Back again! Reloaded!!!!

Well, it's been a very long time. Living in this godforsaken city - it will be 7 years coming July - has impeded me in keeping true to this blog. But I have made a solemn promise to myself to be a Good And Faithful Blogger.
At this very moment, I am sitting in the middle of the Venezuelan post-Chavez vortex, about 20 minutes driving from the military hospital where he is SUPPOSED to be convalescing after having SUPPOSEDLY been flown back from Havanna, Cuba last Monday.
It's now Friday on the calendar and we have seen "dick" of Chavez, nothing, not even a blurry picture. The smiling and happy-happy pictures of Chavez and his daughters, SUPPOSEDLY taken last February 14, are most probably Photoshop fakes, as countless Venezuelan Twittees have posted their own version of the picture with Chavez reading Playboy, an opposition newspaper, you name it. I have downloaded some very funny ones, one very crafty one of Hitler reading a Venezuelan newspaper of that very day. Photoshop is Magic. That was for sure. But what is happening with Chavez? Where is he? Is he still alive?
Despite Peace Noble prize winner Rigoberta Menchu and hordes of red-clad wellwishers screaming and assuring each and everyone that Chavez will be on his feet in no time, helped by astral forces and whatever, the rational look at Chavez' chances of ever reappearing, is bleak, to say the least. I personally sense that the regime of Vicepresident Maduro, which is doing everything to crush and intimidate dissenters and the opposition, is desperate to hold power no matter what the cost. A NO to Venezuela's plea for more credits from Big Buddy China has made things worse, leading the straggling economy to a dark abyss with a devaluation of almost 50% - the third in three years in a row - , rising prices, food shortages, rampant criminality and whatever else it takes to ruin my days in this country.
If Chavez is dead, or not fit anymore to hold the presidency he was reelected to last fall, then reelections are mandatory according to the country's constitution. The mentioning of this by MP's of the opposition have resulted in enormous regime yelling and screaming, threats and some of those opposition politicians being accused of corruption and persecuted juridically by the government-controlled justice apparatus. Forget any impartiality from the government's side. It's a Cuban-styled Soviet era totalitarian regime with trotskyist mannerisms. And the Chavez-wannabe VP Nicolas Maduro has made this clear to everyone caring to listen and understand. Under Chavez, this regime made its utmost efforts to show a democratic face to the world. Maduro and the cronies of his regime have no problems in tearing that mask from their totalitarian faces. Efforts are made to exclude the only independent TV channel Globovision from the new digital TV system, shutting the last critical mediatic voice down and submitting the rest to follow the regime's ideological line.
The last deed of the Maduro regime has now been to deny a former police inspector, accused of killing scores of demonstrators in 2002 in a kangaroo court with forged evidence, a more humane treatment, while medical reports clearly state that the prisoner's health is failing. The denial by a government-controlled judge will probably seal this man's fate.
Venezuela is a broke country, with all its oil richness. The country is rife with anarchy at the moment. The regime does everything now to prepare the credulous part of the Venezuelan population for what the rest already knows. But God only knows what the effect will be on a country that is feeling more like a shaken champagne bottle ready to burst.
Keep in touch, also via Twitter: @avginkel.