On 20th February, two of Erika's best friends in Venezuela were arrested and detained by police for taking photos and videos of the protests. This is her heartfelt response to the violence, turmoil and corruption that is currently ravaging her country.
I invite you to imagine a place with beautiful women, beautiful landscapes and delicious food. Now I can tell you that there are many places that are just like you imagined, one of them is Venezuela.
When people ask me “Where are you from?” I proudly respond “From Venezuela”, and often the response is related to Miss Universe, beautiful beaches, oil, etc.
But other times people mention the name that makes me remember why I left the country, and that is “Chavez”.
I wanted to start this post by explaining who was Chavez and how it relates to what is happening now in Venezuela, if you don’t know what’s happening don’t worry, I'll get to that later.
Chavez was the president of Venezuela from year 1999 until 2013 when he died. This man dragged the country into misery. Venezuela is a rich country and probably you don’t believe me, that is because only a small group is rich, and guess which group? Chavez’s family and friends, most of them with big roles in the government.
Wanna know more about Chavez’s wealth, you can visit this post from “The Telegraph” in UK.
I believe that the cause of most, if not all problems in Venezuela is the corruption. The government have used the country’s wealth for personal enrichment.
Venezuela's economy has been directly affected, leaving the country with a current inflation rate of 56%, the minimum wage can’t even be compared in USD because Venezuela has a different exchange scheme which is controlled by the government.
Venezuelans can’t exchange currencies normally, we have to ask permission to the government and that still leave us with a maximum of US$2500 a year, and this is just short summary of this complicated scheme.
Guess who implemented this?
Yes, Chavez, but of course this doesn’t apply for them.
Controversial photo of Chavez’s daughter holding US dollars, deleted soon after posting
Additionally to this, Venezuela is one of the most dangerous places in the world. How dangerous? Well, a person is murdered every 21 minutes. In the past decade Venezuela wasn’t at war, however more people have been killed during this time than Iraq’s war...officially. Caracas (the capital) is in the world’s most dangerous cities in the world, and has been recently ranked among the most expensive cities in the world.
What's happening in Venezuela now?
Well, everybody is tired, tired of living in a country that is divided in two, tired of having to queue to buy food, tired of having shortages in food, products (including toilet paper) and even electricity. Tired of being scared that someone can kidnap/kill you or your beloved ones, tired of having to ask permissions to the government to buy foreign currencies, tired of having to migrate to another country...Venezuelans are generally tired.
As a Venezuelan, I feel sad to see such a beautiful country with so many resources having such a bad time...and that time has been 15 years!
All these reasons have been giving the people’s the strength to go to the streets and protest, from 12 of February Venezuelans have taken the streets as a form of peaceful protest. These protests have been organized mainly by students and have been taking place in all major cities of the country.
Protesters against government in Caracas, Venezuela
So far 10 Venezuelans have been killed in these protests, the murderers have been discovered through videos recorded by protesters.
Most of the murderers are members of “Colectivos”, armed civilians self denominated paramilitary units in defense of Chavez. Others have been result of tortures from the national guard (GNB), the tortures include terrible violations of human rights.
Will there be justice to these assassins? No, Venezuelans have to rely on karma...frustrating!
In the meantime who is in jail? Unarmed protesters with cellphones and cameras documenting the abuses.
Last week, in an attempt to leave the country without communications to the outside world, the government blocked images on Twitter. This was then confirmed by a Twitter spokesman. Later in the week the government revoked the credentials to the news channel CNN, and as a consequence the most important reporters and crew had to leave the country for their own safety.
CNN's reporter Patricia Janiot had to leave Venezuela after the president threatened the news channel.
One day before she was interviewing an govmt supporter and he kept repeating that there is freedom of speech and that this is a democracy
Since the information in the TV channels is controlled by the government, Venezuelans have to rely on social media to inform and get informed, but having the government controlling the internet and mobile network providers, there is limited access to the internet. In creative strategies, Venezuelans have open their Wi-Fi to share the internet to those protesting nearby.
What is the solution?
For me there is no other than a change of government...in a truly democratic country the president would have taken the message since day 1 and avoided many innocents suffering and dying. Instead what he does? He enjoys a dance!
President Nicolas Maduro dancing. Photo taken on the 23 of February 201
Many Venezuelans (and not Venezuelans) around the world have been monitoring the situation and showing their support by re-sharing in social media, by informing colleagues and friends of what's happening and organizing pacific protests in their resident country.
My goal as a Venezuelan living outside the country, but still caring about the country where my family and friends live, is to inform and to do as much a possible to get the world to hear that Venezuela is suffering and is living such a tense moment with many innocents dying every day (and every 21 minutes) caused by such a crap job from the government.
Venezuelans around the world showing their support. These are peaceful protests, in Venezuela all protests have been peaceful and unarmed as well...but then there is intervention from armed gvmt supporters and national guards/police. Does this makes sense when the president says he wants "peace" and that Venezuela is a "democratic" country?
With tweets from Madonna, Jared Leto, Ricky Martin and other famous artist the word have been spread, but not enough. This is only a summary of what Venezuelan is leaving right now, here I share a few videos/article that explain deeper the situation and the abuses from the government:
- a 6min video explaining what's going on in Venezuela in a nutshell
- Venezuela: Violence Against Protesters, Journalists - Human Rights Watch
- Man allegedly ‘raped with gun’ after arrest in Venezuela protests
- Beauty queen Genesis Carmona gunned down in Venezuelan protests
- Everything You Need To Know About The Uprising In Venezuela
- Hashtags: #SOSVenezuela #PrayforVenezuela #ImyourvoiceVenezuela
No comments:
Post a Comment