Venezuela’s “Tragic Confusion”

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Relatives of prisoners grieve when they learn of the deaths of their relatives

When Venezuela’s fake Vice President Maduro called the deaths of 61 prisoners in a weapons search at the Uribana prison a “tragic confusion”, one does not know what he is referring to. Is the tragic confusion electing Hugo Chávez fourteen years ago? Or is the tragic confusion naming Deputy Iris Varela as Minister for Prisons, a woman with zero management experience, let alone experience with prisons? Or is the tragic confusion the fact that after all her failures, Iris Varela still is the Minister of Prisons?

Because there is no confusion about the National Guard going in to search for weapons at the Uribana prison and within a couple of hours to find that 61 prisoners are dead (Who cares if it is now only 58, as the Minister is quick to clarify?) and a similar number has been injured. But the Ministers reaction is first to blame Globovision for “announcing” that the search would take place, when it was somebody from her Ministry that said it was going to take place. None other than the Head of the prison talked to Globovision to announce it.

And the Minister looks even more ridiculous when she says, with a straight face to boot, that it is being said that “the prisoners were being abused by the National Guard” which was not the case. Funny, over two percent of the prisoners were killed in a weapons serach, but the Minister finds there was no abuse. What a strange concept of human rights and  abuse Minister Valera has…

And then comes the magic solution (Another tragic confusion?): The problem is solved by shutting down the Uribana prison. In a country with prison facilities for less than 20,000 prisoners, but where close to 45,000 people are in jail, the solution is then to shut down a prison for 2,500 people and relocate them to the other already overcrowded institutions.

Tragic, yes!

Confusion, yes!

Confusion in Maduro’s and Varela’s minds that still think they have no responsibility over all this. That this was all some sort of unfortunate mistake, rather than fourteen years of negligence and mismanagement, which was only compounded by naming Varela to the Ministry to attempt to tackle one of Venezuela’s most difficult and complex problem.

Only Chávez is missing form this charade and confusion, maybe he could say something wise like “The show must go on!” and claim a philosopher said that…