By Mano Ratwatte  –

Mano Ratwatte

Intellectually superior academics on this forum have also commented about benefits of socialism, given expert ideological commentaries and talked about Venezuela and what went wrong. It is probably a good idea to share two messages received at two different times from a friend from Venezuela about their crisis and the tragedy of the once most prosperous nation in Latin America.   

This writer will not give much commentary, but these letters , copied and pasted below, give one perspective that is far better than expert commentaries about socialism, and global imperialism etc from Sri Lanka. To protect the sources, this writer will not give much background on the people. But this young man was someone we knew quite closely once.  He is an educated professional. This writer will not edit his comments nor spell check for authenticity. But will love to hear solutions from socialist academics and experts on this forum about what next? Sri Lanka went through enough absurd state controlled inefficient, incompetent and corrupt events to know socialism of that nature fails and it was an epic failure that led to haal polu, miris polu, bread queues and suffering of the masses and overnight rich low and middle level bureaucrats who played the system 

 This writer was fortunate to be a student at a government school with people from all segments of society who were relentless in venting their anger and frustration openly and sometimes with invectives in his face for no sin of his but, sadly because of this writer’s life fate to be part of the ruling family that imposed such hardships on the masses and deservedly got routed in 1977. This writer was blackguarded at the local Samuupakaaraya or Cooperative store in Colombo 5, when he went with his ration cards and the driver for the state blessings of sugar and karawala and maldive fish etc. Are Venezuelans suffering the same way because of blind state control and nationalization? In response to this writer’s question about the images about food shortages he sent this picture with the comment below it taken just now.  Just like in Sri Lanka, it will always be the poorer classes who suffer first and foremost.

This is just now as we speak… you tell me about people starving and looking out for something in the trash… now you tell me… I didn’t even have yo look for that… I see that everyday almost everywhere

More than likely Maduro will fall and his army will not fight if the US intervenes; even if their intervention will not be entirely altruistic because of the tremendous oil reserves in Venezuela. But how did it become such a basket case? Whichever way, this young man’s commentaries from inside are far more valuable than pontifications from self-proclaimed intellectuals.

Current message received today early morning Feb 27-2019

Hey mano how’s it going? We’re just fine! Actually waiting for our fellow American’s arrival… as well as 90% of Venezuela’s population. Crazy things have been taking place in the last days here. Here are some facts That you might not know and could help you understand the situation: – Guaido (president in charge) was out of political sight a month and a half ago. He was in the congress but sincerely hi didn’t stand out. – Guaido is from Leopoldo Lopez ‘s party “Voluntad Popular. – Leopoldo is a key figure for Washington in Venezuela. He’s home arrested right now. – A very close friend of mine is in Cúcuta (Colombia) right now working for Voluntad Popular’s Lester Toledo (he has political asylum in the US right now) and she told me a few days ago that the whole movement is being planned by Toledo, Guaido and Leopold, supported by the US government as well as Colombia and Brazil. – Maduro claims the lack of medicine and food is due to US and Europe’s sanctions over some memebers of the government (he actually says that the money “That was stolen” was mente to be used for humanitarian resources). – between 85-90% of our population wants maduro out

 and around 65% agree for an international intervention. – Maduro and his gang want to hold on to the power doing whatever it takes: according to some military members that deserted and escaped to Colombia and Brazil last week (around 160 officials between national guard, special forces and the political police) they took prisoners and armed them to “defend the revolution” in the border line with Colombia and Brazil. – Their propaganda right now is about victory. They claim they beat Americans and Colombians that wanted to invade. – The government says they are going to arrest Guaido when he comes back to Venezuela (He’s in Bogota right now) because he had a restriction for going out of Venezuela. – The US said they would react dramatically if Maduro and his gang mess with Guaido or his family. They would consider that action a kidnap since They are no long government. They would be acting as a guerrilla. In other things… people here are very ancious. Some are pressuring Guaido for him to call on the international intervention right away, others like me are just eating pop corns and waiting for the action sequence, and other want maduro out but do not share the idea of an intervention…. at last there are the chavistas but they’re a piece of shit so their opinion doesn’t matter whatsoever LOL. Nice to hear (or see) from you. Greeting to ****************. If you have any other question please let me know.

Then below is the message from 2014: This is scarier

Hey Mano! First of all, we’re all very thankful for your concern about our situation. I read your post right as you wrote it, but i was very busy finding tires, wire and gas to burn tonight. What started as a student protest turned out as a national protest (and I’m very glad for that). All though we’ve seen in the last days what we thought was impossible to see from a government in our country, I didn’t think an internet blackout would come so soon. Well I gotta tell you we’re getting out of 25 to 30 minutes internet blackout… why only 30 minutes? maybe they were just testing. I’ll be honest with you, that scares the crap out of every single one of us, not only for our rights being violated once again, but because of the armed groups riding cities on mortorcycles shooting at protesters. Every time the government does a national broadcast, armed cilvil groups go around cities shooting at protesters and even evaiding private property along with the national guard. These armed groups are no made up story, last night I had to spend the night at my gfrined’s sister’s appartment, we were watching news when we heard gun shots outside (she lives 3 blocks away from me in a middle-high class neighborhood in Maracaibo), I went to check out what was going on in the window (she lives in the 15th floor) and saw a group of around 20 to 30 motorcyclists (civils and state troopers) shooting. The national guard is a joke, its said there are more than 90 national guards arrested for revealing against their superiors for the entry of cuban military (avispas negras or black hornets) in venezuelan soil. Rumor has it that cubans are replacing venezuelan national guards and wearing their uniforms because venezuelan guards are not willing to shoot venezuelan people. Mean while, about an hour ago some neighbors were shot at by NG for protesting (blocking the street and burning tires and trash). This whole situation is driving us to a social collapse. Our values as a society ar desappearing, people in building are making molotov bombs to throw from the roof tops at the government’s armed motorcyclists, were also tying wires across the streets so these assholes fall when they come to take their guns. If you have any questions please let me know. We’re all ok at home, days here are “normal” but the nights are long. My regards to ****** ************!