Post by scumbuster on Oct 25, 2020 7:02:27 GMT -5
Venezuela: Should I Protest or Should I Go?
CARACAS -- Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets Tuesday in 35 separate protests, with almost half taking place in Monagas state alone.
The protests took place in 13 of Venezuela’s 23 states and administrative territories, including Amazonas (1 protest) Anzoategui (1) Barinas (1) Bolivar (2) Carabobo (1), the capital district and Caracas (2), Lara (2), Merida (2), Miranda (2), Monagas (17), Sucre (1), Trujillo (1) and Zulia (2), reported local NGO “Observatorio Venezolano de Conflictividad Social” (OVCS), the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict.
No one was killed or injured during protests. “No repression”, reported the NGO. More than 200 demonstrators and law enforcement were killed in the context of anti-Maduro protests between 2014 and 2017.
September has been the most conflictive month in 2020, OVCS reported Tuesday, with 1,193 protests, an average of 40 a day. Demonstrators have taken to the streets to denounce everything from low salaries for health-care personnel to water shortages.
Political causes have taken a back seat and “la protesta social”, protesting for a social cause or concern, is now the main motivation.
Year on year, protests have also increased by 68%, from the 708 demonstrations recorded in September 2019, to the 1,193 seen during the same month this year.
However, those Venezuelans not protesting are “voting with their feet” and leaving Venezuela at an increased pace, the opposition-held National Assembly legislative reported also on Tuesday during a debate in which the consensus was that the rate of migration was picking up again.
“Venezuelan migrants walking again towards Colombia”, was how Colombian newspaper El Espectador described the situation.
Figures indicate that some 5.5 million Venezuelans have migrated since Maduro first took over in 2013, in what is now considered the largest exodus in the history of the Western Hemisphere.
Colombia, who has received the bulk of those migrants reported Monday it had 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants now, about half of them illegally in the country.
Demonstrators denounce, and migrants seek to flee, a severe humanitarian crisis under Maduro. As Venezuela enters its fourth year of hyperinflation (the only such case nowadays on the planet), more than 96% of Venezuelans are now poor according to the ENCOVI poll taken by a group of private and public universities, while 90% of Venezuela does not have regular water service.
The “electrical emergency” that was decreed by Hugo Chavez in 2008 has grown so severe that Pedernales, a municipality in Delta Amacuro, has been without electricity for a full year now, and rationing, blackouts and brownouts has even reached the capital city of Caracas.
www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2496306&CategoryId=10717
CARACAS -- Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets Tuesday in 35 separate protests, with almost half taking place in Monagas state alone.
The protests took place in 13 of Venezuela’s 23 states and administrative territories, including Amazonas (1 protest) Anzoategui (1) Barinas (1) Bolivar (2) Carabobo (1), the capital district and Caracas (2), Lara (2), Merida (2), Miranda (2), Monagas (17), Sucre (1), Trujillo (1) and Zulia (2), reported local NGO “Observatorio Venezolano de Conflictividad Social” (OVCS), the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict.
No one was killed or injured during protests. “No repression”, reported the NGO. More than 200 demonstrators and law enforcement were killed in the context of anti-Maduro protests between 2014 and 2017.
September has been the most conflictive month in 2020, OVCS reported Tuesday, with 1,193 protests, an average of 40 a day. Demonstrators have taken to the streets to denounce everything from low salaries for health-care personnel to water shortages.
Political causes have taken a back seat and “la protesta social”, protesting for a social cause or concern, is now the main motivation.
Year on year, protests have also increased by 68%, from the 708 demonstrations recorded in September 2019, to the 1,193 seen during the same month this year.
However, those Venezuelans not protesting are “voting with their feet” and leaving Venezuela at an increased pace, the opposition-held National Assembly legislative reported also on Tuesday during a debate in which the consensus was that the rate of migration was picking up again.
“Venezuelan migrants walking again towards Colombia”, was how Colombian newspaper El Espectador described the situation.
Figures indicate that some 5.5 million Venezuelans have migrated since Maduro first took over in 2013, in what is now considered the largest exodus in the history of the Western Hemisphere.
Colombia, who has received the bulk of those migrants reported Monday it had 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants now, about half of them illegally in the country.
Demonstrators denounce, and migrants seek to flee, a severe humanitarian crisis under Maduro. As Venezuela enters its fourth year of hyperinflation (the only such case nowadays on the planet), more than 96% of Venezuelans are now poor according to the ENCOVI poll taken by a group of private and public universities, while 90% of Venezuela does not have regular water service.
The “electrical emergency” that was decreed by Hugo Chavez in 2008 has grown so severe that Pedernales, a municipality in Delta Amacuro, has been without electricity for a full year now, and rationing, blackouts and brownouts has even reached the capital city of Caracas.
www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2496306&CategoryId=10717