Editor’s Note: The source living in Venezuela is referred to by alias initials (FA) to help ensure anonymity and safety.
“Its culture is incredible. I don’t think there is a culture that has more joy in life and incredible charisma,” Mike De La Rosa, a Roaring Fork Valley resident originally from Venezuela said of his home country. “There is amazing warmth interpersonally.”
On Jan. 3 at 2am, FA was awoken by the sound of his windows shaking in Caracas. At first, the confusion of calamity set in, but then: hope.
“For an hour or an hour and a half, just every once in a while, you’d hear boom boom boom. We didn’t know if it was the army, or if that was the start of a war,” FA told The Sopris Stars. “I was scared, but at the same time I was excited. Maybe things are finally going to start changing.”
While the United States’ arrest of Nicolȧs Maduro on Jan. 3 is highly contested, it represented a crack in the wall of a longstanding regime in Venezuela.
Rosa cautioned against forming assumptions and opinions about Venezuela’s sovereignty and political atmosphere. He said that Venezuela is being instrumentalized and people are trying to defend their own narratives, often without considering the country’s current and historical contexts.
Rosa and FA, a resident in Caracas, have lived under the preceding Hugo Chávez and Maduro regimes. The latter described a descent into authoritarianism after Chávez was elected as a socialist, initially popular among the working class. After his second term as president, the constitution was altered to make way for his third. Utilities provided to the people became contingent on their continued support and the opposition’s presence in the media dwindled.
“It became difficult to tell where Chávez ended and the government began,” FA said.
In 2006, Rosa’s father, a former consultant to Chávez challengers Claudio Fermín and Manuel Rosales and a political columnist, felt rising tensions and was pressured to stay silent or leave. After receiving a threatening email detailing his son’s school bus route, the family sold the house, gave up their assets and left for the United States. This became the story for many individuals. Rosa explained that qualified and experienced Venezuelans fled to countries where they were criminalized, leaving behind property, family and familiarity in an effort to survive.
“The Venezuelans coming into America are not the narco-trafficking warlords or whatever. These are invented narratives,” Rosa stated. “It’s easy to overreport Venezuelan crimes, even though they are not truly an outlier. These crimes probably arise from being a refugee in survival straits. These people are the victims of lifelong oppression.”
Once Venezuela’s economy crashed and inflation reached over 40,000%, both criminal activity and censorship were exacerbated. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in 2018, 92% of the population didn’t have access to clean water, targeted blackouts left cities incapacitated, 90% of Venezuelans fell into poverty and about a quarter of the population left in a mass exodus.
“I have two sisters; they both left the country [and] live abroad. Most of my friends have left the country, because there was no economic opportunity; or if you say anything, criticize the government, you’re at risk,” FA explained. “If you do anything to make your life better. If you say, ‘We should change policy to make the economy better’ or ‘We should free these innocent people,’ saying those kinds of things that are true and reasonable can get you in jail. So either you play their little corrupt game … or you keep quiet.”
“It was a setting incomprehensible for most Americans,” Rosa said. “It was a culture dominated by violence … Almost every Venezuelan has an experience where a friend, a cousin has been abducted, sequestered for money.”
FA explained that while crime worsened, “The government went against crime in the worst possible way: just killing people — extrajudicial killings.”
Rosa explained that Venezuelans actively protest. There were months of boycotts, frequent opposition and resistance, but because the government controlled the oil revenue its power prevailed.
“I don’t think Trump has any altruism in him,” he said. “No one is against humanitarian aid, no one is against careful and calculated support, but the impulsivity is offensive. He’s stumbling into this in a very destructive way, but the potential that the regime is unstable, when before things were so set in stone, presents the possibility for actual … change.”
While many Americans dislike the idea of the United States acting as an imperial power, Rosa said Venezuela has not been truly sovereign for years. Russia, China and Iran have been influencing Venezuelan politics and exerting control over the economy.
“It’s disgusting to be converted into a footnote in some larger ideological battle. Oppression doesn’t operate in Cold War logic,” he said.
A return to normalcy, although a certainly complicated and convoluted path, is what FA and Rosa both expressed a longing for. Neither saw an obvious path forward, but each highlighted the importance of finding a way to independent democracy.
“There are two levels of hope: Maybe the economy will get better; maybe we won’t get blackouts; maybe there will be investments and economic opportunity. Then, the bigger hope: There will be political change; voting will mean something; you won’t go to jail for criticizing something; your voice will count for [something]. So many people want to work to make this country better,” FA stated. “I studied economics and political policy to make things work. This is a transitional period. We all hope that the people in power won’t just become puppets of the U.S.”
“For decades, we have looked up to the U.S. as a symbol of democracy and freedom,” he continued. “We hope the U.S. can help bring democracy and freedom to Venezuela, without losing your own democracy and freedom in the process.”