On the fourth day, as hope faded, the crowd of volunteers who were clearing the rubble suddenly turned against the soldiers deployed around them, forcing them to put down their rifles and pick up a shovel to try to save the survivors. You have to have lived under the rule of a police regime to understand the significance of the scene which took place in Caraballeda, four days after the deadly earthquake in Venezuela. It was no longer a question of tearing the dying from their concrete prison but of freeing oneself from the fear that the regime inspires. A revolution. A very beginning.
Only knowing how to lie
When the earth shakes, the king is naked. Buildings become tombs, neighborhoods disappear under mountains of rubble and power shows itself in its true light. In Nicaragua, the ruling satrap embezzled American aid and sparked the Sandinista revolution that overthrew this dynasty of thieves. In Port-au-Prince, the 2010 earthquake accelerated political decomposition: Haiti no longer has a state and no one to replace it. Last month, the secretary general of the UN went there to ask forgiveness from the Haitians for having abandoned them to the gangs. Conversely, in Kobe as after Fukushima, the Japan has shown the strength of its institutions and its resilience.
Chaos reigns to the point that the dead clutter the hospital corridors
In Venezuela, the Bolivarian regime is rotten. All his energy has been mobilized for a week to hide the fact that he is collapsing. He only knows how to lie. For hours after the earthquake, state television continued to broadcast games and telenovelas. The interim president, Delcy Rodriguezfinally appeared on the screen. A formidable politician, she is renowned for her sense of organization. But it proved incapable of mobilizing firefighters, lifting equipment and qualified personnel who do not exist. While the countdown to saving the victims was running out, the authorities were giving absurd tolls to ward off misfortune. 920 dead after 48 hours. 1,430 on Sunday. And still, 3,238 injured. Officials have lost touch with reality: the double earthquake caused the disappearance of 50,000 Venezuelans. We don’t know how many will remain buried under their apartment in bulk. Ten thousand is the low estimate. Between 50 and 100,000, the pessimistic estimate put forward by the authoritative United States Geological Survey.
A third world emirate
The accuracy of the count suggests that emergency department entries are kept up to date. While chaos reigns to the point that the dead clutter the hospital corridors. The health system did not wait for the earth to shake to find itself on the ground. The Bolivarian revolution prides itself on offering free care, but patients must bring their medicines, masks and gloves for doctors and nurses, antiseptics, meals and even their sheets. The hospitals are dilapidated, the medical staff paid the minimum wage which hyperinflation has reduced to the equivalent of a dollar a month. Consequence: most professionals fled abroad.
Venezuela is paying for three decades of Chavism which ravaged public services. Mismanagement, general corruption, economic crisis and sanctions have turned an oil emirate into a third world country. The earthquake hits him just as he was regaining hope. The kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro allowed the Americans to get their hands on export earnings, gold and oil. They seemed in no hurry to organize democratic elections. The earthquake has just forced them to lift sanctions just as it has forced the Chavista regime to authorize access to the Internet. The time of reckoning is coming. Venezuela, year zero, perhaps has a chance of rebirth.
