For anyone familiar with civil disobedience in non-democratic regimes, the news from Venezuela look depressingly all too familiar. Workers, farmers, students and intelligentsia keep demonstrating in the streets all over the country. They chant “Down with the dictatorship!” Women pass roses to military forces. They try to persuade the uniformed servicemen to switch sides and support the opposition. Strikes, blockades, hunger marches, food riots, and demands for bread erupt spastically all over the landscape. The capital city of Caracas is the epicenter of the resistance, but the protest have spread everywhere else, too.
Their aim is to overthrow tropical socialism.
Socialist authorities send out phalanxes of the police armed with the truncheons, shields, and tear gas against the demonstrators. Undercover police agents use fire arms. Pro-government militias join in the fray. Local socialist police auxiliaries supported by the tropical Chekists attack the demonstrations from within. Police, just like the military, shoot at people sometimes, but mostly beat them up with truncheons. The photos of an armored vehicle driving into a crowd of people have recently shocked the world. 71 people were injured. The death toll of the last demonstration stands at least 32 protesters.