2006 and 2007, in Op-eds on Venezuela, I already had to reference Rwanda. That’s how late it is.

Sir, Luis Almagro writes, “As an international community, we have failed to live up to our responsibilities in Venezuela… We must address the corruption that is starving an entire country’s population, and provide humanitarian assistance to those who are desperately in need. We must act — it is already too late” “The world has a responsibility to protect the people of Venezuela”, September 28.

How can we Venezuelan’s not be extremely thankful for Luis Almagro’s support in the OAS? For a full decade, 2005-2015, we had to suffer Almagro’s predecessor José Miguel Insulza’s shameless silence on what was going on in Venezuela, even his support of its regimes and its buddies.

When Almagro now refers to former US president Bill Clinton once telling the people of Rwanda: “all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror”; I must point out that already 2006 and 2007 in two Op-Eds published in Venezuela’s leading newspaper, El Universal, before I was censored by the government friendly new owners’ of that paper, I had to refer to Rwanda. That’s how late this all is.

In 2009, in a similar Op-Ed, addressed to OAS and its Inter American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) I put forward the case that when gasoline, in a country with so many needs, was basically given away for free, an odious violation of economic human rights was being committed. 

In July 2015, I formally denounced that to IACHR, ending my accusation with: “Let me assure you right now, at this moment, the official price of a liter of milk is around 300 times higher than the price of a liter of gasoline ... and if that is not an economic crime against humanity, what is?”Sir, I am still waiting for a response.

@PerKurowski

In the midst of the Venezuelan pandemonium, is not selling petrol at less than $2 cents a liter a crime?

Sir, Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez, describing Venezuela’s current plight writes: “Food and medicine are scarce. Anemic oil prices and a heavy debt load leave scant foreign exchange for the import sector. “Venezuela sets the stage for a chaotic and tragic exit” May 30.

What’s worse, within the pandemonium, few react to that petrol, even after it was raised a 6.000 percent in February this year, is still being sold at less than $2 cents per liter. Perhaps the most serious problem in Venezuela is not Maduro, but the lack of a responsible elite, that is willing to speak up on what is wrong and right.

If the price of petrol sold domestically was raised to its world value, and the resulting revenues all paid out in cash, to all citizens, that could provide them with what they might need to cover the basic food needs. And, to top it up, that would free a lot of petrol for exports.

I myself have tried for long to have the Organization of American States to look into if whether giving away petrol almost for free, while there is lack of food and medicines, does not qualify as an economic crime against humanity. Seemingly OAS/OEA prefer to look the other way.

@PerKurowski ©