Venezuela is in a massive prison. They don’t have bars around their border. There aren’t any police guarding them 24/7, but the people are stuck. The people there have lost their rights. They are under constant scrutiny by their own government. The people are basically forced to work, or they do not eat. They are forced to march during the day during work and chant in favor of their corrupt government. The people have to register their thumbprints on scanners just to eat. The government dictates what they get to eat and controls even what they buy.
Venezuela started out like most countries. They had a working constitution just like the constitution in the U.S. Venezuela has a large supply of oil that they sell to many countries in the world. They had freedom of speech and had food in the supermarkets. Today, just 15 years after Chavez started, they no longer have freedom. Venezuela should be an oil-rich country with no want for food, however, that is not the case.
Most of the problems started when Chavez first came into office. He was popular. The people loved him and would get upset at anybody who thought otherwise. He created a giant rift between the people politically. Little by little, Chavez started taking away basic freedoms from the people. The entire time he would tell them he was helping out the poor. It was popular because people thought they were honestly helping the poor, but in reality, they were creating an entire country of the poor. One major thing that Chavez did was he started taking properties from the rich people. He redistributed the properties to the poor. Many of the rich in the country did not like that for obvious reasons and left the country at that time. The poor were happy and everything seemed to be going great. The government started regulating shops to make sure they obeyed and voted for Chavez. Some shop owners who voted against Chavez and had Capriles stickers on their windows were raided and the items were seized from the shelves. Tight controls were placed on the small businesses.
A food voucher system was implemented that made sure everybody got an equal amount of money to shop for food. Again, the poor loved the program. They received free money and didn’t even have to work for it. Second, the government paid all ex-convicts and pregnant teenagers a healthy sum of money as well. The problem resulted in skyrocketing crime rates and teen pregnancies. This practice only lasted one year as the country started really running out of money. One program introduced recently was an abomination of a program. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/21/biometric-venezuela-food-shortages-smuggling-fingerprints . The government is forcing the people to all register with fingerprint scanners in an attempt to ration the food and they are cracking down on all suppliers so that the food can only be obtained if the government approves it. Now the government tells you when you can purchase items and at what time. It cuts down on the 4 hour lines they have to stand in, but now they only get a small portion of food. 15 years ago, they had all the food in the supermarkets you could handle.
The Venezuelan government took away the guns as well. In 2010 a bill was passed to disarm the people. The government blamed guns for the high crime rate they have there instead of their own failed policies. Some people were once again caught in the awful lie that it would help them. Now, the people not only don’t have guns, but the crime rate is still extremely high. When the people tried to stop the dictatorship, all they could do was riot in the streets. The government even supplied and paid for people on motorcycles and gave the people on motorcycles the guns to scare the people into submission. The Venezuelan government bought tanks, guns, tear gas, and everything to shut the rioting down. Their government was so prepared, they seemed to have all this planned since the beginning.
The people are oppressed heavily in Venezuela. It seems like justice and peace are so far away right now. If you speak out in Venezuela, you are made a target by the government. If you write on Twitter, the government is targeting the people who say anything negative against their president, Maduro.
#PrayForVenezuela. They still need it and will some day overcome and overthrow the powerful dictatorship.