70% of Venezuela Goes Dark, President Wrongly Blames Right-Wing Sabotage

[jmyrlefuller]

http://www.newser.com/story/173670/70-of-venezuela-goes-dark.html

by Kate Seamons
September 4, 2013

Activity in Venezuela effectively ground to a halt yesterday, as a blackout plunged 70% of the country into darkness just after noon. Parts of the capital, which the AP reports normally escapes such outages, were affected, rendering traffic lights dark and forcing companies to send thousands of workers home. The country's president got on TV and Twitter and heaped blame upon the opposition, using the word "sabotage" (a word not backed up by any examples). "Everything seems to indicate that the extreme right has resumed its plan for an electrical strike against the country," Nicolas Maduro tweeted.

But his own deputy electrical energy minister had a less underhanded explanation, reports the BBC: He said one of the country's main transmission lines failed. Caracas had power again by nightfall, though the Wall Street Journal somewhat amusingly notes that one of the buildings that lost power was the Energy Ministry. The Journal calls the country's unstable power grid "a thorn in the side of [the] energy-rich" country.

[Cincinnatus]

During the good old days of the Soviet Union this sort of claim was invoked when needed to explain why the economic system was such a mess. In fact, "wrecking" was codified in Soviet law and brought with it criminal penalties..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_(Soviet_crime)

Currently Venezuela, dominated as it is by far Leftists, is merely resurrecting an old Soviet alibi for failure.

[truth_seeker]

I'll bet that Venezuela has run the competent international engineering and construction firms out, leaving incompetents behind.

And predictable long term results.

[alicewonders]

I'm surprised they're not whining that they need more money to spend on "infrastructure".   

[musiclady]

No different than what Obama would say if it happened here.

[mountaineer]

The commies are turning Venezuela into a third-world nation, which shouldn't surprise anyone.