A woman claiming to be from Venezuela on a CNN message board and again sounding fairly legitimate described the plight of the Venezuelans further and explained that the country has faced a marked decline in quality of life over the past fifteen years of Hugo Chavez’ and latterly Nicolas Maduro’s dictatorship. Here is her analysis of the situation – her English isn’t so good so some of it is hard to understand, but it paints a picture of a backwards society that doesn’t really have any hope for the future. Obviously this isn’t the whole story and it’s the opinion of one resident, but it seems like one of the more honest accounts that I’ve come across when researching the background to the current protests:

‘I understand information gets blurred once it reaches international news but I (and the majority of venezuelans) would appreciate if the truth was mentioned. we are not only fighting freedom of speech we are fighting against a dictatorship which has lasted over 15 years. maduro did not win the elections and chavez lost many of them too. the government owns everything in the country and we know now how they cheated many of the elections. we are aware of the 7.7 billion francs in switzerland that belong to only a group of 10 chavistas. we are aware that diosdado cabello could soon beat bill gates in “the richest man in the world”.

☛ More Rich People: Rich Kids Of Instagram 

we went from being an almost self-sustained country to having huge debts, low national reserves, zero coffe, cacao (or any other type of agriculture) production, no gas for our cars (due to 15 years of no maintenance), no food and basically no future. it is also important to note that venezuela has a “control de cambio” like many communist countries we are not allowed to freely buy dollars or any type of currency. the official rate is 6 bolivares per dollar while the parallel “black-market” is at 90 bolivares. the government has stopped giving dollars to our big companies which import most of our goods and then they blame them “the rich class/american/fascists/whateverirrelevantname” for charging so much for their goods (of course, they are forced to buy these goods with parallel dollars not at the official rate). this also has huge implications on international students, to go to university abroad you have to apply to get the dollars (as if the government was paying you your uni) to see if they give you the cost of uni at 6 bolivares. most times its like the lottery. many venezuelans have been forced to go back because if you don’t win the “cadivi lottery” you would have to pay your uni 15 times more expensive. hospitals no longer have the necessary pharmaceuticals. doctors have become used to write 6 prescriptions for their patients because they are aware that it is unlikely that they find all of the medicines required in one place. they are forced to disinfect with chlorine and sometimes that is not even found.

chavez pushed towards “patria socialismo o muerte” and looking back his original plan was needed. the gap between upper and lower class was too big (like in all latin countries). once in power everything changed. his plan was no longer to bring everyone to a middle class (like any other slightly left government would do) but to make everyone poor (like cuba did) in order to control the country. he instilled in the “poor people’s” heads that rich people were bad, americans worse and that he had the solution. ever since our middle class has been completely eliminated, our rich class fled and the poor have been taught to beg, hate the rich and to become thieves and murderers. because we are an oil country the poor know the govenrment is rich and their new way of thinking is “we don’t need to work, that is why the government is there, they will give us free everything” and they have for what…. one percent of the poor people. so while the poor are getting frustrated the middle class is being extenguished and the people with firms are being chocked with new laws.

☛  More Laws: 10 Of The Weirdest Laws In Britain

talking about law. the government (since they own the parliament and any other type of governmental office) make ridiculous laws as they go. one day they force people to rent out spaces at whatever price they see fit, other days they fix hospital prices and other days they only allow families to own one home. all of these laws have been placed and or altered and removed since they clearly saw that they would not work.

venezuela is moving backwards in time. it is the country of papers. to do anything, from traveling to buying a home to running a business you have to fill in a million papers go to some government office pay whoever is there not to reject your papers because she or he did not like the way you signed one of the 1000 papers and move on. the country is paralized in a cue. a cue for the supermarket to fight for that last roll of toilet paper or harina pan, a cue for your passport which you ordered 6 months ago and are still expected to pay ANOTHER person under the table to get it or a cue for your electricity supplier to ask once again why is it that half of the day during half of the week there are energy shortages….

it is sad to say and God help africa, but my country is close to those levels. our economy is down the drain and i found it unbelievable that no one has made an attempt to help us.

OIL IS OUR COURSE AND OUR BLESSING. our South American countries do not know what to do as venezuela gives them oil… and personally i would prefer being under the states command than under our ignorant uneducated corrupt government.

please help. this is only a short story of the truth. There is much more that the government hides, such as helping guerrilleros and drug lords.

this should be of international concern and myself and many venezuelans would like to ask the OEA to help us out.’

☛ More Drug Lords: Photos Of A Mexican Drug Lords House After It Was Raided

Currently, the opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez – who organised some of the demonstrations in the country – was recently arrested and placed in prison and charged with terrorism and murder charges, which were later replaced with conspiracy and arson charges. Apparently he is connected to the deaths of four government officials. Whilst he has denied these charges, Amnesty International has said that ‘they smack of a politically motivated attempt to silence dissent in the country’, which sounds about right.

As of writing this article, the protests and violence are still continuing over there but most shockingly – perhaps due to the media blackout – international news agencies haven’t really been pushing the story. Sure, they’ve covered it but it’s nowhere near as prominent as the stuff going on in Ukraine and it’s arguably just as bad. In fact, the only reason I wrote and researched this article was because someone wrote in to us asking for help publicising it because it was getting so little coverage.

With this in mind, it’s important that if you’r reading this you raise awareness of the issues by mentioning it somewhere. This isn’t even an attempt to get you to share the article, just tell someone or do a status update about it. Venezuela will appreciate it.

You can see some more images from the protests/riots over the page. Also this article isn’t saying that the stuff going down in Venezuela is more serious than that of Ukraine (as we haven’t really covered that on this site) – it’s just raising awareness of the fact that there is serious trouble over there.

☛ More Protests: Policeman Goes Pepper Spray Crazy On Some Protesters