Earthquakes are not exceptional events in Venezuela's national life. On the contrary: in their frequency they represent, at least since independence and the proclamation of the republic, political dynamos that legitimize or undermine a regime, accredit or sink a government, demonstrate the modern reflexes and social cohesion of the country, or painfully illustrate a backwardness with names, surnames, and acronyms. The Vargas catastrophe in 1999, with Hugo Chávez newly installed as president, exposed the neglect and postponements of the Venezuela of alternation between adecos and copeyanos, but it did not serve to substantially change anything. The earthquakes of last June 24, which will very likely leave a toll of many thousands dead, show that Chavismo has not been able to build a country, has never represented a project of state modernization, and has left Venezuelans orphaned of basic services. And worst of all: it remains in power. Every Venezuelan schoolchild knows one of the most famous phrases among the countless famous phrases of Simón Bolívar, the father of the nation, pronounced almost at the dawn of the war of independence. On March 26, 1812, an intense earthquake struck in the mid-afternoon in the towns of Caracas, La Guaira, Barquisimeto, and San Felipe. Except for Caracas, they were very modest cities in a basically rural country, but many houses collapsed, fires were numerous, and most of the haciendas were left dilapidated. It was Maundy Thursday, and churches and hermitages also collapsed on many believers. Bishop Narciso Coll y Prat circulated a pastoral letter in which he assured that the earthquake was a punishment from Almighty God for the uprising against the Spanish Crown, which was the same as insulting the Holy Mother Church. The wrath of God had fallen upon the insurgents and could do so again. The priests read or cited the pastoral from the pulpits on Palm Sunday. It was then that Bolívar issued his warning: "If nature opposes us, we will fight against her and make her obey us." Chávez very proudly repeated Bolívar's phrase a few days after the destruction of Vargas state. In a report to Congress several months later, he summarized his ultimate goal for reconstruction: "Never again."
In the (partially failed) reconstruction of the Vargas coastline, all the traps, miseries, villainies, and vices of Chavismo germinated, to the point that some analysts believe they can see the evolution of the regime through the praxis developed on that occasion. First, informational opacity. Second, the release of public money—investments, subsidies to companies, community and family aid—without well-specified criteria and any local control. Everything was decided from Caracas from Caracas. It was also particularly disastrous to replace the most traditional and experienced NGOs—such as the Red Cross itself—with committees of Chavista militants, many absurdly led by militants from the federal capital. Subsequently, a tolerated black market was also denounced, if not sponsored by civil and military authorities, with the same emergency supplies—food, medicine, water purification tablets, clothing, and basic items—with which they trafficked with impunity. Vargas must be an exceptional case, because in most disasters authorities try not to stun or terrorize the population with casualty figures, and there the opposite occurred: the Chavista spokespersons never tired of talking about tens of thousands of dead, when perhaps they did not reach a thousand—the number of injured and affected was, however, very high. Material losses were assessed by Chavismo at between 3.5 and 4 billion dollars, but the Venezuelan government repeatedly stated that by 2010 it had invested almost twice that amount in Vargas, now La Guaira State, bearing the name of the main city and port of the region and of the republic, just over thirty kilometers from Caracas, and within whose limits lies Maiquetía International Airport. Now nature—as Bolívar would say—has struck even harder, and the many billions of dollars invested have been for nothing. Probably because, strictly speaking, they were not invested. They were simply spent. The Venezuelan parliament—of course—never audited that obscene waste, rotten with irregularities and bribes. If the 1812 earthquake caught many celebrating Maundy Thursday, the earthquakes of the 24th caught many in some of the tourist towns of La Guaira, because the feast of the Battle of Carabobo was being celebrated, the definitive military triumph of Simón Bolívar—always Bolívar—as commander in chief against the royalist troops, thereafter in retreat. The beaches and apartments were full of thousands of Caraquans, because along the entire coast one can enjoy small and large beaches and modest clubs for workers or pretentious ones for the small but very wealthy Chavista boliburguesía. Restaurants and stalls with sancocho and fish empanadas washed down with beer or sandwiches and Frescolita for children. It will take years for those images to be seen again.
