Desperation is stronger than fear in Venezuela

Citizens are risking imprisonment and losing their jobs to speak out against Maduro’s regime

Two weeks before a massive power failure turned the lights out across Venezuela, Geovany Zambrano Rodríguez had done the unthinkable. The state electricity worker had joined colleagues in publicly accusing the Maduro government of “destroying” the national grid and declaring themselves willing to rebuild it under “President Juan Guaidó”.

Speaking to an online television channel, the four Corpoelec workers said that incompetence, corruption and neglect had left Venezuela’s electrical infrastructure “on the floor”.

Pointing to already frequent outages, they warned of total collapse.

“At any moment, we could fall into a blackout across the whole country and it’s going to be very difficult to recover the system with the equipment we have”, one said.

After that catastrophic prediction came to pass, Mr Zambrano – forcibly retired from his post the previous week – was detained. Taken on March 11 to the local headquarters of SEBIN, the national intelligence service, he was then released, only to be rearrested the next day by the same agents, according to the human rights organisation PROVEA.

Yesterday, it was reported that Mr Zambrano had been charged with criminal association, leaking of information and sabotage, and ordered to remain in the custody of Sebin.

Mr Guaidó has condemned the detention of the 54-year-old plant worker from Ciudad Guayana.

It was an attempt by Nicolas Maduro’s regime to “silence the truth and impose the lie of sabotage”, he said, referring to Caracas’s claim that the blackout – which continues to affect much of the country including parts of the capital – was the work of the United States.

To speak out as a public worker in Venezuela has long meant punishment. Since the days of Hugo Chávez, the country’s vast public sector has been under tight political control, its employees required to don red caps and T-shirts for government rallies, vote for the ruling party and toe the official line. Those who fail to comply tell of being summarily dismissed, demoted, denied pay or benefits and harassed.

With almost 33 per cent of the workforce employed by the state, that control has been crucial to propping up the Socialist government as its support otherwise dwindles. But rising discontent over working conditions, infrastructural decay and the country’s economic collapse is beginning to erode the state’s grip, a shift which Mr Guaidó is attempting to turn to his advantage.

The leader of the oppositioncontrolled National Assembly – recognised as Venezuela’s interim president by 65 countries including the US and UK – last week held a meeting with union leaders from key public industries, including the oil sector.

He announced an agreement for the unions to call staggered strikes, and said he would put forward an amnesty bill in the National Assembly which would guarantee the reinstatement of any worker fired for political reasons.

“We know there will be threats, we know there will be persecution,” he said. But it was time “to collaborate with the dictatorship no more”.

The Daily Telegraph spoke to both active and fired workers from the Metro of Caracas, the Central Bank of Venezuela, and from the public health and education sectors, who said desperation was now winning out over fear of reprisals.

Edgar Castro, a 47-year-old worker from the Central Bank of Venezuela who attended the Caracas meeting, said it was the first time he had talked publicly about his disaffection. He knew it could cost him dearly, remarking: “Perhaps I won’t have a job tomorrow.”

He described an atmosphere of intimidation, with the bank directed from the presidential palace, key posts filled by unskilled regime favourites. and those who didn’t “applaud” the government sidelined. Speaking out now was a matter of “conscience”, Mr Castro said.

“How can we continue applauding a system that has brought us to misery, that has multiplied the poverty?”

Aida Cabrera, a pharmacist at the University Hospital of Caracas, the city’s largest public medical centre, said after witnessing “years of decline” she could no longer stay silent as the

‘How can we continue applauding a system that has brought us to misery; that has multiplied poverty?’

facility foundered and patients died.

She described a critical lack of medicines and food for patients, no water, shortages of staff, including surgeons, and dilapidated facilities. Of its 1,200 beds, it was only currently operating around 120, she added.

Despite enormous pressure, Mrs Cabrera said she believed more and more public employees would speak out, and that Venezuela would eventually be brought out of crisis. “Every grain of sand helps,” she said.

The Metro of Caracas too, once the envy of the region, is on the verge of collapse. Shortages of staff and basic supplies are so severe that it is no longer even able to charge passengers; ticket booths are unmanned, machines out of order, turnstiles simply left open.

At a pro-guaidó rally, a group of current and recently fired employees told of dangerous conditions, staff forced to work without protective gear, unqualified youth being recruited and armed “colectivos” present inside the installations.

Only 20 per cent of trains were now operational, the workers said, predicting the Metro would soon break down entirely.

“I don’t think we’ll get to December,” said Wilder Perez, 41.