Worries

‘What, me worry?’ is the slogan of Alfred E. Neuman carachter of Mad Magazine

This is the English version of the article "Preocupaciones" previously published in this Blog. I am deeply grateful to Melina Vanni-González for the translation.


There are people inside and outside of Venezuela who are worrying a lot in the last few days, about issues such as foreign interference over the country, whether the opposition government has a concrete plan or not, the ideology of the opposition leaders, or the constitutionality of the actions that have been taken.

Some of those issues sometimes I also worry about (Trump and Bolsonaro influences over the future of Venezuela worry me a lot)

Meanwhile…

• Between January 21 and 25, more than 26 people have been killed in the context of protests.
• Hundreds of people have been detained by police forces, most of them exercising their right to protest (the exact number is  still being counted).
• Police forces have attacked residential areas, mostly in popular zones. In these actions they have detained citizens on arbitrary grounds, attacked and threatened people, and destroyed or stolen their property.
• Censorship is getting worse and most of the media can not report on the situations that are happening in Venezuela. At the same time, access to the Internet is often blocked and dirty war laboratories spread lies to create confusion, fear, and despair.
• Hyperinflation (Last December reached the figure of 1,300,000%) is destroying the lives of many people, pushing them to misery, hunger, or forced to migrate from the country in any way.
• In public hospitals, it is easier to get a samba dancer (recently used in an party at the offices of the Hospital Universitario de Caracas) than gauze and aspirin. In private clinics, the prices are in dollars. Essential medicines are only obtained at prices exceeding the miserable salary or pension of the vast majority of Venezuelan workers (Approximately $ 6 per month) 
• Venezuela seems to be a major exporter of illegal gold, mixed with blood, pain and suffering of miners, communities, and the annihilation of the lives, cultures, and rights of indigenous peoples. Government backed gold mining has caused  devastation of forests, pollution, and destruction of rivers as well as ecosystems of enormous ecological, cultural and economic value, current and future.
• Schools, colleges and universities are in crisis due to lack of teachers, students, materials for teaching or lack of water. Overall, for the education minister, having studied does not mean anything.
• Crime and fear of it is destroying lives, destroying families, and futures. Most of those killed or injured by criminal activity are young men living in popular areas.
• Foreign criminal gangs carry out massacres and negotiate with our resources before the total blindness or complicity of those who should avoid it.
• Venezuela has mortgaged its future to like-minded “friend” countries (e.g. China and Russia)
• Prosperity in Venezuela is often the privilege of a few close to governmental power, opportunists and those who have no scruples.

(Links were provided in English in all cases that were possible)


Sometimes, certain "worries", especially if they came up for the first time this week, are only the mask where insensibility, blindness and complicity are hidden.