Because this time it has been much worse. It is being and will inevitably be much worse, more painful, more macabre. And not only because of the power of two devastating earthquakes. In 1999, Chavismo had just arrived and had not yet destroyed all the essential operational structures of a contemporary state. When the landslide occurred in Vargas—the countless tons of stones, mud, and garbage that swept everything away—relief units from several cities, including Caracas and Valencia, arrived with relative speed: doctors, nurses, firefighters, civil and military engineers, psychologists, trucks, cranes, shovels, excavators. Now very little has arrived in La Guaira, and what has arrived has been amidst shocking chaos. And in the sister cities, there is nothing, and no one promotes any solidarity action from public administrations. Everyone abandons their jobs or waits sluggishly for orders from Miraflores. Not even from Fuerte Tiuna. Only from Miraflores. They also look to the Presidency from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, but the response is so ambiguous that they stay still. And Diosdado? Has Diosdado said anything? Not either, although in the port of La Guaira, among the smoking control towers of Maiquetía and in several coastal towns, military intelligence agents have been seen. Twenty-seven years have not been enough to design, disseminate, and implement emergency plans. Not even to centralize emergency control in a body recognized as such and armed with its own human and technological resources. Nothing. Evacuation routes or local emergency plans are unknown, heliports were not foreseen, reception centers were not prepared—now a baseball field that only has twelve hours of water a day is being used—and until a few hours ago they have started setting up field hospitals. Neither in classrooms nor in workplaces has emergency training ever been provided. People are trying to dig out injured or dead from under the rubble with sticks, bedpans, ladles, even plastic shovels used on the beach, shovels that once built sandcastles and now try to dig out children. Foreign aid is managed late and badly and with growing nervousness. The terrible situation of the electricity system in central and northern Venezuela—which already generated severe, long, and continuous blackouts in the last years of Nicolás Maduro—hinders and slows operations in La Guaira and other ports, the recovery of Maiquetía, the electricity supply for tens of thousands of people, and the few companies and shops that have survived.
I have seen the images—they were sent to me—of several streets of Catia La Mar where I went so many times as a child. People wandered the streets like zombies terrified of themselves. Hours and even days after an earthquake, you walk as if the earth had just trembled and shaken you like a rag doll, whether you weigh fifty kilos or a hundred. The body senses that the earthquake could return at any moment, and you run so it doesn't catch you, or you take long strides that don't need to maintain balance. You hear a wall fall in the distance and feel dizzy. In the images of Catia La Mar, you could see remnants of buildings constructed in the forties and fifties and buildings raised by the Misión Vivienda, one of the phantasmagorias of Chávez and his gang. A friend from Caracas explains to me: "No, the apartment buildings built by Pérez Jiménez and those built by Chávez collapsed, because they were the same crap: matchboxes made in a hurry and cutting corners on everything, especially cement and other construction materials." In the images, the day after the earthquakes, not a single soldier, police officer, or law enforcement agent of any kind can be seen on the streets of Catia La Mar. That too is corruption. The catastrophe that horrifies and tortures Venezuela has a geological origin, but in its destructive ferocity, in the pain and desperation of the citizens, political and moral origins also beat. Corruption is not a political epiphenomenon, nor a behavioral disorder, nor a regrettable but secondary matter. Political corruption kills. Political corruption has killed many people in Caracas and La Guaira and will continue to kill under the rubble and in miserably equipped hospitals lit by candles. Corruption—as Venezuelan analyst Daniel Lara Farias has said—is a tireless serial killer and does not forgive.
The Rodrigato has only launched speeches with the voice of a hoarse little cockroach of the acting president. Is the catastrophe a threat to her continuity? Not entirely certain. What is certain is that it will pose a real threat to economic and social development and to the democratic reconstruction of the republic. A damage assessment cannot yet be spoken of, but some, such as the Financial Times, which claims to have data from the Bank of Venezuela, speak of a figure between 12 and 15 billion dollars for a first phase. Also according to the FT, the advisor that the Rodríguez have chosen to discern their economic woes on the advice of Donald Trump—Centerview—the real external debt of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela amounts to about 240 billion dollars, compared to the 165 billion that markets estimated until now. An unfathomable ocean of bonds, contract breaches, expropriations, promissory notes of Petróleos de Venezuela, and a long list of etceteras. Venezuela needs to order, reconcile, and recognize its debt—something it cannot do without the very active and participatory help of the International Monetary Fund—to begin paying it in full. The hypothetical cost of a first phase of reconstruction of La Guaira and Caracas is almost what Venezuela pays annually in external debt, and when it clarifies its true financial situation, it will have to pay more.
This critical circumstance weakens and at the same time strengthens Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez as viceroys of Trumpism and its economic and commercial allies in Venezuela. It strengthens them because now they even serve as lightning rods for the social unrest that will soon intensify. It weakens them because they will have to be replaced more quickly than expected. The opposition remains divided and worm-eaten by incessant fulanismo and self-destructive maneuvers, as always. How could the opposition of a country corrupt to the core be incorruptible? Even the new leaders of Democratic Action—the former social democratic adecos—were willing to pact (until the day before yesterday) with Delcy Rodríguez. María Corina Machado now waits patiently for her turn on Trump's indication and has opened her own political organization to supposedly democratized Chavistas. The general staff continues to pass the hat, their businesses and kickbacks intact, and Diosdado Cabello signs any silence to continue as minister for another semester. The same year Chávez arrived and Vargas was devastated, and that horrible juncture continues today in Venezuela under the tutelage of the most corrupt president in US history, and it will affect the lives of several generations of Venezuelans inside and outside the country.
