Some Venezuelans who live here in Venezuela, and who suffer from the crisis and repression and who fight in Venezuela, want to say a few things. We could start with the most basic. As far as I know, Donald Trump was not born in Cariaco, right? Neither Marco Rubio was born in Churuguara or Stephen Miller was born in Petare.
They are not Venezuelans and yet I do not see that these Americans who speak, give their opinions, bombard and say that they are going to govern the country, I do not see that these immigrant compatriots of ours tell them to keep their mouths shut. Then one could say, following the same logic, if you are Venezuelan and you did not tell Donald Trump to shut up, then you should shut up too.
But we’re not going to be so rude, let’s say better then listen to some things. And I reiterate, we speak from here as Venezuelans, that like the majority, we all practically have torn families, half or more of our relatives abroad, children, sisters, nephews, due to forced migration, we suffer from disaster, hardship, the calamities of public services, widespread misery, etc. Political persecution.
In our case we are militant activists, who go to a picket and we do not know if in some cases we are going to return home, we have comrades in struggle, acquaintances, incommunicado prisoners in some cases. I hope this is enough to give me a good place to speak from.
Of course it is understandable that if we have emigrating compatriots who see in other countries people who claim to be leftist, anti-imperialist, but who have never raised their voices in their lives, never made a march, for the Venezuelan people, for their economic, social and democratic rights, trampled by the Venezuelan government. It is outrageous, and we must harshly question those sectors that claim to be anti-imperialist but do so by supporting capitalist governments like the Venezuelan one, which support a scheme of exploitation and oppression against the Venezuelan people.
But the thing is not about nationality, as we see, because positions like this and openly neocolonialist positions exist in any country and cross any nationality.
What logic or sense does it make to say that as a Venezuelan you celebrate that a neocolonialist madman, a narcissist with the air of an emperor, uses all his military power to say what government there should be in Venezuela? With language where it is clear, once again if necessary, that the guy doesn’t give a damn about the life of the Venezuelan people, democratic rights, social economic problems. The only thing that matters to him is his position as a kinglet, as an emperor who shows off his toupee, his audacity, saying that he is going to govern Venezuela for, he says it openly, the minerals, the rare earths, the oil, and that they have to give him access to control the Venezuelan economy.
We can say more: the treatment that Trump gives to immigrants, to you, to Latin Americans, to our families. How is it possible that we are applauding and excited, because a guy who despises us and considers us trash, fifth-class people, who considers us criminals and says it openly, and makes hate campaigns with that, towards Latin American immigrants, our families, is now bombing the country? For the sole and exclusive reason that it means “I am the owner of this.”
That is to say, that the resources of Venezuelans, if it was already a problem because their wealth and the fruit of national work are not based on the needs of the majority, now much less so. The same Trump who sent 200 parents and young Venezuelan workers to rot in a prison in El Salvador, practically selling them into slavery.
What does it mean that Trump now rules over oil and the Venezuelan economy? What are our problems: hospitals dismantled, public education back to nothing, salaries absolutely at rock bottom, chronic lack of housing as always, public services at rock bottom, etc. And that has to do with the fact that, of course, the national resources, the fruit of the work of the Venezuelan people, were not a function of social needs, but of the usual ones and of the new rich that emerged with Chavismo, of the big capitals, transnationals of any origin (China, Russia, the United States, Europe), that come here and take the natural resources or the fruit of the wealth generated with work. That’s the problem.
Now, when this guy by dint of extortion, by dint of putting a gun to the head of whoever is ruling in Venezuela, the United States controls the Venezuelan economy. Do you believe that paradise is coming now, that the country’s resources will be based on the needs of the great majority, health, education, salaries and housing? You would have to be very naive to be celebrating that.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
