This powerful video shows Venezuela’s desperate politics of hunger [View all]
A woman lies sick in bed as her caretaker taps out a message on her cellphone. It rings in a soldier’s pocket, as he joins the ranks of riot troops facing down an opposition march. The caretaker opens the fridge and finds it bare, and sends another message. The soldier reaches into his pocket to read them, while his commanding officer orders the troops to stop the protest. As the soldier reads the message he looks out at the protesters and sees that they are protesting the same things making his life hell: critical food and medicine shortages, enormous lines, the breakdown of Venezuela’s economy and society.
“Dad,” a voiceover says, “remember that the people you’re sent to beat back are going through the same thing we are. It’s unbearable, you know it.”
The powerful one-minute Web clip hit the Internet on Saturday — and the Venezuelan government responded with fury. By Monday, three of the opposition activists who produced it— Marco Trejo, César Cuellar and James Mathison — were arrested, facing charges in military tribunals for “inciting military rebellion” that could see them spend the next 15 years in jail. Other activists are being sought.
The arrests are just the latest episode in Venezuela’s increasingly rapid descent into a classic police state. News of detentions of regional opposition activists have become routine, as a government that once sold itself as a shining new beacon of enlightened “21st-century socialism” turns to the same types of repressive tactics of its 20th-century counterparts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/this-powerful-video-shows-venezuelas-desperate-politics-of-hunger/2016/09/21/c842dbb8-800c-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html
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