President Nicolas Maduro’s leadership and ideals are leading Venezuela into chaos, and I can no longer stand on the sidelines, watching things unfold and hoping they get better.
Many news outlets have reported very little on the current situation in Venezuela, angering natives abroad for making it seem that the events unfolding are not as important as those events in other countries like Ukraine or Syria, which have received a significant amount of coverage.
It is in our own interest to protect and to defend countries whose democracies are being threatened by the powers that lead them. The international community must come together and impose sanctions on those governments that put their people’s wellbeing at risk.
As a child, I would play with my friends in the neighborhood parks in Caracas, Venezuela. As I got bigger so did my playground. I was no longer restricted to swings and slides. I would ride a subway system that would cross Caracas from end to end just for the fun of it. I would hang out with friends at night clubs and bars worry-free, even though the yearly murder rate by the time I left the country was at 32.9 percent, according to the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime. On the weekends, we would take an hour ride to the beaches or have “parrilladas,” Venezuelan-style barbecues, where there would be enough food to feed a small village.
I moved to the United States in 2000, straight out of high school, in search of a better future while always keeping my birthplace of Venezuela close to my heart. The political landscape by the time I moved to the U.S. began to change drastically in the oil-rich nation. It was never perfect, but it was never what it is now.
In 1998, Hugo Chavez’s political platform appealed to those living in poverty, according to indexmundi.com, almost reaching 70 percent of the population at the time. His political movement, coined “Revolución Bonita,” a pretty revolution, aimed to turn the country into a society governed by social ideals.
His administration created social programs that would hand out goods to the poor, building a government-dependent society instead of a self-sufficient one. Those who opposed Chavez’s tactics saw it as a strategic move to retain power. Though the last 14 years have brought the poverty level down to around 30 percent, the murder rate has steadily increased to almost 50 percent annually. To put that into perspective, about 35 people on average are murdered in Venezuela on a daily basis, and that is just the murders according to government reports, making it globally the fourth highest murder rate per capita. However, the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, an independent data-collecting agency, registered 24,763 murders last year which averages out to 67.84 on a daily basis.
Since Chavez’s death, Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s right hand man, was elected by a narrow margin in 2013 and has shown that he is not ready to lead a country. Building upon Chavez’s ideals a year later, Maduro’s Venezuela has reached a 56 percent inflation rate, as reported by Reuters, which has created a lack of basic food and goods due to the inaccessibility of funds for the providers. Family and friends accounts describe lines of over 200 people just to go into supermarkets in hopes to get their hands on anything like cooking-oil, bread, meat or milk. The regime, not wanting to take responsibility for their poor administration, or lack thereof, has pinned the blame on the private sector, claiming that they have stolen from the Venezuelan people. This caused massive looting throughout the country at the beginning of the year, covering up many claims of government corruption.
On Feb. 12, Venezuela’s Youth Day, student and opposition leaders called for a protest to reclaim many of the rights supported by law. However, what started out as a peaceful protest quickly turned into a confrontation between government supporters and college students. With the death toll rising days after confrontations, a new call to the students and the opposition was made, asking to wake up a nation with one voice and protest the current government. The social discontent in the polarized nation drew many people to the streets, plazas and highways and the government, in a swift action to silence the protesters, issued orders to the National Guard to pour out into the streets.
Through social media, many reports of abuse by government agents on protesters began to trend under #12F (for Feb. 12) and #SOSVENEZUELA. Shortly thereafter, the news and videos of marketing student Basil Da Costa’s death began to spread after he was struck by a bullet to the head during a confrontation between protesters and the Bolivarian Police, or government police. About a dozen people lost their lives since the protests have begun and more have been violently arrested by national security agents. Others captured such actions with recording devices, posting footage to YouTube and Instagram.
Other reports have emerged of international reporters being harmed and their equipment being seized in order to avoid spreading the news of the current situation. In a desperate action, the social government has censored the national media from reporting on the unfolding events.
In recent days, Maduro accused three U.S. diplomats of being involved in the protests against his government, either by inciting or financially supporting them, and expelled them from the country, labeling them as personae non grate and in response, the U.S. government expelled three Venezuelan diplomats from Washington D.C. just yesterday. In their rhetoric, Chavez and Maduro have ignorantly labeled the opposition and the U.S. government as fascists, a term that, ironically, better characterizes Chavez’s and Maduro’s regimes.
After several days of turmoil, the international community has begun to take a stand. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that the Venezuelan government’s use of force and intimidation against its people is unacceptable and will increase the likelihood of violence. Maduro classified Kerry’s statements as arrogant and said he believed the U.S. government was threatening Venezuela with more violence. Maduro warned the “insolent and brutal Empire,” referring to the U.S., would be defeated through the strength of the Venezuelan people and the foundations laid by his predecessor.
As of right now, the opposition, on their stance of no violence, will continue to make strides until Maduro backs down. On the other hand, the Venezuelan president has vowed not to give up on his revolution.
We can’t help but care for the things we find important in our lives. At the same time we can’t wait for a catastrophic event to happen to regain our humanity, because if not, then what are we doing right now? Let us never be indifferent toward one another. If something matters to you, like Venezuela does to me, spread the news, get others to take action until you help to create a better future for one another – especially for those who have yet to arrive.
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