The week started with sporadic protests around Caracas as university professors and nurses continued their strike for improved salaries, and residents elsewhere protested against public transportation fees and lack of water.
At the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas, healthcare workers from the Hospital Clinico Universitario (HCU) as well as a group of the university’s professors staged a protest on campus demanding better salaries. By noon, every road onto the campus was being picketed by protesters.
The images below show the protesters at the UCV earlier today:
More images of the protesters:
In the image below, protesters chant “GET OUT!” to a small group of National Bolivarian Police officers who were at the scene:
As with virtually everyone else living in Venezuela, neither healthcare workers nor university professors are immune from the crisis.
Last week, a UCV professor tweeted an image of his worn-out shoes, and explained that he did not earn enough money to pay for new soles:
I am not ashamed to say it: these are the shoes with which I go to the #UCV to teach. My salary as a university professor is not enough to buy a new pair of soles because they cost [Bs.] 20 million.
In the Chacaito neighbourhood of Caracas, residents took to the streets to protest the high cost of public transportation, which now costs anywhere between Bs. 15,000-20,000. Below, images from the protest there:
The video below shows a group of protesters blocking a road in Chacaito in protest:
Not far away, in the La Candelaria neighbourhood of the capital, protesters blocked a road in order to protest against the lack of water in the area. According to Noticiero Digital, some of the La Candelaria has been without water for over a month.
In the video below, protesters chant “Water! Water” and “We want water!”:
Caracas Looking Forward to Working With AMLO
The Maduro regime reacted positively to yesterday’s election in Mexico, which saw Andrew Manuel Lopez Obrador elected president.
Maduro tweeted out a congratulatory message last night, saying:
I congratulate our brothers the Mexican people and their president-elect, [AMLO]. May the wide avenues of sovereignty and friendship open between our peoples. With him, truth triumphs over lies and the hope for Great Fatherland is renewed.
This morning, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement in which it said that Venezuela was looking forward to “solid bilateral relations” with Mexico under AMLO, and that the country sent him “best wishes”. The release also reads:
The peoples of Venezuela and Mexico are called to work together to consolidate the unstoppable process of uniting Latin America and the Caribbean, reaffirming [that the] region is a zone of peace, prosperity, sovereignty and solidarity.
VEPPEX Wants Special Status for Venezuelans in US
enezolanos y Perseguidos Politicos en el Exilio [Venezuelans and Political Refugees in Exile] (VEPPEX), an NGO that operates out of Miami, asked United States vice president Mike Pence today for grant Venezuelan asylum seekers there “humanitarian protection” in the form of special legal temporary status.
In the letter, VEPPEX also expressed concern over the deportation of Venezuelan migrants from the United States, since it argues that by doing so the United States government is effectively sending people to live under “an illegitimate regime with connections to drug trafficking and terrorism”.
VEPPEX’s special status requests would grant any qualifying Venezuelan five years of legal status in the United States, which could be extended for a further three years. The status would allow the individual to work and drive, and would grant them a social security number.
The organization made the request via a letter which it sent to the vice president. The White House has not yet reacted to the request.
VEPPEX also made clear that, if granted, the request would not benefit any regime official who wished to take advantage of it, or any one who has “incited, assisted, or committed” political persecution in Venezuela.
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