Frontlines: Venezuela on the Brink

On February 12, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza met with UN Secretary General António Guterres. The UN was planning to increase humanitarian aid to the embattled South American country. Arreaza was having none of it. “There isn’t a humanitarian crisis,” he told Gutteres.

That there has been an unparalleled economic meltdown in Venezuela, resulting in hyper-inflation, food and medical shortages, and a mass migration of Venezuelans is not in dispute. President Nicolás Maduro has been struggling to maintain control of a country that has a population of 31.5 million people and vast oil reserves. Already, sixty-five countries, including the US, have ‘recognised’ the rival leader of the Popular Will party Juan Guaidó as interim President.

But, so far, Maduro has held onto power, supported by the Venuezelan military. The disconnect between Arreaza’s statement to the UN and the reality of day-to-day life is unmistakable. But that is nothing new for Venezuelans, whether at home ot abroad.

“For us, it’s not a surprise when they say these things,” says Liliana Fernandez, an NGO researcher, who moved from Venezuela to Dublin in 2013. “Unfortunately, they keep lying shamelessly about this humanitarian crisis. There is a lot of evidence about what’s happening in Venezuela. Any Venezuelan can tell you about their parents living there – they have to send them money because otherwise they will starve to death.”

Liliana is one of millions of Venezuelans who have left the country in recent years. While she hopes to return home, for now she must continue to supporting her parents financially from Ireland. She watches developments closely, and receives updates from friends and family, who participate in the massive protests – including one earlier this month in support of Guaidó.

Luis Alvarez moved to Dublin over five years ago, after a year-long period of unemployment in Venezuela. For the 33 year-old, watching from afar as his home country goes thrugh a form of prolonged torture is horrible. He wishes he could be there, to protest alongside them in the streets.

He sends his parents money and supplies – including pasta, Ibuprofen, nasal drops and other basic staples that are either difficult to find or unattainably expensive back home. Alvarez also participates in fundraising events and gatherings within the Venezuelan community here. He has also found purpose in sharing information about the lives of his loved ones in Venezuela.

“I feel that what I’m doing right now is what many Venezuelans are doing,” says Alvarez. “We become like reporters from our very own trenches. We have to let the people know what is actually happening, and the best way for us to do that is to share our personal experiences, and what our families and friends are going through over there.”

BASIC NECESSITIES

Food and medicine have become extremely difficult to find – and to afford – due to hyper-inflation, failed economic policies and corruption. Many Venezuelans are malnourished and desperately struggling to survive.

When Liliana Fernandez visited Caracas in June 2016, she said she was shocked by how bad things were. She witnessed entire families eating from the garbage outside of the Miraflores Palace, where Maduro works; people fainting from hunger on the subway; and queueing for over 10 hours to get simple items at a grocery store.

The situation has not improved since. A multi-university study found that in 2017, Venezuelans reportedly lost 11 kilograms in bodyweight on average, while over 60 percent of the 6,168 respondents said that they had woken up hungry because of being unable to afford food.

César Alcázar is a Professor of Economics at Central University in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, and an analyst for POLAR Enterprise. He talks about scenes of wrenching desperation.

“A year ago, I saw maybe 10-15 children and teenagers running behind a garbage truck,” he says. “The truck just happened to pick up the garbage from a restaurant, and those 10 or 15 ran there and told the guys, ‘Open the bags, let us have the food’.”

The government does not publish data or statistics that will reflect badly on itself, Alcázar notes, and will not acknowledge that Venezuela is experiencing a humanitarian crisis. Instead, one must interpret the government’s actions in order to infer what is happening. For example, a medical ship from China docked near Venezuela in 2018 to give medical help that the public hospitals were unable to provide. However, there is no data to quantify the extent of the shortages.

What is undeniable is that the effects of both food and medical shortages are real.

During a recent phone call to his parents, Luis Alvarez’s mother told him, “Last night we decided to have a bit of a luxury item.” When Alvarez asked what it was, his mother told him she had split a fish fillet with Alvarez’s father. The taps in his parents’ house only run a few times a week, so they collect water. His mother has been unable to secure her hormone medicine, whilst his father cannot get medication for his diabetes. Meanwhile, black market medication is often extremely expensive and sometimes illegitimate.

Juan Guaidó has stated that humanitarian aid will arrive from Colombia on February 23. César Alvarez is hopeful for a positive outcome, but has reservations. The possibility of sabotage is very real.

“I want this to be successful,” he says. “I feel it will be – but I’ll tell you also the truth: these people from Maduro’s regime, they are willing to do anything.”

While Venezuelans living abroad, like Alvarez and Fernandez, can send money and supplies to their families back home, the majority are not so lucky. For those earning the minimum wage – six euros per month – humanitarian aid is vital.

“My father says that people are looking like zombies,” Liliana Fernandez testifies, “His friends have lost a lot of weight. These are the people who don’t have anyone living abroad.”

Alcázar says that Venezuelans sending money from abroad represents about 15-20 percent of the foreign aid entering the country. As a result, socio-economic status in Venezuela can no longer be divided into five different scales, and instead must be divided into two. There are those with aid from abroad and those without.

IS A US INVASION IMMINENT?

Currently, a shipment of US aid is sitting in a warehouse in Colombia. The US has pledged $40 million in support, with Canada offering CAD$40 million and the UK £6.5 million. However, there is real – and legitimate – concern about international strategic interests in Venezuela and how aid can become a way of establishing a form of dependency and control. As a result, reputable, seasoned international organisations like War Child, Oxfam and the International Red Cross have said they will not help deliver aid.

It is no secret that the US has an interest in seeing Maduro fall: that has been the long-term goal of US foreign policy, since Maduro’s predecessor the United Socialist Party leader, Hugo Chavez, took up office as President in 1999. Earlier this year, the US imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s State-owned oil company and is now publicly supporting Juan Guaidó as interim president. There is speculation that, on the advice of the hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton, Donald Trump may be planning a US invasion of Venezuela.

Liliana Fernandez feels, that international media coverage of the situation is misleading, especially when Guaidó is referred to as the ‘self-proclaimed interim President’.

“It confuses people, because all anyone seems to be focused on now is the US intervention. Or the idea that Guaidó is self-proclaimed and that people haven’t elected him. What we’re focusing on is that they are following Article 233 of the constitution. That allows him to be the interim president. But what we really want is an actual free and democratic election.”

In contrast, the World Federation of Trade Unions has condemned the actions being taken by the US against the government of Venezuela, calling on trade unions all over the world to mobilise with concrete actions and initiatives to condemn what it sees as US imperialism in action.

For his part, César Alcázar supports economic sanctions against Maduro’s government.

“If the US keep cutting the access, Maduro’s government won’t have enough money to continue with this charade,” he says. “It’s not a government, but a big, big charade. When you have a government in which the generals and many officials are linked to the drug trafficking industry, Venezuelans don’t have the law on their side. The people who are supposed to protect you are the ones who are doing the business with the bad guys. When you have nobody to step up to them, you need the back-up of the big guys. I think that having the back-up of the US is important.”

This article was originally published in the print magazine of Hot Press on March 6.