Through a stream of tears, I can faintly hear her voice in a thick accent whisper, “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
In this Boston hotel room, a young student from Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela, spoke to a crowd of international students about the protests in her home country, and the government and police brutality that have accompanied them.
It’s an international crisis that’s seen little light in the wake of the Crimea crisis, whose existence poses a large-scale threat to the stability of U.S.-Russian relations. Yet, the repercussions of the Venezuela crisis have the potential to be just as severe.
The story of Venezuela’s political landscape has been a tale of cyclical oppression. Not even the death of Hugo Chávez, whose political platform of “Chavismo” led the country into periods of massive income inequality, rampant violence and widespread corruption, was enough to stem the tide of ever-growing instability.
Nicolás Maduro, the new president of Venezuela, has done little to combat Venezuela’s issues. It still remains one of the most violent countries in the world. Here’s a scary fact: In Venezuela, a person is murdered every 21 minutes. Economically, it is suffering from rampant inflation and resource scarcity, which Maduro has chalked up to an “economic war” against his country; yet, this is little more than a cover for the government’s fiscal and monetary incompetence.
It’s no wonder, then, why masses led by students took to the streets beginning in January to protest the government. The scene has been ugly. Since the highly publicized killing of Miss Venezuela Monica Spear in January, the violence has only intensified. As the speaker from Universidad Simón Bolívar recounted, police routinely patrol protests and open fire on students. There have been isolated reports of police officers shooting suspected protest leaders in shopping malls and other public places. The situation is atrocious.
Venezuela’s importance to the global economy is undeniable. It is home to the world’s largest oil reserves, and it is the fourth largest supplier of oil to the U.S. Beyond that, its commodity market serves an integral role in propping up the regional economies of South America. Even ignoring the strategic interests of the United States in the region, the situation still requires some specific points of attention.
First, it’s imperative that the U.S. lends some credence to the gravity of the Venezuelan crisis. Maduro has blacked out CNN and other media outlets in the country, which has stifled aims at spreading the protesters’ message. The fact that the U.S. has yet to make a formal diplomatic effort beyond the passing offer of former President Jimmy Carter to visit in April is inexcusable and irresponsible.
Human rights violations are deplorable, and it is tragic that the Venezuelan crisis represents just a small snippet of the larger picture of brutality in the modern world. The Venezuelan crisis constitutes but a mere fraction of the humanitarian crises in today’s world, whose victims, from Syria and Darfur to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are still living in the squalor of refugee camps or the fleeting security of camps for the internally displaced.
As students, however, it would be misguided to not take a moment to appreciate the admirable fight of these young Venezuelans. Just advocating for campus change can seem like an arduous fight, much less advocating for the upending of a national government. Their courage should leave us in awe.
It’s a shame, but not a surprise, that the Venezuelan protests have received so little coverage. Sometimes, the world is only as clear to us as we want it to be. Empathy can be a hollow virtue whose power is only truly felt when we are forced, often against our will, to feel the pain of another.
For me, that pain became clear as I watched the young girl from Venezuela, who has lost three friends in the protests, burst out of the room in tears.
She sobbed that she “can’t,” but little does she know just how much she can.