Page 10 The Skanner March 1, 2017
News
AP Analysis: In Venezuela, Short on Food, Short of Hope
By HANNAH DREIER and JOSHUA
GOODMAN, Associated Press
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela is
so short on food that tens of thousands
are going hungry or even starving. Its
murder rate is among the highest in the
world. Its economy is so crippled that
the average shopper spends 35 hours
a month waiting in line — three times
more than in 2014.
Yet even as the country becomes in-
creasingly unlivable, the socialist gov-
ernment is more entrenched than it has
been in years. A sense of hopelessness
has settled over what was once among
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An AP News Analysis
The fear inspired by the 2014 crack-
down weighs heavily on the present,
with a government that is selectively
repressive. Many of more than 100
political prisoners were arrested that
year and remain in jail, according to
human rights groups. Most are being
held incommunicado in the dungeons
of El Helicoide, a spiral-shaped mod-
ernist landmark built as a shopping
mall during the 1950s oil boom, which
is now the headquarters of the all-pow-
erful Sebin intelligence police.
The creation last month of an “an-
ti-coup commando unit” headed by the
What’s the point of protesting if they just kill
you in the streets and, three years later, every-
thing is even worse?
the richest nations in South America, a
belief that nothing will really change.
To understand why people have giv-
en up, look at Jhorman Valero and his
family.
Three years ago, Valero dragged his
24-year-old cousin, Bassil da Costa,
to join thousands of others in a na-
tionwide protest against the adminis-
tration of President Nicolas Maduro.
Hours later, Bassil was bleeding in his
arms, the first of more than 40 people
to be killed during weeks of unrest.
Staring numbly at the floor, Jhorman
recounts how he watched his cousin’s
skull come apart under his baseball cap
from a bullet shot by security forces.
Now Valero and Bassil’s sister, Yenic-
er da Costa, no longer bother to protest,
even on the anniversary of the 2014
protest.
“What’s the point of protesting if they
just kill you in the streets and, three
years later, everything is even worse?”
she said.
vice president has stoked fears of more
roundups. The unit already has arrest-
ed three members of the party of Leop-
oldo Lopez, the highest-profile prison-
er, who led the protest at which Bassil
was killed.
As the price of oil has fallen and laid
bare years of mismanagement, Mad-
uro’s administration has responded
by becoming more repressive. It has
purged state institutions of potential
traitors, kept out foreign reporters,
detained prominent businessmen and
declared null all decisions by the oppo-
sition-controlled congress.
As a result, the young people who
would be the natural fuel for any street
protest movement are not turning out.
At demonstrations these days, there
are more grandparents than youths.
One reason is that so many young
people have simply fled the country.
The protest this month got off to an
inauspicious start, with an older man
shouting, “Where are all the students?”
‘’They didn’t come!” called back Diego
AP PHOTO/ARIANA CUBILLOS
Young people have fled country, and many citizens have stopped protesting as conditions worsen
In this Feb. 12, 2017 photo, students hold an anti-government protest to mark the third anniversary since
the killing of student protester Bassil da Costa by security forces during weeks of unrest in Caracas,
Venezuela. Bassil’s sister, Yenicer da Costa, no longer bothers to protest, even on the anniversary of her
brother’s death. “What’s the point of protesting if they just kill you in the streets and three years later,
everything is even worse?” she said.
Cerboni, student union president at the
private Santa Maria University.
Many of the friends Cerboni used to
rely upon to demonstrate have left Ven-
ezuela. Cerboni estimates 100 students
are leaving Santa Maria each week,
forcing professors to consolidate sec-
tions and cancel under-enrolled classes
at the 12,000-student campus.
One recent survey found 88 per-
cent of young Venezuelans want to
emigrate. Venezuelans accounted for
more U.S. asylum requests than any
other country last year — more than
18,000, compared to a few hundred in
2013. So many people are applying for
passports that the government has run
short of supplies and all but stopped is-
suing them.
“The government has a smart strat-
egy. They keep us looking over our
shoulder, keep us busy looking for food
and medicine. You’re working on how
to get out of the country, and you don’t
have time to march,” Cerboni said.
Protester Marcello Gonzalez, 69, said
all his 15 grandkids and seven of his 10
children have left the country.
“There’s a terror campaign here,” he
said. “The government is using tear
gas and arrests to intimidate the young
people and make them stay home. We
older people don’t have to worry as
much. We know we’re not the target.”
To be sure, the streets are not always
calm. Twice last year, the opposition
rallied hundreds of thousands of peo-
ple to protest the Maduro administra-
tion. But while popular movements
have helped topple governments in
places like Egypt and Ukraine, Vene-
zuela’s protests seem to have had little
effect on the political calculus of those
in power.
“Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall,
a lot of people are walking around with
this myth in our heads that if you get
enough people into the streets, the gov-
ernment will fall. And that’s just not
true,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor
at Harvard University who specializes
in Latin American politics.
The loss of hope is also tied to the
opposition’s failure to present a clear
alternative to the government. It is pe-
rennially divided and absorbed by its
own internal ego battles.
The government has successfully
made use of legal loopholes to hobble
the opposition without much interna-
tional protest. For much of last spring
and summer, the opposition appeared
to be getting back on track, collecting
some 2 million signatures — 10 times
the required minimum — to force a re-
call referendum against Maduro.