What could recent violent protests in Ecuador, Chile and Colombia have in common?
It is our belief that all recent violent protests in Latin American countries like Chile, Ecuador and Colombia are strongly linked by an enormous enemy against democracy in the region.
This delicate situation can be the beginning of a war against democracy, a destabilization process. The big question is who is really the villain in this story? Because if we look at Colombia’s and Chile’s latest demonstrations and protests, they all detonate because of a specific petition or non-conformity. In Chile it was the sudden increase of the metro fares, but then when President Pinera cancelled this measure, the demonstrations and protests not only continued but escalated and became more violent. The last protests in Colombia were related to a non-conformity from taxi drivers due to the government’s decision related to driving tickets. If taxi drivers received a second ticket, their driver’s license would be cancelled for several years and so they would be left without a job.
We could go on with many examples like these and they all seem to carry a feeling of social injustice…but what is really going on? Is it possible that some of this countries’ societies are being influenced by the infiltration of Venezuela’s political and social tendencies? Probably too soon to tell, but it looks nasty and the bad guy behind all of this is well hidden.
We believe this is only a soft breeze and that a hurricane of social discontent is on its way. The truth is that the latest protests are not only the result of this specific events, the events just made the real bomb of discomfort from the people explode.
Photo: @PublimetroChile
As we mentioned at the beginning of this blog, we believe there is Venezuelan infiltration in this social crisis that shakes the region and we believe this because most countries’ societies claim being abused with arguments such as: excessive social breaches, unfair socioeconomic systems, abusive upper class, but most of all because of the escalated violence implied in the events. It goes on and on to create a cocktail that doesn’t give hope for better times.
This social and economic breach is no news in most of Latin American countries, it’s just that with Venezuela as a protagonist of a dictatorship in the region, this breach takes more attention and it’s difficult to ignore a possible relation of social crisis in other countries to the influence of the Venezuelan regime. It can also be a favorable panorama for The Chavismo to promote its anti-democratic position.
Some experts claim that all this crisis is due to the efforts of beginning a neoliberalism / in the case of Ecuador or of being already deep into it / in the case of Chile. This aspect affects the lowest social classes in several delicate aspects of their daily lives.
Another aspect that points the attention towards a Venezuelan influence in all this is that there have been more than 700 arrests of Venezuelan nationality, during the protests.
In the case of Ecuador, President Moreno mentions the presence of infiltrated Venezuelan’s and FARC members during the protests, because native groups who conducted the demonstrations are not violent people.