Life at risk, I’ve joined exodus from Venezuela
Having two shotguns knocking against the back of my head led me to do something last month that 1.5 million Venezuelans have done since Hugo Chávez started his so-called socialist revolution in 1999: I left the country.
It was a difficult decision, one I spent months agonizing over.
I spent 24 years in Venezuela, working as an English teacher, then as a journalist. Ten years ago, I moved to Tasajera, a village nearly 1 mile high in the foothills of the Andes, where I raised coffee and vegetables while writing on a part-time basis. Living in Tasajera immersed me in a different Venezuela, one I sometimes failed to see while working full-time in the capital and frequenting the presidential palace.
I volunteered at the elementary schools and participated in all of Chávez’s social experiments, including our commune. I witnessed firsthand the impact of the revolution on everyday life, both the successes and failures.
Shortages began shortly after I moved to Tasajera. They began inconspicuously: Instead of three brands of margarine, there were suddenly two. Sugar was sometimes missing for a day or two. Slowly, more and more products — toilet tissue, soap, coffee, milk, flour — went missing.
My car dealership had no spare parts. The pharmacies ran out of most drugs. Dog food disappeared, as did chicken feed.
I and my neighbors initially laughed about the shortages. We were all losing weight on the “Maduro diet,” named after Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro. Then the shortages became critical as oil prices remained weak and the government no longer had the money to pay the bills to import basic foodstuffs.
This summer, gaunt city dwellers started coming to the village, walking around to see what they could steal to eat. Hunger stalked Tasajera as well: One elderly man, abandoned by his family, died of malnutrition in his hovel.
We were treated to constant blackouts and a collapse in government services such as health care and education.
The biggest problem was the breakdown in values and the upsurge in crime. After a coup attempt against him in 2002, Chávez took over many police forces to ensure their loyalty. He armed his followers, many of whom are little more than thugs. Not surprisingly, Venezuela’s murder total soared from almost 5,000 in 1999 to this year’s forecast of 30,000.
Tasajera was rent by an unprecedented wave of violence. A gang of teenagers armed with guns began terrorizing the village.
They would wait in ambush outside a victim’s house, then jump him when he went outside. The victim and his family would be tied up and their house emptied. Some victims were held for ransom. Several people resisted; one of my friends nearly died when the thieves shot him and left him bleeding on the floor.
The police did nothing, pleading that they didn’t have the necessary arms to protect us. Many of my neighbors suspect the police were involved in the 50-odd robberies.
When I was robbed at gunpoint, my captors — all skinny teenagers with their faces covered — held me for three hours before they let me go, so I could raise a ransom to buy my car back. I heard them bicker over the meager cash they found on me and realized they were just kids who saw no future for themselves in Venezuela, where the monthly minimum wage is the equivalent of $20. They have paid the price. Two of the four are dead: killed by rival gangs or in a government anti-crime initiative that relies on army death squads to exterminate criminals who don’t have the connections or money to buy immunity.
Venezuela is a broken society, moving inexorably to a protracted political struggle between Maduro and his supporters and his opponents that could lead to civil war. I hope that’s not the case; I fear it is.
Having two old shotguns against my head made me realize that I was likely to be collateral damage. It was time to move to Ohio. Unlike my friends, I could leave. They can’t.