To everyone who follows me and whom I’ve befriended over the 5+ years I’ve been on tumblr, It would mean a lot if you read this.
I’m a Venezuelan living in Venezuela. I’m not a poli-sci student or a political analyst nor do I claim to be, so everything I’m about to say comes from what little I understand about the situation of my country as a venezuelan citizen who still lives here.
Nearing the end of March, the Supreme Court took over the functions of the Congress, following orders of the President, Nicolás Maduro (This measure was withdrawn over national and international backlash). This came after a year of tension between the Congress (mainly composed of opposition leaders) and every other branch of our government, which aligns with the President. Up until then, every major decision the Congress took had been overturned by the Supreme Court, so this final decision came as no surprise to many of us.
However, this time was different. Maybe it was the audacity of the Supreme Court to take away from us the last big political win we had had democratically, or how the quality of life in our country has exponentially deteriorated over the last year, or a bunch of different thngs; but people took the streets.
They called for a peaceful march to show the world the discontent we feel towards this government and how it’s stripped us of basic human rights (several of our cities are on the top ten of the most unsafe cities in the world, and there are severe food and medicine shortages).
During this march the protesters were met with ruthless repression. The National guard fired plastic bullets at the peaceful march, as well as expired tear gas that they didn’t bother to shoot at the air, but directly at protestors. Parapolicial, government sympathizing groups opened fired against the protesters and a 17 year old boy was killed.
In the following days, the headquarters of Justice First, a strong opposition party was bombed, putting many people at risk. This came after Henrique Capriles, one of the main opposition leaders in the country, was banned from serving in any government position for 15 years. (News article here)
The protests extended to other cities in the country, mainly in the Andes region. An university student from Táchira, a state in this region, was killed by the same parapolicial armed groups during a demonstration.
This fueled the protests and there were non-stop demonstrations all over the country, but mainly in Caracas, all through April. The same disgusting repression was evident in every single demonstration.
They all start peaceful, then the National Guard intervenes and they shoot plastic bullets at demonstrators, they incessantly fire expired tear gas at them. They even went so far as to throwing the tear gas from helicopters, impacting elementary schools and children hospitals. This has forced demonstrators, in several occasions, to go into the Guaire, a heavily polluted river in Caracas. They then have to make the choice between possibly suffocating or contracting lepstospirosis, mange or any other disease you may get from a river that acts as the city’s main sewer.
As I said before, the National Guard fires these tear gas canisters (see image below) directly at protesters with clear intention to hurt them. They have impacted people in the head, on limbs and most recently, they impacted a 20 year old man in the chest. The collision ruptured his heart and he died. The authorities tried to cover this up by saying he was killed by the impact of a caught bolt pistol.
In my city, a professor called Irma Bello went out during the 19th of April demonstrations, where the National Guard aimed their water cannon directly at her. The stream of water hit her straight on and knocked her face-first on the floor. While she was there, they continued moving her around with the stream, while preventing people from helping her. She’s 50 years old and was exercising her right to peacefully protest. She was sent to the hospital with a bloody lip, shattered teeth, a swollen eye, a dislocated shoulder and a concussion that left her suffering from severe headaches.
In recent days, the President has called for a Congress to review the Constitution, which would inevitably lead to him and his people further perpetuating themselves in power. The government has also decided that our country must exist the Organization of American States over strong criticism by Luis Almagro (its secretary) on what’s happening in my country.
I’ve lost count of the amount of people who have been killed and imprisoned during the last month. I’m disgusted and offended by the government calling our people terrorists and murderers for arming themselves with molotov cocktails and throwing the tear gas back at them when they got tired of being the victims of the repression. When they decided to hit back.
Even more so, I’m hurt that I can’t exercise my right to protest without fear of being severely injured or worse.
I am tired of public employees being dragged to marches or bullied into not protesting because they’re afraid of losing their jobs and never working again.
I’m scared of the disorganization that reigns in the opposition movement and the apathy of the international community regarding our situation. I see the news articles but I don’t see the sanctions, I don’t see the frozen bank accounts, despite everyone and their mother knowing that our president and his entire executive train are using my country to launder money from the drug trade.
I’m tired of feeling like I have no future in my country and that my parents worked so hard to get somewhere in life just to have that stripped away. They can’t speak up, they can’t complain because then they’d be traitors and they’d be fired and we’d be eating from the trashcans as so many people are right now.
I’m tired of people with chronic diseases, such as hypertension, schyzophrenia, epilepsy and so on and so forth, having to travel all around the country to find their medicines. I’m tired of severely mentally ill people in psych wards not receiving their treatment and being malnourished. I’m tired of people with cancer that’s just starting not being able to have a second chance at life.
You get ill in Venezuela and you’re potentially signing a death sentence. You complain as a public employee in Venezuela and you’re fired. You have something slightly nice in Venezuela and odds are you’ll be killed so another person can have it.
I’m aware that some of you might not know that Venezuela is a tiny country at the north of South America, but to me, it’s my world. I was born here, I was raised here and I’ve never left. I’ve never known any other reality. I want this to end.
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
jacobvanloon
romaincrisis
snowghoul
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
