When my family immigrated to Venezuela to escape religious persecution in the 1930s, Venezuela was a thriving country. Rich in oil and gold, its natural resources were abundant, which led to a wealthy nation on the rise. Up until the mid to late 1980s, Venezuela was a great place to live. Yet today, millions are suffering due to political corruption, which has turned the nation into a hub of crime and poverty.
How can one of the most prosperous countries- rich in natural resources, culture and sights- turn into one of the most dangerous countries in the world, over the span of 10 years?
THE HISTORY OF VENEZUELA
After decades of inadequate leadership by dictators, and numerous fights for independence, in 1958, Romulo Betancourt was elected president of Venezuela. Betancourt was known as the “Father of Venezuelan Democracy,” and prompted almost half a century of democratic rule in the country.
In 1983, military officer Hugo Chavez established the leftist Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement within the Venezuelan army. Chavez spent years delivering lectures and traveling the country to recruit new members for his movement. He led his first strike in 1992, with an attempted coup to overthrow President Carlos Andres Perez, which ended in Chavez’s imprisonment. Nine months later, Chavez launched his second coup attack from within the jail, which prompted riots and widespread attacks on police throughout the country.
In 1998, Chavez was elected president, after being released from prison four years prior. Fueled by charisma and broken promises, Chavez won over the country, winning the election with 56 percent of the votes, the most significant percentage of the popular vote in Venezuela in four decades. He promised to end corruption and poverty and scrap Venezuela’s old political system in order to create independent political parties.
Within one year, Chavez managed to change Venezuela’s political system entirely. The adoption of a new constitution in 1999 expanded presidential powers by changing the two-house National Assembly into a one-house legislature. From then on, corruption began to flourish. Instead of working to fulfill his promises of helping the poor, Chavez did the opposite; solely focusing on growing his individual power, and creating a Socialist society.
In 2006, “One Party Under Chavismo” was formed. Shortly after winning reelection with 63 percent of the vote, Chavez announced his plan for a single political party: The United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
Throughout Chavez’s presidency, he continued to become more and more corrupt. In 2009, Chavez officially abolished term limits, with the plan to govern for the foreseeable future. As Chavez continued to weaken relations with the U.S., establishing an arms deal with Russia and expelling relations with U.S. ambassadors, Venezuela’s isolation into a dictatorship rapidly occurred. The National Assembly became almost entirely controlled by Chavez’s followers, in addition to the Presidential Cabinet.
In 2013, Chavez passed away from cancer, and promoted his Vice President, Nicolas Maduro, to the presidency, with Maduro continuing the dictatorship. Since Maduro’s “election,” Venezuela has continued on a steep decline. Government corruption is high, with the army, police forces and politicians all under Maduro’s direct rule and the people are struggling.
VENEZUELA TODAY
In what was once the richest nation in Latin America, now, over 75 percent of Venezuelans are living in extreme poverty. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, this crisis was exacerbated. Prior to the pandemic, the UN World Food Programme estimated one-third of Venezuelans struggled to get enough food to meet the minimum nutritional requirements, now this number is much higher. As of 2022, more than seven million Venezuelans are in critical need, and almost six million have fled in search of refuge.
What makes the Venezuela crisis a different story is its intricate history of centralizing power, government overreach and its inability to stabilize fiscal accounts. Over the past decades, the imposition of price controls, expropriation of private property and large-scale industry nationalization have wrecked the economy. These actions, entirely made by the government, have sunk millions of Venezuelans into physical and economic despair. According to Foreign Affairs “dismantling of democratic checks and balances, and sheer incompetence” is what led to Venezuela’s collapse.
The media have assigned blame for Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis on causes such as falling oil prices. However, this isn’t the sole blame. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Kuwait, which are also petrostates, had severe oil price drops but were able to emerge from the recession with their economies intact. Though Venezuelan President Maduro blames the U.S. and its imposed sanctions for the humanitarian crisis, none of these sanctions would be extensive enough to inflict the type of disaster Venezuela is currently immersed in. Instead, many insinuate that actions by former President Hugo Chavez have caused the crisis.
PERSONAL ANECDOTES
My paternal relatives fled Eastern Europe to escape religious persecution in the early 1900s. As Jews in Eastern Europe, my ancestors faced a decision amid rising waves of pogroms; leave for foreign lands with little more than the clothes on their backs, or weather the growing violence. My great, great grandfather and his immediate family fled for Venezuela; His brother and the rest of his family remained. The first would know hardship, but their children would prosper. The second would meet a violent end at the hands of angry pogroms.
When my great grandfather and his family arrived in Venezuela, they hoped for the best. They saw Venezuela as a land of abundance and opportunity, which it was, for a bit, until it wasn’t. After less than a century, they would have to flee again, as what they thought was the land of prosperity turned quickly into the opposite. These are their stories.
JORGE KIZER- My Dad
“I have fond memories of my childhood in Venezuela. I grew up in Caracas in a tight-knit Jewish community. I was very close to my family, particularly my grandparents, and also my aunts, uncles and cousins, with whom we often went to beautiful nearby beaches of white sand and warm, clear water. The focal point of our lives was Hebraica, a Jewish Social and Sports Center that also included a Day School. It was in Hebraica that I attended elementary school, middle school and high school, except for a period when my mom moved our family to New York to pursue graduate studies. It was also in Hebraica where I joined a swim team, ran cross-country and ultimately threw myself into competitive tennis.
