South American Politics thread

Unbiased America
VENEZUELAN BLACKOUT: DAY FIVE
By Kevin Ryan

Today is the fifth day since Venezuela’s power system went down. Most of the country, including Caracas, remains in darkness.

Last Thursday a substation which supplies electricity to 80% of Venezuelans from the massive Guri hydropower plant, went offline. A union official at the national power monopoly, Corpoelec, told reporters that a brush fire under a power trunk line caused Guri’s turbines to shut down. The government has tried to restart Guri four times since the start of the blackout on Thursday.

“Every time they attempt to restart, they fail and the disruption breaks something else in the system, destabilizing the grid yet further,” said José Aguilar, a Venezuelan power industry expert. The latest attempt led to the explosion of a secondary substation near Guri on Saturday.

The problem? Restarting the turbines requires skilled operators who can synchronize the speed of rotation on Guri’s operational turbines, yet the most experienced operators had left long ago because of meager wages. Most of the remaining workers are now being told to stay home.

President Maduro insists the blackout is the result of sabotage and cyberattacks organized by the United States and his opposition, without providing any evidence. Energy experts, Venezuelan power sector contractors, and current and former Corpoelec employees have dismissed the accusations, saying the blackout was the result of years of underinvestment, corruption, and brain drain.

It’s the latest is a string of government failures that have plagued Venezuela since its “socialist revolution”.

Without power, looting has become even more widespread. People searching for food have attacked markets and restaurants. There's no communication, not even by cell phone. Water is scarce as pumps have shut down without electricity. Desperate patients have been begging doctors to be kept alive, who have been reduced to performing emergency surgeries by flashlight. Fifteen dialysis patients died as a result of the initial blackout and some 10,000 more are at risk if they continue without treatment.

Despite all this, President Nicolás Maduro, successor to the late Hugo Chavez, continues to insist that there is no humanitarian crisis.

SOURCES: https://www.nytimes.com/…/ame…/venzuela-blackout-maduro.html
https://www.npr.org/…/this-is-going-to-end-ugly-venezuela-s…
https://www.cbsnews.com/…/venezuela-as-blackout-continues-…/

On March 13 2019 05:20 JimmiC wrote:
I'm not sure if it is failure of socialist economics so much as it is failure of socialism as a shield to hide monumental corruption. But your first sentence may very well come true.

On March 12 2019 11:23 Danglars wrote:
You're starting a thread about Venezuela, with links from predominantly North American/English speaking news, and call it the South American Politics Thread? Did you even run it by the mods for inclusion in the various country's situation?

Not even one mention of Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan crisis? Argentina's tepid recovery?

I think a better introduction is sorely needed to encapsulate an entire CONTINENT'S politics. Or is Canada just some inferior version of America?

On March 13 2019 09:41 JimmiC wrote:
Corruption is authoritarianism, there is many democratic socialist countries in northern europe that are doing fantastic and have low levels of corruption. There are also many rightwing autoritarians whose countries are rife with corruption. Sadly corruption finds both left and right.