Venezuela is falling apart and its military is terrifying people…(Our Future?)
Alicia Hernández, VICE News
BusinessInsider.com
May 18, 2016
A week ago residents of the poorer barrios of Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, woke up to find soldiers everywhere.
Dressed in black helmets, military fatigues, and bulletproof jackets, a fleet of soldiers on 400 motorcycles flew through narrow, crumbling, streets while being supported by trucks and two helicopters.
They set up street checkpoints and positioned themselves on rooftops to monitor the neighborhoods, while officers scoured alleys and houses holding heavy weaponry.
The military deployment took place in the midst of Venezuela’s massive economic crisis triggered by the fall of oil prices and characterized by a shrinking economy and hyperinflation. Blackouts are now constant, in many areas water is severely rationed, and public-sector employees work just two days a week in an effort to save energy.
Patients are dying in hospitals for lack of basic care, desperate families are buying bootleg medication at inflated prices, and standing in huge lines is required to buy basic goods such as toilet paper, condoms, and rice.
At the same time President Nicolás Maduro faces a drive by the political opposition, emboldened by its electoral win in December that gave it control of congress for the first time in 17 years, to force a recall referendum.
The situation is so tense that last week’s show of military strength sparked immediate rumors of a coup. What was actually happening was close to the opposite — the launch of a new phase of an anticrime offensive that some observers see as an effort by Maduro to show the unsettled population that he is still in charge and intends to remain so.
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