As I got older, however, the political situation deteriorated. A drop in [oil price], the country’s predominant export, brought financial strains. Government corruption and mismanagement compounded matters, worsening poverty and creating instability. Crime grew rampant. My sister was stripped of her necklace at a bus stop in front of me; loved ones and friends were robbed at gunpoint all around us. I enrolled in university, but rolling strikes brought classes to a halt for most of the year, prompting me to come to the U.S. for college.
Unfortunately, the future became bleaker, marked initially by an eruption of social unrest that led to widespread looting, known as ‘El Caracazo.’ This was followed thereafter by a military coup attempt led by a charismatic lieutenant colonel, Hugo Chavez. Chavez meant to distribute wealth to the country’s poor, and all was well while oil prices enjoyed a surge during his initial time in office. Yet Chavez replaced the industrial and professional class who ran the state oil company and began to expropriate private businesses, bringing them under the incompetent government control of his cronies. When oil prices dropped, the economic situation declined further. This [situation] was upended when he succumbed to cancer in 2013, designating his political acolyte and former bus driver, Nicolas Maduro, as his successor. As Maduro has tightened authoritarian rule, become more closely aligned with Cuba and profited enormously from his protection of the drug trafficking trade, he has presided over the country’s collapse.
The last time I was in Venezuela over 10 years ago, I, for the first time ever, saw scores of people scrounging in garbage bins and dumpsters for food. The once-modern city of Caracas was run down and filthy. And stories of kidnappings, robberies and murders involving acquaintances, or acquaintances of acquaintances, were legion. Now that the country has failed all but a small sliver of the ruling class, there is widespread hunger, and a lack of basic services, including health care, and some six million Venezuelans have emigrated to find a better life elsewhere. Meanwhile, Maduro and his Cuban and narcotrafficker backers hold an iron grip on power, having closed off any chance of free and fair elections. The lovely country that I remember is a shadow of its former self, with grim prospects of regaining its footing any time soon.”
PETER DEJMAN- My father’s first cousin
“Our life in Venezuela was very good. We had a very complete life in terms of the city; Caracas 30 years ago was a very advanced and growing city, it was very developed in a good way since the country had a lot of money from oil, so the country was booming in business and in general. But that changed, and that changed really fast,” Peter Dejman said.
“There were really strong communities, and we were involved in a thriving Jewish community. We always had great restaurants, schools, sports centers, etc. There has always been a [large] culinary influence in Venezuela, as the country was developed wealthy for many years from oil, so a lot of important people came to work and the culinary scene grew and thrived. It was a great place to grow up.
I had a personal situation where some guys wanted to rob my car. I [had] stopped in a bakery to buy some cakes, and when I was returning to my car, some guys hit me [over the head] and took me inside the car. I was trying to defend myself, but they continued to hit me on the head with a gun and made me bleed. They took me inside and started driving the car. They tried to get me to take them to my house so they could rob me, but I pretended as though I was so injured from the beating that I didn’t remember anything, so, after an hour, they pushed me out on the side of the highway and stole my car. In my case, they didn't ask for ransom, but I think it was because they hit me so hard.
Later, the police found my car with a satellite tracking system, and when I went to pick up the car, the attendant told me that I was the tenth [stolen car] that day. This was very common and happened every day.”
FANNY DEJMAN- My Grandma
“My upbringing was really very happy. I was born in Maracay and lived there till I got married. It was very nice and pleasant. The political situation was stable. In 1958 Venezuela became a democracy again. Then, I moved to Caracas and things continued like that but started to decline in a sense of security financially. It reached a point where the political situation started declining, insecurity for the whole population, in general, was bad, and people left to look for a better future,” Fanny Dejman said.
“The experiences that I had were really bad. I was assaulted a few times and was [a victim of an attempted kidnapping] once and obviously, that was very very scary. All of the incidents were armed incidents. Two times I was assaulted with guns and one time with a knife. I defended myself as I could, I even started hitting the guys. It was not pleasant, but in the end, I survived. This is now very common in Venezuela, but it didn’t use to be like this.”
HELP- THE FUTURE
If you ask most Venezuelan escapees, they will tell you there is no change in near sight. They may tell you that Venezuela has sunk itself into a hole so deep that it would take years to even begin rehabilitation. Efforts made by other countries such as the U.S. over the past 10 years have largely been dedicated to funding basic needs such as food assistance, water, hygiene supplies and emergency shelters. In September 2021, the U.S. pledged “$247 million in humanitarian assistance and $89 million in economic and development assistance to respond to the needs of vulnerable Venezuelans.”
With World Refugee Day coming on June 20th, I urge all of you reading this to do everything in your power to make an impact. Here are a few easy steps you can take:
Read and share refugee stories. Understanding individual experiences and that not one experience is universal is crucial in helping make a change. With many countries under dictatorship having severe media censorship, it is important to read and understand first-perspective stories to know the truth.
Consider a sponsorship. Did you know you can sponsor a Venezuelan in need? To learn more click here.
Donate! There are dozens of organizations that have direct profits aimed to benefit and improve the well-being of Venezuelans in need. I encourage you to research different organizations to see which one speaks to you.