Okay, hi! Venezuelan here! I am sick of seeing people online simplify the situation in Venezuela into “U.S intervention bad, stop kidnapping presidents and invading other countries.” It so fucking nuanced.
First and foremost, Maduro is a DICTATOR who has taken thousands of lives by killing political opponents, crashing the economy to the point of starving the poor to death (even going so far as to make it illegal for doctors to state starvation as a cause of death due to how frequent it was and how badly he wanted to hide it) and allegedly trafficking drugs. The last one is NOT a U.S rumor; I’ve heard it as a Venezuelan for years, it is treated as a fact where I’m from. I’m only saying allegedly, because he has yet to stand trial. The dictatorship has also cut off basic utilities, like water and electricity, to full cities and states. They have given moldy food as part of “Social Services.” They have stolen the passports of Venezuelans who live abroad in order to force them to stay in the country when visiting. If I see one more person call Maduro’s capture a “kidnapping” rather than the proper arrest it is, I’m going to lose my shit.
On the other hand, the U.S having Venezuela under their leadership until “our country can manage itself” is BAD! We have an opposition government led by Edmundo González and Maria Corina who were actually elected by the Venezuelan people. We want THEM in charge! Most of the people I hope are holding out hope that this will be the path American inevitably takes. Personally, I don’t think they’ll do it any time soon. It seems too against their interests to do that, which is why it isn’t all positive. If I had to guess, they’ll pull a “post-Cuban independence deal” where they’ll force Venezuela to sign an oil deal that’s favorable to them as a thank you for the rescue. This is objectively negative for Venezuela.
However, this is still our best shot at democracy. The U.N has done fuck all even though they should be the ones in charge of prosecuting Venezuela’s dictatorial regime, and no one has intervened beyond sanctions. The Dictatorship also (still) has control over the government, so the people couldn’t go up in arms without massive bloodshed. While I have a hard time believing no civilians were caught in the crossfire, I’ve yet to see prove otherwise. Furthermore, if the U.S wants to quit pissing off the international community as well as ruining their public perception, they will be forced to inevitably work with the opposition/democratically elected Venezuelan government. The best we can do know is hope that this won’t result in a puppet government and either prepare for the worst or tell loved ones to do so if we emigrated from Venezuela.
All in all, the situation sucks. It fucking sucks, but it is convoluted and brings a slither of hope to a bleak situation. It could turn out really well if the opposition government plays its cards right and, whatever the U.S does, it cannot be worse than what Maduro was already doing. From here on out, if it gets worse, it’s because the remaining dictatorial regime refuses to go down without a fight or the U.S overstays its welcome and that leads to a fight. But, we aren’t at either of those points yet.
Every Venezuelan I know CELEBRATED. My mom got out the good alcohol, my grand aunt said she couldn’t sleep due to how excited she was (theraid happened at 2AM local time), my aunts and uncles called excitedly to tell my mom. If nothing else good comes of this, a dangerous dictator with years and thousands of lives worth of blood on his hands has been arrested. I hope he gets a fair trial, because he deserves to rot in prison for what he has done. A huge portion of the country wants him dead. The grand majority want him out of power, if nothing else. Again, the opposition won the elections.
Quit. Treating. The. Situation. Like. It’s. Black. And. White. It is not. If you are going to discuss Venezuela’s current situation, then do the bare fucking minimum of learning the political state of our nation BEFORE U.S intervention and make it clear that, regardless of whether you are in favor of American intervention or not, it is a complicated situation. Treat it with nuance it fucking deserves and, if you can’t do that, the don’t talk about it.
——— I’m separating this part, because it’s more personal and my factual points have already been made. The TL;DR is there are REAL people being affected by this, so treat it as such instead of making us feel like the country we love and belong to is just another political bargain on the world stage.———
We aren’t your fucking ping pong ball for you to debate whatever the hell it is this time; we are our own country. We deserve to be more than just another “I’m sick of the American government fighting for oil.” I’m not saying you can’t complain about that and use Venezuela as an example, but the fact that America is the focus when it is VENEZUELA’S GOVERNMENT’S foundation that is being overturned is insane. This is what happens when you don’t treat a nuanced subject with the delicacy it needs and deserves: it turns into this black-and-white, us-versus-them match of “who can make the oversimplified-to-the-point-of-being-false version sounds better to the audience.” It so frustrating and sickening to see.
We are people who have lived through a dictatorship and have had to leave everything behind in order to escape or watched those we know leave one by one, because there were no prospects in our country. We are finally faced with the possibility of change. We deserve to have our lives, our loved ones’ lives treated with respect and value. Because, when you reduce this story to U.S intervention and nothing else, you ignore the millions of people who are being affected by this. You ignore Venezuela’s long-standing history of violence, oppression and fragile democracy and its need to end a horrendous, internal cycle of poor education and dismissing the people’s wishes in governance.
