Democracy is threatened
The passing away of Venezuelan President Co-mandante Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías - the top leader of the Bolivarian Revolution- on March 5 2013 was perceived by Venezuelan people as an irreparable loss, one of historical dimen-sions. During 14 years, President Chávez led Venezuela along a victorious political process that pursued the recovery of the nation’s dig-nity and the construction of social justice. The affectionate warrior who with his accurate words guided Venezuelans through the tran-sition between two centuries, and despite big obstacles was able to take society to an upper level regarding satisfaction of people’s needs, suddenly wasn’t there anymore to lead the path of the nation. In the middle of the grief caused by such a loss, Venezuelan people decided to keep on walking the revolutionary way and elected Nico-lás Maduro as their president on April 14, 2013.But one day after the presidential elections, opposition supporters of the candidate Hen-rique Capriles took to the streets complying with his call to drain their repressed anger, and spread death and destruction in opposition bastions governed by right wing’s mayors. A new stage of the conspirational plan began then: the economic war that, according to the coup script, would act as a pressure cooker by accumulating frustrations in wide sectors of the society, which with the passage of time would lead to a sudden counter-revolutionary explosion.During the second half of 2013, unscrupulous businessmen, traders, and shopkeepers lead by the trade-oriented Fedecámaras (Federation of Chambers and Trade and Production Associa-tions of Venezuela), counting on the active par-ticipation of Consecomercio (National Council of Commerce), and Venamcham (The Venezu-elan-American Chamber of industry and Com-merce), carried out a series of indiscriminate price increases in all segments of the economy, reaching in some cases up to 2,000 percent of increase; they also proceeded to stock up es-sential goods. Besides,
a brutal attack to the national currency took place by means of Internet sites located in Miami,
where an as-sumed exchange rate was calculated parallel to the prices increase, setting the stage for trad-ers and shopkeepers to calculate their prices based on the above mentioned rate.
Those measures were oriented to arise the feeling of nonconformity towards the Government among the population and mobilized the mood against the President,
to whom the media systematically attribute the responsibility for the problems generated by the conspirational actions.
The Government of President Nicolás Maduro responded to the economic war with an inspections plan carried out in thou-sands of companies and trades all around the country, in order to force them to low the prices
and sell their merchandises accord-ing to what is established by the Venezuelan