In the past month, people close to me in Venezuela have faced the following incidents:
– Armed robbery involving a Blackberry.
– Attempted car theft, followed by a confrontation with knives.
– Armed robbery of a vehicle, along with personal belongings (purse, cell phones, documents, etc.)
– Express kidnapping lasting only 3 days, with release after a payment of 100 to 400 million Bs. This incident was reported to the police, and the kidnappers tortured the victim upon discovering (how did they find out?)
Then you have to read @RaulAular arguing that we must “recover the territory,” that we should invest our assets in Venezuela, and that the “elite” is responsible for envisioning the future of the country and acting accordingly. This means burying their money in Venezuela so that chavistas or criminal elements can come to expropriate, rob, kill, rape, or kidnap whenever they please… All of this, according to Raul, is aside from the regime’s actions.
Next, you have to read about a certain Juan Carlos Sosa Azpurua launching his presidential candidacy while complaining about the absolute lack of transparency from the CNE…
Then you have to witness the empty “lovefest” of opposition politicians, pretending to live in a “democracy” and already counting the positions, and the funds, they supposedly expect to secure in the upcoming “elections”…
Venezuela, as a nation occupying a geographical space, does not exist in a physical sense. Venezuela is a utopia. What exists now cannot be called Venezuela. A more appropriate definition would be “apache territory,” “Anarchic Estate of Hugo Chávez,” “Kingdom of Hugo I,” “federative state of the warlords of Cubazuela,” “21st-century kleptocracy,” “federal territory of Fidel Castro, FARC, and Co”… And those who live there are all at the mercy of the elements. Note, not at the mercy of the law, understood as a collection of rules and legislation that courts and justice administration bodies are supposed to implement in accordance with the norms of the rule of law. The law that prevails is that of the revolver, that of the club, that of persecution, that of the warlord, be he president or neighborhood thug. There is no other. But as they say when you call to ask how things are, “nothing is happening here…”