2018 started, in Venezuela, with the murder of Oscar Pérez. This name may sound familiar: the past year he was known as an “actor” who faced the regime throwing grenades from a helicopter. Oscar Pérez was, in fact, a member of CICPC (Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas Penales y Criminalísticas) and made a cameo in a Venezuelan production, impersonating a role alike his job. Pérez spent the last months in secrecy, appearing from time to time with messages, and has always been wanted by the military forces of the country. January 15th was found in his refuge and has managed to post the video in which, obviously, gunfire and grenade throws can be heard toward the shelter he was in with comrades; he was willing to give himself up, but the regime forces wanted him only dead. And so it was. Local (government-only) news reports, started to share the news of the “dismantling of Oscar Pérez's terrorist cell”; president Maduro will later affirm that Pérez and his comrades were organizing an attack on the consulate in a friend-country, and then claim asylum in Colombia. After several unconfirmed reports of his death, including one from CNN in Spanish quoting an anonymous source, this photo appears online: Thus began the media fuss on social networks: Venezuelans started to accuse each other of having believed or not in the Oscar Pérez operation. Some do the mea culpa for having shown doubts about him on social media to their numerous followers; others accuse those who have never sustained him and now cry his death. Venezuelans are increasingly divided, and even on this sad occasion they prove it: the people are not united. The regime has counterfeited the news so much, that it has spread uncertainty and mistrust: because they are government-centered, Venezuelans don’t believe no more in local news reports; at the same time, they are also mistrusting every other source because they fear it’s all fake, a game in which the government plays with their mind. What they can’t see is that by having these thoughts, and being so divided, they are contributing to this game. Listening rationally to Venezuelans is becoming more difficult every day: the internal situation is so hard and disastrous that they naturally tend to amplify everything: they find everything suspicious. By now, their minds are exhausted. Society is becoming increasingly polarized and only recently the popular sectors, historical supporters of chavismo, started to protest because of the unfulfilled promises of the president from the last year: he didn’t bring Christmas gifts in exchange for votes for the Constituent Assembly. Only by eradicating this mentality in the poorest will be possible to include more people in the fight against the regime. Maduro won’t move back either with a fruitful dialogue or international fines. It doesn’t matter if there are undernourished children, or people dying because of a lack of food and medicine, politicians are not going to ask themselves questions. There are only the people, who must unite. |