She fears for her life. She deserted the National Guard and now, she’s desperate to keep running. This conversation with her in the Colombian border is a sample of the state of mind within the Venezuelan Armed Forces: disappointment, economic strain, and distrust among the ranks.
The possibility of military intervention in Venezuela was ruled out this week. But if it resurfaces later, it would need support in the international legal order: the lack of a clear legal basis for a military action can affect the legitimacy of its ends.
Even after the PR fiasco of Univision’s Jorge Ramos detention, the official pressure against the remains of free press continues both in Caracas and the countryside. Blocking Internet, closing radio stations and harassing correspondents is the new normal.
At Plaza Venezuela, the most crowded station in the Caracas Metro, three Metro lines and the people who come from an interurban train converge where all basic services are failing and a suffering mass tries to survive an everyday commute that looks like a nightmare.
Venezuela’s collapse has forced the fragmentation of thousands of families, some of which are monoparental. When adults migrate without their kids, a whole array of abandon, mistreatment and tragedy appears.
On July 2017, 20 people were detained by National Police in Maracaibo during a demonstration. All of them were raped and tortured. Just one dared to tell what happened, and now some of the policemen involved are in jail.
On February 27th, 1989, a protest around an increase in bus fares evolved into four days of looting and massive repression. Back then, a new economic model failed at the beginning of its implementation, and the violence arrived to stay.
Venezuelans stranded on the other side of the closed Colombian border are torn between the desire to see their families again, and fear of regime violence.
After the interview was interrupted by the dictator, the most famous Latino news anchor in the world and his crew were detained for hours, his equipment taken and then ordered to leave the country.
Fear and confusion abound in the point where Brazilian aid was supposed to enter Venezuela on February 23rd. The violence revealed to the world a wider reality: the complex relationship between Chávez’s revolution and the suffering indigenous nations of Venezuela.
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