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March 14, 2019

Black water from faucets, exploding oil storage tanks — Venezuela's post-blackout ruin isn't exactly over

By Monica Showalter

Venezuela's socialist dictatorship is crowing that it has defied the odds and somehow gotten the power back throughout "100%" of the country.  That's contradicted by other Chavista news reports, saying they've got 70% to 80% of the water supply back up and will soon be supplying fresh water tank deliveries to the other 30% (that's 10 million people).

Let's just say it doesn't really sound like a 100% restoration, let alone a stable or lasting fix.  The water is running black with oil in the western part of the country.  The oil storage tanks, quite possibly full of millions of dollars' worth of oil, are blowing up.  The looting in the cities continues.  And the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro is now busying itself with what it does best, which is pinning the blame for its own mismanagement on others — and looking for enemies to arrest, targeting Venezuela's press and democratic leaders.  It's even targeting Venezuela's starving people through government-linked hooded, armed motorcycle thugs known as "colectivos" to spread terror on the streets.  Here's another one: at a time of massive humanitarian crisis, the socialist regime has just announced full-scale military exercises.

Here's their ridiculous Telesur propaganda crowing: "Venezuela: 100% of Electricity is Back On."

That's the headline.  Here's the contradictory fill: "The Vice President of Communication, Jorge Rodríguez, reported that the potable water service has been restored in 80 percent of the country."

Venezuela will resume work activities on Thursday after the restitution of 100 percent of the electricity system in the country, said the Vice President of Communication, Jorge Rodríguez.

"Problems remain with transformers that have been sabotaged, as in Baruta and El Hatillo on Sunday; the service has been restored in 60 percent of those areas," explained the head of communication, adding that school activities are suspended for another 24 hours.

Oh, and here's the claim about the water:

As if all these guys know how to efficiently deliver anything other than stolen money to their overseas bank accounts.

It all rings very, very false.  Some power must be coming on — probably to the military; the presidential palace occupied by dictator Nicolás Maduro, who doesn't belong there; and above all, the oil export terminals, the source of Venezuela's only cash income. But the rest of the country may only be getting incidentally.  After all, a place without power gets no bad press, because nobody can report from it.

But here we have it, straight from the Chavistas themselves — nice photoshopping:

Meanwhile, the ugly stories of riot and ruin are still coming fast and furious.

Like this one from the Daily Mail:

Venezuelans have woken up to find their tap water running black in the latest crisis to hit the beleaguered South American nation.

Residents in San Diego, Carabobo state, flooded social media with pictures and videos of the black water while complaining it had been contaminated with oil.

The city has suffered with an intermittent water supply for months, made worse by a week-long power blackout that has completely cut it off in some areas, local journalists said.

Does that sound like power has been properly restored? Or this one, just out from Reuters:

CARACAS/PUNTO FIJO, Venezuela (Reuters) — Two storage tanks exploded at a heavy-crude upgrading project in eastern Venezuela on Wednesday, according to an oil industry source and a legislator, while the country's main oil terminal resumed shipments after a prolonged blackout.

The tanks at the Petro San Felix project were holding diluent, which is mixed with extra-heavy Orinoco belt heavy crude to make it lighter, legislator Jose Brito said in a telephone interview.

According to the Reuters report, Venezuela's PDVSA state-owned oil company president explained that it was a terrorist attack.  Couldn't help it.  Out of his hands.  Some other guy did it.

There's also the looting, which apparently is still going on after several days, particularly in Venezuela's second largest city of Maracaibo, out in the last-in-line-for-power western part of the country.

Check Twitter for #Maracaibo and see an ocean of these videos of smashed windows, burning stores, looted malls, rubble and flames...

The Maduroites may claim the upper hand, and maybe they've got it now that some power has been restored.  But that is only because the instability of the electrical nightmare will serve their aims as the society collapses, never knowing when power will be on or off, hope you don't need surgery.  But their response — in blaming others and deciding this is a good time for military exercises — doesn't suggest that even they consider it a real victory.  They're just finding a way to use the mess to consolidate their slipping power.  Never let a crisis go to waste, as the leftist saying goes.

The mismanagement and the corruption stand.  And the pressure from the West to get those socialist thugs out of there should bear down now harder than ever.

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