Up Close on Venezuela’s Crisis

Click here to access article by Lisa Sullivan from ConsortiumNews. 

It is out of concern for the most vulnerable sectors in Venezuela, such as my neighbors, that I break my silence to write. As I watch their efforts to obtain food for their families become more desperate and more futile, and as I witness pounds dropping from their bodies, I think the time has come to do more than share from my own scarce cupboards and gardens as they share with me. These people, my friends and neighbors and family, are literally being swallowed up by massive economic and political interests.

From my two week visit to Nicaragua in 1982, three years after the Sandinista revolution, I brought back a profound respect for Maryknoll lay missioners who were very active in the Sandinista social programs. They impressed me as some of the most sincere and honest humanitarians that I had ever encountered. Thus I believe that Sullivan's observations from her recent visit to Venezuela, and her many years of service there, deserve the closest attention.

A perfect storm of a collapse of global oil prices combined with massive internal economic errors leading to unbridled corruption on all levels of society has left these vulnerable sectors literally almost starving.

The reaction of the U.S. and other global interests seems clearly based on Venezuela’s enormous oil reserves (the world’s largest). Those interests are circling our nation like vultures, ready to swoop in and devour.