overheated and shut down as well. Now comes the tricky part. It’s not like you can just reset a circuit breaker. There is a complex process to restarting the turbines and a step by step process for gradually introducing the power load back into the main transmission line and subsequently the three primary lines. Corpolec lacked the technical expertise to properly execute this process. There are four companies globally with the experience and expertise to do a job like this. None of the four were contacted including one that had previously done work at Guri. While nobody would go on record, prevailing wisdom was that the government couldn’t pay COD and nobody with half a brain would (will) extend them credit as they have pretty much screwed basically everybody on every deal they have ever made, countries and companies alike…

 More tomorrow….