Welcome to Venezuela, Señor Snowden

Posted on Thursday, 07.11.13

Welcome to Venezuela, Señor Snowden
BY PETER WILSON

Dear Mr. Snowden,

I see in the press that you're considering asylum in Venezuela. If
that's true, I'd like to make you a business proposal. I think you and I
could make millions of dollars here using your new expertise on applying
for asylum abroad.

You'll soon see that there are thousands of Venezuelans who would love
to flee and start over in other countries. Long lines of people hoping
to snag visas or passports form each morning outside the U.S. and
European embassies in Caracas. After you arrive, we could counsel them
on the best way to leave.

Don't get me wrong. Venezuela is a great country, with friendly people
and breathtaking natural beauty. There are Caribbean beaches and
snow-capped mountains in the Andes. We should take a road trip: Gasoline
costs just 1 cent a gallon. But you might have trouble buying a new car.
At the very least, you'll need patience. Soldiers, police officers and
government officials have first dibs.

OK, so it's not the United States. But I've been here for the last 21
years, and I love it. Still, Venezuela isn't for everyone.

If you're under the impression that you're going to be living out the
rest of your days in a tropical paradise, think twice before you board
that plane to Caracas. And you might want to bring along your own toilet
paper.

We're in the 15th year of a revolution that late President Hugo Chávez
began in 1999. Yes, extreme poverty has been reduced as his supporters
claim, but that has been accomplished at a cost.

The economy is gutted. The government has expropriated dozens of private
companies whose production always seems to fall after their seizure.
Today, while walking in my neighborhood, I saw long lines of people
stretching out of a government-owned supermarket. They were waiting to
buy cooking oil, sugar, chicken – simple staple goods. Food shortages
are common. Pack a comfortable pair of shoes if you want to buy coffee,
meat, flour, cornmeal or pasta.

Now, you probably have saved a little money from that ample salary at
Booz Allen Hamilton. But if it's not in cash, and because the U.S.
government is probably watching your checking account, you're going to
be in trouble. Prices are soaring here. The inflation rate for the first
six months of the year reached 25 percent. Over the past year, it has
been nearly 40 percent. If you find employment, make sure you're paid in
dollars and that you immediately make contacts on the black market. The
official exchange you'll be given is 6.3 bolvars to the dollar. The
black market rate is 33 bolivars to the dollar and rising — as local
currency has lost nearly all its value.

Good luck finding an apartment. A new law regulating the housing market,
which makes it nigh impossible to dislodge renters, means that few
owners want to lease their apartments. And even if you end up living in
a ritzy neighborhood, you'll want to consider some security (and not
just to keep away those pesky Navy SEAL extraction teams).

How can I put this? Think about dying your hair black and working on
your tan. You look way too white, which makes you an easy mark for
criminals. And criminals abound. Caracas has the highest murder rate of
any capital city in the world, and crime and kidnappings are soaring.
When the sun goes down, it's best to be at home, but even that is no
guarantee of safety.

Buy a health insurance policy. Although the government and Sean Penn
like to claim that all Venezuelans have free access to health care,
that's a farce. At the health center in my little village outside
Caracas, the sick are advised to bring their own thermometers. The
clinic doesn't have any. Medications? Forget it – they have none.
Patients are sent to nearby private pharmacies for even minor
medications. And the hospitals are even worse. One of my friends broke
his leg in two places, and I took him to the state hospital here. The
doctor told us that his leg would have to be reset with pins. My
neighbor said, "Do it." The doctor laughed and told us we had
misunderstood. The hospital had no pins; we would have to buy them at a
hefty sum in Caracas.

You'll want to be extra-careful when the lights go out. Although
Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, power outages are
constant as the electricity grid slowly falls apart. So bring an extra
suitcase of batteries and candles from Moscow.

It's true that many Venezuelans here admire you for blowing the whistle
on clandestine U.S. espionage programs. But think twice before pulling a
stunt like that here. We have our own version of the surveillance state,
but the government's opponents say that it's more typically Cuban
"advisers" who are listening in on calls through the state telephone
company and the armed forces.

Speaking of which, you'll want to get acquainted with your new best
friend: President Nicolás Maduro, who styles himself as a "son" of
Chávez and once claimed that his predecessor appeared to him in the form
of a bird. A former bus driver, Maduro has made a mission of befriending
countries with spotty records on human rights, from Iran to Syria, Cuba
to Belarus. His supporters like to claim that Venezuela's democracy is
the best in South America, but that's clearly a sham. The country's
political institutions, including the Supreme Tribunal of Justice and
the National Electoral Council, have lost their autonomy entirely. Under
Chvez, they simply became extensions of the supreme power of the
president and his minions.

Meanwhile, the president's election victory this April has yet to be
recognized by the country's opposition, which claims he wouldn't have
won save for massive vote fraud. Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Tribunal of
Justice and the National Electoral Council have dragged their feet in
reviewing the results.

I'm not sure how your Spanish is, Señor Snowden, but here's a quick
first lesson. Despite your campaign of conscience against the United
States, a few people might still call you Yanqui or gringo, at first.
But when they start railing against your homeland, you'll hear
imperialista and capitalista. And get ready to hear the words fascista
("fascist"), contrarrevolucionario ("counterrevolutionary"), and burgués
("bourgeois") a lot. They're used to describe anyone who opposes the
government.

Don't worry; you'll be able to find a copy of the Guardian in Caracas.
And yes, we still have a free press, even though the government has a
habit of shutting down television and radio stations when they get too
critical. Open dissent has its dangers. Just ask the 2.4 million
Venezuelans who signed a recall petition against Chávez in 2004.
Thousands lost their government jobs and are still barred — nine years
later — from reapplying for state work. That's what you get for just
speaking out against the government here . . .

You'll do fine down here, Señor Snowden, and hundreds of thousands of
Venezuelans support you and your crusade. But many more down here wonder
why you would ever want to come to a country that constantly violates
the very principles you're fighting for.

Peter Wilson is a journalist who has lived in Venezuela since 1992. The
Caracas bureau chief for Bloomberg News for nearly 11 years, Wilson is
writing a book on Hugo Chvez and his revolution.


http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/11/v-fullstory/3495289/welcome-to-venezuela-senor-snowden.html