Last Friday, I had a note about Venezuela and its agony. It linked to a podcast I had just done with Hannah Dreier, the Venezuela correspondent of the Associated Press.
I would like to note another remarkable article by her, just published:
Tebie Gonzalez and Ramiro Ramirez still have their sleek apartment, a fridge covered with souvenir magnets from vacations aboard, and closets full of name brand clothes. But they feel hunger drawing close.
Those two sentences are indicative of how it now is in Venezuela.
This couple, like thousands of other people, made a run for Colombia over the weekend, in order to buy food. They were on that bridge, massed in.
The couple held hands to stop the crowd from pushing them apart. Two hours passed. People sang the national anthem. Gonzalez’s feet ached in Tommy Hilfiger wedge heels and they had barely reached the middle of the bridge. People who couldn’t stand the claustrophobia and heat doubled back to try to swim across the river, but soldiers stopped them.
Somehow, I am touched by that detail about singing the national anthem.
Spare a thought for Venezuela. And for the change that would most help: regime change, in Caracas and Havana.
The Agony of Venezuela, Cont.