WHO SHOULD WE BE FRIENDS WITH? THE PEOPLE OR THEIR GOVERNMENT?

This post could almost have been headed "WHO IS MORE IMPORTANT? THE PEOPLE OR THEIR RULERS? let's understand something: Power comes out of the mouth of a gun (Chairman Mao). Or put another way, he who controls the guns rules. Now, Nicholas Mad-burro (or in English "Mad Donkey") controls the guns in Venezuela. He ruthlessly and cruelly incarcerates and murders anybody who is a threat to his regime and his lies would make even Donald Trump blush (which is saying a lot)!


Mad-burro has taken to locking up and torturing family members of his opponents who have gone into hiding in an effort to find where they are hiding and killing them.


In the meantime, Venezuela is now a complete basket case. People are literally starving and the average weight loss over the last year or so is close to twenty pounds per person. But the erstwhile President of the proud Bolivarian Republic has gotten fatter!! You doubt me? Look at his photographs of, say, five years ago and look at his photographs today! Of course, it is always possible that it is the fault f the Americans that he simply appears to be fatter as they (the Americans) are always responsible (according to Mad-burro) for all of Venezuela's current problems!! Yeah! Right!


In an editorial this week the Washington Post said "what was the region's richest society was swept by epidemics of malnutrition, preventable diseases and violent crime. Three million people fled the country. Yet Maduro(sic  ... his real name is Mad-burro), having orchestrated a fraudulent reelection, presses on with what the region describes as a socialist revolution, with tutoring from Cuba and predatory loans from Russia and China."


Sixty years ago Venezuela had the highest standard of living in the Hemisphere outside of Canada and the United States. Its health care system was the best in the world! Its GDP was the highest in Latin America! And now? Don't even bother to ask. The UN estimates that by the end of this year 2019 the number of refugees will have grown by five million people. Five million more than the three million that voted with their feet last year out of a total population of some twenty-eight million!


Mad-burro is a dictator. He has enriched himself, his family and his corrupt cronies like Caballo at the expense of the very people that he says he wants to help. The corruption and destitution in Venezuela has created the worst humanitarian crisis the world has ever seen.


So, I ask the question: who should Trinidad & Tobago care about? The people of Venezuela or their corrupt and dictatorial rulers? Surely, the answer ought to be crystal clear!?! And yet, the TT government sends its hopeless and hapless Foreign Minister Dennis Moses to Mad-burro's inauguration (or coronation as some have called it) thereby confirming our support for a corrupt and incompetent regime. And all in the name of 'that's none of our business'.


Well, Mr. Moses, for your information it IS our business. The corruption and maladministration in Venezuela is forcing refugees to flee to Trinidad  Tobago. Your government has been distinctly unfriendly to them and have even conspired with the dictator to repatriate some of them in dubious circumstances.  And you say that the collapse of Venezuela has nothing to do with us?!? What are you going to say when the number of refugees from  Venezuela doubles this year? Oh! And please tell me: who should we be friends with: Mad-burro and company or the people? And don't try and tell me that Mad-burro is a legitimate President. I'd sooner believe that Mexico will pay for Trump's wall!!