Venezuelan black out enters Day 4; Protesters of both sides take to the streets - Polidicks

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/10/venezuela-blackout-day-four-maduro-fear-anger The Chavista mayor of Caracas, Érika Farías, told state media on Sunday that electricity supply had been restored to 22 of the city’s 32 parishes. As night fell in Caracas, lights began to flicker on across the city, lifting a shroud of darkness that had only been interrupted sporadically since Thursday. Fearful that the power could go again, residents continued to stockpile water and food staples from the few shops that opened their doors while other cities across Venezuela continue to report blackouts. “Venezuela is on the verge of a total collapse,” tweeted Bolivia’s former president, Jorge Quiroga. “In a few hours the surreal dystopia of Mad Max will be unleashed.” There was concern, too, that the outage might spark disorder and, in turn, repression as Maduro’s security forces sought to quell any unrest. On Sunday there were reports of looting in at least two of Venezuela’s 23 states. With already buckling hospitals across the country starved of electricity, there was particular concern for the well-being of terminally ill patients and newborn babies in need of treatment in intensive care units. There were unconfirmed reports that dozens of newborn babies had died in a hospital in the western city of Maracaibo as a result of the blackout. At least 13 patients were reported to have died in a hospital in the city of Maturín, 540km east of the capital. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/09/venezuela-maduro-and-guaidos-supporters-return-to-the-streets Supporters of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his US-backed challenger, Juan Guaidó, returned to the streets on Saturday amid fears the political crisis could be entering a turbulent new phase. “I’m here to support President Maduro … he is the constitutional president of our Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” said María Reyes, a 52-year-old woman who was among the crowds at a pro-Maduro rally in central Caracas. She said she was there to defend Hugo Chávez’s political heir and denounce “the imposter Guaidó” as a threat to peace. Oskar Oramas, a 24-year-old student activist for Maduro’s ruling Socialist party, said he was protesting the “escalation of persecution” against his government by the US. “I have come to take a stand against the United States because they have made it clear they are our enemies … We will defeat them because we are experts in peace,” he added. “They have destroyed a whole country,” demonstrator Jorge Lulo, a psychologist, told the Efecto Cocuyo website as he marched in Caracas carrying his country’s red, yellow and blue tricolor. “We are fighting to escape from tyranny.” “This is a joke,” complained one disillusioned civil servant who was looking on as the pro-Maduro march passed down Avenida Mexico in Caracas. “We’ve got no electricity and they’re using the generators to stage a march rather than sending them to the hospitals.” ---------- I think violence is going to begin soon, personally. We may be weeks or even days away from a full scale civil war if these articles are accurate to the situation on the ground.

Intervention or not, Maduro needs to fucking go, and he needs to go right fucking now. Otherwise this shit is going to get even messier. I don’t give a fuck who does it at this point but someone needs to forcibly remove that limp dicked dictator.

“I have come to take a stand against the United States because they have made it clear they are our enemies … We will defeat them because we are experts in peace,” This is a pretty bizarre statement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ig2qZEiNv8 Seriously though, I hope Venezuela can come out of this turbulent time in one piece.

“This is a joke,” complained one disillusioned civil servant who was looking on as the pro-Maduro march passed down Avenida Mexico in Caracas. “We’ve got no electricity and they’re using the generators to stage a march rather than sending them to the hospitals.” Assuming the demonstrators gave thought to or care about the people suffering in the hospitals.

It may make more sense in Spanish.

It does not.

Great, now there isn't even water in the capital: Caracas began going dry Monday as Venezuela’s power crisis put utilities out of commission, risking supplies for 5.5 million people, many of whom found themselves reduced to carrying buckets of filthy river water. Service, intermittent in normal times, was scarce to nonexistent in large swathes of the capital and experts saw little reason for hope. Caracas is 900 meters above sea level and water comes from the Tuy system of reservoirs and pumping stations below. Those depend on a reliable electric supply of 2,000 megawatts, said Norberto Bausson, who was the head of state utility Hidrocapital in the 1990s. “As of this morning, this system hasn’t been restarted yet,” Bausson said Monday. “The supply of water for the city is at risk.” Bloomberg Oil production has pretty much stopped too, needless to say.

America is stealing their water now too

I keep wondering how much more people will take before they rise up against Maduro with force, but it seems like it just keeps getting worse.

Only source is RT for this so far https://www.rt.com/news/453577-maduro-blackout-sabotage-caught/

this reeks of stalinist rhetoric of "wreckers" or "saboteurs"

Maduro is calling it the 'electrical war' on Facebook and rallying around the idea that the US is the perpetrator, far as I can tell from translations.

Don't know why the U.S would give a damn about cutting Venezuela's power. What do they have to gain?

exactly, which is why they didn’t fucking do it. this is still going on btw, my friends still don’t have power.

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/206080/cb5d7eb3-bbdd-4607-b82e-906d4e351320/0ADA069B-2B92-4211-BCC4-1DCAD1F69550.jpeg Thi is being circulated in leftist circles on reddit. Thoughts?

I saw this too but couldn't substantiate any of the claims. While it's possible I'd be wary about posting it without, you yourself, checking those facts.

Looks like unsubstantiated propaganda.

the graphic design on it is really good, i'd be inclined to believe it

one reason i could see the US doing it is as a way to flex their cyberwarfare muscles

Only source is TeleSur so yea no. TBH at this point the whole "we gotta resist at all cost, the US and their allies will invade us!!!" is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy: With Maduro not knowing how to deal with a country and driving it into practically a collapse while refusing to stand down and leave the power to others, foreign forces are going to come in sooner or later to restore the chaos, eventually electing someone pro capitalist in order to revitalizate the economy ( "shock therapy" economics never works, but that's another topic )...returning to the same situation the country was on the 90s, before Chavez came into power. All because he got into his head that he's the designed-almost divine sucessor of Chavez and can't do wrong. The little achievements the country did at the beginning of this century have gone down the drain. And like Fnox and other have already indicated, the heavy debt from the Chinese and other countries will make the country not rise for several decades at best. He has to go now, then we can start talking about how to deal which such headache.

There's been blackouts every other week in most parts of the country since like at least 2015. We've known our power generation system was about to collapse, why the fuck is anybody thinking that this has anything to do with US intervention if it occurred in 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014. Here's an article from 2015 detailing why this happens. Please note, the Venezuelan government has said, every single fucking time, that these happen due to sabotage, and never because they have failed to make any upgrades at all to the power generation system in the country, including a gigantic fucking dam that they never actually finished despite it being scheduled for 2012. They, no joke, blamed an iguana for one of these blackouts once. It always seems to be the fault of fucking everyone but them with these people. They have never, ever, acknowledged that there might be an infrastructure problem, instead choosing to do shit like have every public worker work until 12 then take the rest of the day off to save power.

Got electricity back after 5 days + some hours. It's still unstable though. What is this other side (as implied by "both" in the title) you speak about?. I guess semantically "side" doesn't imply %. I can confirm there were lootings in my city. It's worrying because we're not sure if stores are going to open before we run out of food and also some(or a lot) of them are very likely broke now.

Mike Pompeo's tweet can only be a veiled threat if your (their) only goal is to make Pompeo's tweet look like a threat.